Greatbear were recently approached by the Courtyard Music Group to help them complete the 100% analogue re-issue of their 1974 acid-folk album Just Our Way of Saying Hello. Among Britfolk enthusiasts, news of the Courtyard Music Group’s plans to re-issue their album has been greeted with excitement and anticipation. Just Our Way of Saying Hello… Continue reading Analogue to analogue – the Courtyard Music Group
Author: debra
Videokunstarkivet’s Mouldy U-matic Video Tapes
Last year we featured the pioneering Norwegian Videokunstarkivet (Video Art Archive) on the Greatbear tape blog. In one of our most popular posts, we discussed how Videokunstarkivet has created a state of the video art archive using open source software to preserve, manage and disseminate Norway’s video art histories for contemporary audiences and beyond. In… Continue reading Videokunstarkivet’s Mouldy U-matic Video Tapes
Mouldy DATs
We have previously written on this blog about the problems that can occur when transferring Digital Audio Tapes (DATs). According to preliminary findings from the British Library’s important survey of the UK’s sound collections, there are 3353 DAT tapes in the UK’s archives. While this is by no means a final figure (and does not include the… Continue reading Mouldy DATs
Codecs and Wrappers for Digital Video
In the last Greatbear article we quoted sage advice from the International Association of Audiovisual Archivists: ‘Optimal preservation measures are always a compromise between many, often conflicting parameters.’ [1] While this statement is true in general for many different multi-format collections, the issue of compromise and conflicting parameters becomes especially apparent with the preservation of… Continue reading Codecs and Wrappers for Digital Video
IASA – Resources and Research
There are an astonishing amount of online resources relating to the preservation and re-formatting of magnetic tape collections. Whether you need help identifying and assessing your collection, getting to grips with the latest video codec saga or trying to uncover esoteric technical information relating to particular formats, the internet turns up trumps 95% of the time.… Continue reading IASA – Resources and Research
1″ Type A Video Tape – The Old Grey Whistle Test
Sometimes genuine rarities turn up at the Greatbear studio. Our recent acquisition of four reels of ‘missing, believed wiped’ test recordings of cult BBC TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test is one such example. It is not only the content of these recordings that are interesting, but their form too, because they were made… Continue reading 1″ Type A Video Tape – The Old Grey Whistle Test
Digitising small audiovisual collections: making decisions and taking action
Deciding when to digitise your magnetic tape collections can be daunting. The Presto Centre, an advocacy organisation working to help ‘keep audiovisual content alive,’ have a graphic on their website which asks: ‘how digital are our members?’ They chart the different stages of ‘uncertainty,’ ‘awakening’, ‘enlightenment’, ‘wisdom’ and ‘certainty’ that organisations move through as they… Continue reading Digitising small audiovisual collections: making decisions and taking action
Save our Sounds – 2030 and the threat of audiovisual extinction
At the beginning of 2015, the British Library launched the landmark Save Our Sounds project. The press release explained: ‘The nation’s sound collections are under threat, both from physical degradation and as the means of playing them disappear from production. Archival consensus internationally is that we have approximately 15 years in which to save our sound collections… Continue reading Save our Sounds – 2030 and the threat of audiovisual extinction
1/2″ EIAJ video tape – aesthetic glitches
The screening of Julien Temple‘s new film The Clash: New Year’s Day 1977 at New Year put the spotlight on a video format dear to our hearts. Parts of the film were taken from footage shot on EIAJ 1/2″ video tape while Temple was at film school. EIAJ, whose hey day was the late 1960s to late 1970s, was the… Continue reading 1/2″ EIAJ video tape – aesthetic glitches
DVCAM transfers, error correction coding & misaligned machines
This article is inspired by a collection of DVCAM tapes sent in by London-based cultural heritage organisation Sweet Patootee. Below we will explore several issues that arise from the transfer of DVCAM tapes, one of the many Digital Video formats that emerged in the mid-1990s. A second article will follow soon which focuses on the content of… Continue reading DVCAM transfers, error correction coding & misaligned machines
Reel-to-reel transfer of Anthony Rye, Selborne’s nature poet
We have recently transferred a number of recordings of the poet, Anthony Rye, reading his work. The tapes were sent by his Grandson Gabriel who was kind enough to tell us a bit more about Anthony’s life and work. ‘Anthony Francis Rye is intimately associated with the Hampshire village of Selborne, a village made famous by… Continue reading Reel-to-reel transfer of Anthony Rye, Selborne’s nature poet
World Day for Audiovisual Heritage – digitisation and digital preservation policy and research
Today, October 27, has been declared World Day for Audiovisual Heritage by UNESCO. We also blogged about it last year. Since 2005, UNESCO have used the landmark to highlight the importance of audiovisual archives to ‘our common heritage’ which contain ‘the primary records of the 20th and 21st centuries.’ Increasingly, however, the day is used to highlight how audio… Continue reading World Day for Audiovisual Heritage – digitisation and digital preservation policy and research
Transferring Digital Audio Tapes (DATs) to digital audio files
