Volume 22, Number 6
1998

Choosing a Videotape Preservation Format: Some Rules to Live By

The author posted the following text December 29 on AMIA-L@LSV.UKY.EDU, the Association of Moving Image Archivists' listserv, as a contribution to a general discussion of preservation formats for videotape. She is a conservator for VidiPax, and can be reached by telephone in Washington, DC at 202/546-2453 or by e-mail: stauderman@earthlink.net.

To continue, reiterate, or add to this discussion a bit, some rules to live by:

• The format should be of the same or better quality than your original. For instance, you would copy a 3/4" U-matic tape to Betacam SP. You would not copy a 1" SMPTE Type C to VHS (in fact, VHS is the lowest quality format, so it would never be a preservation copy). Become familiar with the formats currently available, including the specifications. Also, you may wish to consider making TWO preservation copies: one in an analog (like Beta SP) and one in a digital (like D2) format.
• Choose a format which has a proven record of use and a large population of users. This may ensure that there will be equipment to play back your tapes for a while after that technology is unsupported by manufacturers.
• Do not use formats which employ compression (as many digital formats do) for preservation masters. There might be a reason that you would choose to use compression for user copies or other applications (e.g., for materials that might go onto the Internet).
• Once you have chosen the format, choose a tape by a reputable, well-known manufacturer. The hope is that the quality control and the recipe making up the polyurethane binder will be better.
• Use the shortest running tape (sixty minutes versus ninety minutes), as the tape base will be thicker, and more durable. In general, seek tapes that are thick.
• Use metal particle (MP) tape. It has shown excellent results in aging. (Caveat: according to the National Media Lab's "Magnetic Tape Storage and Handling," MP will lose some signal output; nevertheless, the output signal will always be better than iron oxide-based tape no matter what the loss.) Don't forget, however, that the bad actor in videotape deterioration is the polyurethane binder. To help with that problem, remember that the overall preservation solution is environmental control. Cool temps and low RH will go a long way to keep your collection until you can transfer your materials.
• When you have your materials transferred, make sure they are cleaned beforehand. We recommend a chemically-neutral cleaning technique which uses buffering tissues.

My thanks (or apologies) to Jim Wheeler, Jim Lindner, the AMIA Preservation Committee, the AMIA-Listserv, and others for helping me produce this summary. For an excellent article that basically says the same thing as this and much more, see Jim Wheeler's article in Conservation OnLine (CoOL): http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byauth/wheeler/wheeler2.html.