Former/Current Tape Users - archived footage question

[David Stembridge]

Just curious if there are others who have either used tape before going digital for weddings and any other jobs. What do you do with your archived footage?

I have a cabinet full of tapes, and at one point had considered trying to market former clients with raw footage... but don't really have the time to invest in that venture.

Just curious. I have kept master copies of DVDs, and every 7-10 years make new replacement copies, and I try to keep Disc Images for the projects as well.

I have used an XHA1s for weddings since 2010.

[Vince Pachiano]

I've never kept master copies of DVD's. I archive the ISO file I use to burn the client DVD onto 2 different HDD's stored in 2 different locations.

I cannot imagine clients would have the equipment to do anything with the tapes.
You'd probably have to dump the footage to HDD or Multiple DVD/Blu-Ray Disc.
Then I'd worry that the raw footage captured something you don't want the clients to see/hear.
That's time you don't have, and money the clients aren't gonna spend.

I did start low-priority digitization of all my tapes.
Perhaps in a few years when I can get a 20TB drive for $99, I will properly archive them, and dump the tapes for good.

[Kyle Root]

When I started this, we had 3 of us involved in weddings and we all used MiniDV.

When we broke apart the business in 2008, one of the guys kept on filming and took all the tapes.

Just recently, like last year, he paid a high school kid to start digitizing it all and he's going to sell it to the original clients I think.

[Roger Van Duyn]

Hey Kyle,

Don't you mean he's going to TRY to sell it to former clients?

[D.R. Gates]

On the subject of tapes, I've been shooting on memory cards now for 8 years and I do not miss videotape whatsoever. It got so old having to have my tape transport mechanism redone after a few years on every one of my cameras because of wear and tear, at a cost of $400 + each.

[Warren Kawamoto]

I still have boxes and boxes of master tapes in my garage! I've been trying to digitize them through the years....my oldest tape was 1991. There were some tapes that were moldy. I tossed them. Good thing I digitized what I could because last week, I got a call for a wedding I shot in 1993, they were wondering if I could make a dvd from their old VHS tape. I told them to skip the dvd because I had their wedding already digitized as an mp4, and that I could send them a link to my google drive and download it right now. They were SO happy!

[Andrew Smith]

If a tape looks 'mouldy' then you don't necessarily need to toss it. Give it a fast forward too the end of the tape and then rewind it all the way back. Then take a look.

Centrifugal force is your friend. :-)

Andrew

[Roger Gunkel]

I really can't see any point in storing wedding masters for years, unless part of your original contract included storage. If it did, then you should be making a charge for the service, just as you would be if you use a cloud storage service. As regards selling the original footage, you will probably find that most clients are no longer at the contact details that you have and even if they are, are unlikely to want to pay you again for something they paid for years ago.

If you are worried about disposing of archived footage, send a letter or email to every original client telling them that you are clearing out your storage archives and are giving them the opportunity to purchase the original footage. Give them a date that the footage must be claimed by and the cost to them for purchase or continued storage.. If they have moved, at least you can say you made the effort but I think that if you get any response it will be minimal.

Roger

[D.R. Gates]

And heck, if who you've been doing this as long as I have, half of our wedding clients are no longer married. I don't think any of them going to want the tapes.