At Greatbear, we carefully restore and transfer to digital file all types of content recorded to Digital Audio Tape (DAT), and can support all sample rate and bit depth variations. This post focuses on some of the problems that can arise with the transfer of DATs. An immature recording method (digital) on a mature recording… Continue reading Transferring Digital Audio Tapes (DATs) to digital audio files
Phyllis Tate’s Nocturn for Four Voices 3″ 1/4 inch reel to reel tape transfer
We have recently transferred a previously unpublished 3” ¼ inch tape recording of British 20th century composer Phyllis Tate’s Nocturn for Four Voices. The tape is a 2-track stereo recording made at 7.5 inches per second (in/s) at the Purcell Room in London’s Southbank Centre in 1975, and was broadcast on 16 September 1976. When… Continue reading Phyllis Tate’s Nocturn for Four Voices 3″ 1/4 inch reel to reel tape transfer
Obsolete technologies and contemporary sound art
At the recent Supernormal experimental arts and music festival held at Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, a number of artists were using analogue technologies to explore concepts that dovetail nicely with the work we do at Greatbear collecting, servicing and repairing obsolete tape machines. Hacker Farm, for example, keep ‘obsolete tech and discarded, post-consumerist debris’ alive using ‘salvaged… Continue reading Obsolete technologies and contemporary sound art
Reports from the ‘bleeding edge’ – The PrestoCentre’s AV Digitisation TechWatch Report #02
The PrestoCentre’s* AV Digitisation and Digital Preservation TechWatch Report #02, published July 2014, introduces readers to what they describe as the ‘bleeding edge’ of AV Digitisation and Archive technology. Written in an engaging style, the report is well worth a read. If you don’t have time, however, here are some choice selections from the report… Continue reading Reports from the ‘bleeding edge’ – The PrestoCentre’s AV Digitisation TechWatch Report #02
Digital preservations, aesthetics and approaches
Digital Preservation 2014, the annual meeting of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program and the National Digital Stewardship Alliance is currently taking place in Washington, DC in the US. The Library of Congress’s digital preservation blog The Signal is a regular reading stop for us, largely because it contains articles and interviews that… Continue reading Digital preservations, aesthetics and approaches
D-1, D-2 & D-3: histories of digital video tape
At Greatbear we carefully restore and transfer D-1, D-2, D-3, D-5, D-9 and Digital-S tapes to digital file at archival quality. Early digital video tape development Behind every tape (and every tape format) lie interesting stories, and the technological wizardry and international diplomacy that helped shape the roots of our digital audio visual world are… Continue reading D-1, D-2 & D-3: histories of digital video tape
Videokunstarkivet – Norway’s Digital Video Art Archive
We have recently digitised a U-matic video tape of eclectic Norwegian video art from the 1980s. The tape documents a performance by Kjartan Slettemark, an influential Norwegian/ Swedish artist who died in 2008. The tape is the ‘final mix’ of a video performance entitled Chromakey Identity Blue in which Slettemark live mixed several video sources onto… Continue reading Videokunstarkivet – Norway’s Digital Video Art Archive
New additions in the Greatbear Studio – BBC-adapted Studer Open reel tape machine
We recently acquired a new Studer open reel tape machine to add to our extensive collection of playback equipment. This Studer is, however, different from the rest, because it originally belonged to BBC Bristol. It therefore bears the hallmarks of a machine specifically adapted for broadcast use. The telltale signs can be found in customised… Continue reading New additions in the Greatbear Studio – BBC-adapted Studer Open reel tape machine
The difference ten years makes: changes in magnetic tape recording and storage media
Generational change for digital technologies are rapid and disruptive. ‘In the digital context the next generation may only be five to ten years away!’ Tom Gollins from the National Archives reminds us, and this seems like a fairly conservative estimate. It can feel like the rate of change is continually accelerating, with new products appearing all the… Continue reading The difference ten years makes: changes in magnetic tape recording and storage media
Digitisation: methodologies, processing and archival practices
We work with a range of customers at Greatbear, digitising anything from personal collections to the content of institutional archives. Because of this, what customers need from a digitisation service can be very different. A key issue relates to the question of how much we process the digital file, both as part of the transfer… Continue reading Digitisation: methodologies, processing and archival practices
Future tape archaeology: speculations on the emulation of analogue environments
At the recent Keeping Tracks symposium held at the British Library, AV scoping analyst Adam Tovell stated that ‘there is consensus internationally that we as archivists have a 10-20 year window of opportunity in which to migrate the content of our physical sound collections to stable digital files. After the end of this 10-20 year… Continue reading Future tape archaeology: speculations on the emulation of analogue environments
Capitalising on the archival market: SONY’s 185 TB tape cartridge
In Trevor Owen’s excellent blog post ‘What Do you Mean by Archive? Genres of Usage for Digital Preservers’, he outlines the different ways ‘archive’ is used to describe data sets and information management practices in contemporary society. While the article shows it is important to distinguish between tape archives, archives as records management, personal papers… Continue reading Capitalising on the archival market: SONY’s 185 TB tape cartridge
