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Magnetic media (and specifically videotape) preservation is an issue that regularly crops up on the AMIA listserv. The SMPTE, AMIA and FIAT (International Federation of Television Archives) all publish temperature and humidity recommendations for different kinds of element. I agree with Brad: using good quality tape stock to start with helps. But if you're faced with trying to preserve a 20 year-old tape that just happened to be recorded on cheap stuff, you've got to work with what you've got.

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I don't know if videotape has the same problems as audiotape, but the more expensive, backcoated audio tapes of the 1970's are a disaster because the oxide sheds. Generally, you have to "bake" the tapes in a convection oven to get them to play one last time (while converting them to a digital medium for preservation.)

Tapes which are problematic include AGFA 468, 3M 250 and Ampex 406, 407 and 456. These were the top-quality tapes of their day. It has been reported in some trades that Ampex tapes from the mid-70's through the late-80's are the worse and that 3M had formulations simliar to Ampex's through most of the 80's.

"I don't know if videotape has the same problems as audiotape, but the more expensive, backcoated audio tapes of the 1970's are a disaster because the oxide sheds. Generally, you have to "bake" the tapes in a convection oven to get them to play one last time (while converting them to a digital medium for preservation.)"
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I agree with Martin on this one. I have a ton of them at the radio station - they are all practically useless. Luckly, the what was recorded on them is not worth saving anyway.

Yes, Chad - I know vinyl is still available to a degree, but I won't take the time or hassle to order them. I have a row of 33's about 10 to 12 feet long, all archived. I have two high-quality professional turntables to play them on. I have no intention to add to the collection, as it takes up too much space as it is.

They made a machine with a bunch of razor blades to slit the tape into 1/4 inch widths so they could use it on their freshly bought Sonys, Akai's, Teac's, and others overseas. I never found out if those tapes worked for audio recording. It seems to me tape bias would be a severe issue to deal with, not to mention the precision of the slits over a long run.

I thought the idea of doing making 1/4-inch tapes from the 2-inch stuff was stupid. 3M magnetic tapes were so cheap in those days. Why those guys wanted to fiddle around with the unknown making their own to save a buck is beyond me.....most of the tapes they tried it with were no longer acceptable for the PLAT system anyway. They were stuff that was ready to be thrown over the side.

Betacam is a professional component video tape format with true component recording on the tape using separate alternating helical tracks for luminance and the two time-compressed color-difference signals--no need for a subcarrier, color-under or otherwise, on the tape.

And now back to the Betamax memorial thread already in progress...

Sony may have finally conceded defeat on the consumer tape battlefield (I too was surprised to hear they were still making the stuff), but that's OK. Analog tape is dead anyway--it just doesn't know it yet. But in the professional production world Sony cameras, video recorders, and match monitors are some of the best there is.

Paul
Betamax is dead--long live Betamax!
See Cowboy Bebop Session 18 Speak Like a Child for an anime spoof/tribute to the Betamax...

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"Brad--sadly, 3M hasn't been in the magnetic tape/disk business since the mid-'90s...."

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Yes I remember hearing they were getting out of the tape biz around 10 years ago. I quickly went and bought cases of their tapes! I am happy to say I have never actually paid for any videotape (except some MiniDV and 8mm tapes) of any other brand than Scotch/3M...and don't ever plan to.

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"Never saw a Betamax, but what I understand, is that the picture quality was far superior to VHS."

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Not "far superior", but better. It wasn't by a huge amount though unless you planned on duping the tapes. Making copies is where Beta really excelled over VHS. S-VHS was still better in overall quality.

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"I don't know if videotape has the same problems as audiotape, but the more expensive, backcoated audio tapes of the 1970's are a disaster because the oxide sheds."

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I am familiar with the phenomenon on old reel to reel tapes of mine. I remember they were Ampex, but I don't recall the number. I've never seen any problems with 3M videotape.

By the way, has anyone else found that Sony VHS tapes are evil, coming straight from the bowels of hell? Every and I do mean EVERY time I recorded on a Sony VHS tape for a friend my heads got clogged and I had to take the machine apart and clean them. I always joked that Sony was intentionally making bad VHS tapes to make Betamax seem superior. After about a dozen different Sony tapes, I made it a firm rule that if someone gave me a Sony tape I would shove it right back in their face, which I to this day always have.

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I have a working Sony SL-5000 Betamax from 1976. It weighs a ton.

I play its recordings on a Sony SL-HF900 Beta from 1986. Other than occasional cleanings, by me, NEITHER machine has had any repair service done.

I ran 2" RCA, and Ampex VTR's back in the '70's. Lots of adjustments, banding problems, and other things made me glad when 1" came along.

I'm sorry that Beta is gone. I always thought that the format was better, and it was easier on the tape using the "U" tape wrap, vs. the "M" wrap used by VHS. The Beta format was scaled down from the 3/4" U-Matic VCR that Sony introduced around 1972.

I have a VO-1600 U-Matic recorder that will still play tape if I help it to thread the tape around the heads. Not bad for a 30 year old piece of equipment.

When the local tape rental stores dropped Beta in the late '80's, I bought most of them for a fraction of their original cost. I still have most of them, too, because unlike the VHS rental copies, these Betas were near mint.

I HATED 3M VHS tape, too, and have had troubles with Sony VHS blanks. No problems (yet) with the Beta tapes, and I have 20 unopened beta L750 cassettes that are just waiting to be used.

The audio tape shedding issue hit home for me. All the recordings that I made with my grandparents in the early 1970's were lost due to sticky-shed problems with Ampex 406, and "Grand Master" 456 tape. My 3M "Scotch" recording tapes, mostly 206, and 207 series, bought during the same time period, plays well to this day. I spent more for the Ampex tape because I wanted a tape that would last. The 206/207 was just for music recording. Guess I messed up...

I, too have VHS, and Beta recordings from the 70's that play just fine. I also have 3/4" recordings of 2" quad tapes. In the quiet parts of the 3/4" dub, I can faintly hear the high-pitched whine of the 2" video heads recorded on the audio tracks. Brings back memories of the olden days in a weird sort-of way...

Bruce

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Boy, RCA NEVER, and I mean NEVER, made a decent quad machine! In fact, I remember in the mid 70s, the TV station I worked at uncrated the first two Ampex AVR-1s to come off their line (these were the big quads with the vaccume transports). The day after we put them on the air, RCA called from N.J. and offered us FOUR brand new TR-60s if we would crate up the Ampex machines and send them to them. I guess they wanted to pick them apart. Needless to say, we declined.

A lot of the stuff you see on the History Channel comes out of the old quad tapes from the CBS News archives. They have tape cleaning machines in the basement of the building in NYC, basically they run the tape over the same kind of dryweb media cleaner used in projection. The stuff is about 2.25 inches wide and is held against the tape by a plexiglass edge which sort of scrapes the loose oxide off. Once that's done they run it off of an Ampex VR2000 that they still keep maintained. Most of the tapes are old Scotch and Memorex stock, and they run pretty well. For those who have the Game Show Channel, this is how some of the classic shows were transferred, as well.

Here's a fun site if you're into old tape formats:
http://www.lionlmb.org/quadpark.html

BetaMax definitely had a better picture than standard VHS. The biggest difference I noticed was Beta had less color-smearing. Later VHS-HQ almost achieved Beta quality. S-VHS was of course a big improvement. But VHS always seems to have color smearing, even now.

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It takes an extremely high bias level to record on video tape. The audio quaklity on video tape always sufered a bit in favor of picture quality

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Getting slightly off topic...
I heard that MFSL released a few albums on "Audio VHS" or something like that. No picture, just the audio for the album. How exactly did this work? It would have been interesting if they used the full surface of the videotape for audio, but then you would need a special VCR to read it. Was the audio quality on these Audio VHS tapes really superior to other formats?
Getting back on topic...
Did they ever release any audio recordings on Betamax?

Given the lethargic nature many TV stations have in modernizing their equipment, I would expect BetacamSP decks to still be in use for at least a few more years. However, digital tape formats like MiniDV, DV, DVC-Pro and Digital Betacam have already replaced all the analog decks in many stations across the country. Aggressive pricing is one reason why this is happening. Still, things like native 16:9 taping and HD production formats are a very high end thing. Sony will likely kill off any support for the analog BetacamSP format soon and not even have a press release about it.

The days of analog VHS are numbered. Stand-alone DVD players outsell VHS decks by a 3:1 margin, and this does not include the sales of Playstation 2 and X-Box consoles or DVD-ROM drives for computers. Pre-recorded VHS movies are selling very poorly now and many retailers are eliminating such product to make more room for DVD and video game product.

DVD recorders are still pretty expensive and D-VHS "D-Theater" decks are a very high end niche item. But add your TiVO decks, standalone MiniDV decks and MiniDV cameras to the total and you have another large bite being taken out of VHS. There are even MiniDV format camcorders on the market now that record direct to DVD-R/RW discs.