Going ‘tape-less’: AS-11 Digital Production Partnership standards
Is this the end of tape as we know it? Maybe not quite yet, but October 1, 2014, will be a watershed moment in professional media production in the UK: it is the date that file format delivery will finally ‘go tape-less.’ Establishing end-to-end digital production will cut out what is now seen as the… Continue reading Going ‘tape-less’: AS-11 Digital Production Partnership standards
Significant properties – technical challenges for digital preservation
A consistent focus of our blog is the technical and theoretical issues that emerge in the world of digital preservation. For example, we have explored the challenges archivists face when they have to appraise collections in order to select what materials are kept, and what are thrown away. Such complex questions take on specific dimensions… Continue reading Significant properties – technical challenges for digital preservation
Irene Brown’s reel to reel recordings of folk and Gaelic culture
We are currently migrating a collection of tapes made by Irene Brown who, in the late 1960s, was a school teacher living in Inverness. Irene was a member of the Inverness Folk Club and had a strong interest in singing, playing guitar and collecting the musical heritage of folk and Gaelic culture. The tapes, that… Continue reading Irene Brown’s reel to reel recordings of folk and Gaelic culture
Mistress or master? Digitising the cultural heritage of women’s movements
The Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) is full of quirky examples of how womyn tried to wrestle culture from the sordid grip of male domination. Part of this process was reinventing the world in wimmin’s image, word and song; to create and reclaim a lasting herstory in which sisterhood could flourish. A recent U-Matic video tape… Continue reading Mistress or master? Digitising the cultural heritage of women’s movements
Seeing tracks: viewing magnetic information as an aid for tape digitisation
We use a Sigma Hi-Chemical MV-95 magnetic viewer in order to aid our digitisation work. By pressing the viewer against the tape we are able to read the magnetic information recorded on it. The reader helps us to visually identify the position of the recorded tracks on the tape, and enables accurate playback during digitisation. Magnetic readers… Continue reading Seeing tracks: viewing magnetic information as an aid for tape digitisation
Digital preservation – a selection of online resources
Update 2020: We are updating and maintaining this list of useful web links in the Resources section of our website here: Digital and Audiovisual Preservation – Online Resources If you are new to the world of digital preservation, you may be feeling overwhelmed by the multitude of technical terms and professional practices to contend with,… Continue reading Digital preservation – a selection of online resources
Climate Change, Tape Mould and Digital Preservation
The summer of 2008 saw a spate of articles in the media focusing on a new threat to magnetic tapes. The reason: the warm, wet weather was reported as a watershed moment in magnetic tape degradation, with climate change responsible for the march of mould consuming archival memories, from personal to institutional collections. The connection… Continue reading Climate Change, Tape Mould and Digital Preservation
Digitising Stereo Master Hi-Fi VHS Audio Recordings
The history of amateur recording is peppered with examples of people who stretched technologies to their creative limit. Whether this comes in the form of hours spent trying things out and learning through doing, endlessly bouncing tracks in order to turn an 8-track recording into a 24-track epic or making high quality audio masters on… Continue reading Digitising Stereo Master Hi-Fi VHS Audio Recordings
‘Missing Believed Wiped’: The Search For Lost TV Treasures
Contemporary culture is often presented as drowning in mindless nostalgia, with everything that has ever been recorded circulating in a deluge of digital information. Whole subcultures have emerged in this memory boom, as digital technologies enable people to come together via a shared passion for saving obscurities presumed to be lost forever. One such organisation… Continue reading ‘Missing Believed Wiped’: The Search For Lost TV Treasures
2″ Quad Video Tape Transfers – new service offered
We are pleased to announce that we are now able to support the transfer of 2″ Quadruplex Video Tape (PAL, SECAM & NTSC) to digital formats. 2” Quad was a popular broadcast analogue video tape format whose halcyon period ran from the late 1950s to the 1970s. The first quad video tape recorder made by AMPEX in… Continue reading 2″ Quad Video Tape Transfers – new service offered
Software Across Borders? The European Archival Records and Knowledge Preservation (E-Ark) Project
The latest big news from the digital preservation world is that the European Archival Records and Knowledge Preservation – (E-Ark), a three year, multinational research project, has received a £6M award from the European Commission ‘to create a revolutionary method of archiving data, addressing the problems caused by the lack of coherence and interoperability between the… Continue reading Software Across Borders? The European Archival Records and Knowledge Preservation (E-Ark) Project
Digitising Low Band U-matic Video Tapes – The resurgence of Philip Jap, pop icon
Philip Jap came from a time when mime, dance, slapped bass lines, mascara and techno-dystopic anthems were staple parts of a successful popular music career. Cut from the same new wave goth cloth as Gary Numan, Human League and John Foxx, sporting mesmeric dance moves like a male Kate Bush, Jap lit up the early… Continue reading Digitising Low Band U-matic Video Tapes – The resurgence of Philip Jap, pop icon