Mould infestation can present a significant problem for the digitisation of magnetic tape. Any evidence of mould growth should be taken seriously and affected tapes isolated.
Author: greatbear
Binder Problems and ‘Sticky-Shed Syndrome’
Sticky-shed syndrome is a common condition created by the deterioration of the binders in magnetic tape.
Guest post: The Upright Electric Guitar
We recently helped in the digitising of 8mm & Hi8 for the creation of an online video about the following project by Nelson Johnson:
Copying U-matic tape: digitise via dub connector or composite video?
Digitising legacy and obsolete video formats in essence is simple but the technical details make the process more complex. Experience and knowledge are therefore needed to make the most appropriate choices for the medium. The U-matic video format usually had two types of video output, composite and a y/c type connector that Sony named ‘Dub’.… Continue reading Copying U-matic tape: digitise via dub connector or composite video?
8 track cartridges and museum tour
8 track cartridges were a very popular domestic audio format in the United States, although there were also sold in the UK and Europe. The growth of the 8 track was synonymous with its use in car industry, as it allowed people to listen to music on the move. Although phased out in the early… Continue reading 8 track cartridges and museum tour
VHS / Hi8 video tapes digitised for The Great Hip Hop Hoax
For a while now we’ve been working with film maker Jeanie Finlay on various projects, digitising archive video footage in varying tape formats and standards. Her latest project, soon to be premiered in the US: …is a film about truth, lies and the legacy of faking everything in the desperate pursuit of fame. The American… Continue reading VHS / Hi8 video tapes digitised for The Great Hip Hop Hoax
The Grain of Video Tape
From U-matic to VHS, Betacam to Blu Ray, Standard Definition to High Definition, the formats we use to watch visual media are constantly evolving. Yet have you ever paused to consider what is at stake in the changing way audio-visual media is presented to us? Is viewing High Definition film and television always a better… Continue reading The Grain of Video Tape
Nakamichi 680 Discrete Head Cassette Deck and Music & Liberation
In 2012 Greatbear digitised a selection of audio and audio-visual tape for the Heritage Lottery Funded exhibition, Music & Liberation. The first job was to migrate a short film by a feminist film making collective called Women in Moving Pictures who were based in Bristol in the early 1980s. The film shows how the Bristol… Continue reading Nakamichi 680 Discrete Head Cassette Deck and Music & Liberation
video machine room equipment racks / patchbay rewire
With the work we are involved with we have to use, keep working and store a large amount of old and usually large tape machines and other electronics. With a couple of machines it’s easy to store and easy to connect but as you grow and the variety and scope of machines develops it can… Continue reading video machine room equipment racks / patchbay rewire
video tape obsolescence – spares supplies disappearing
Greatbear protects tape-based analogue and digital media from the wave of obsolescence faced by these formats. The speed of technological change in the 20th and 21st centuries has been, and continues to be, breathtaking. Consider the amount of tapes and machines that have been made since the invention of magnetic recording tape by Valdemar Poulson… Continue reading video tape obsolescence – spares supplies disappearing
greatbear at work
A selection of images from the Greatbear engine room on a typical day at the office. Repairing, cleaning, baking, testing, sorting and transferring are our daily bread. The work is done to the backdrop of miscellaneous audio and audio-visual recordings ranging from early 1990s house music to ethnomusicological field recordings, corporate archives and everything else… Continue reading greatbear at work
Digital Betacam tapes
As well as analogue tape, at Greatbear we also migrate digital tape to digital files. Digital media has become synonymous with the everyday consumption of information in the 21st century. Yet it may come as a surprise for people to encounter digital tape when we are so comfortable with the seemingly formless circulation of digital… Continue reading Digital Betacam tapes
Digitising Betacam SP video tapes
We have recently been digitising Betacam SP (‘superior performance’) video recordings, a cassette based component analogue format that is used extensively in the broadcast world. Betacam SP offered fantastic video and audio quality from its introduction in 1986, and a very similar digital cassette, Digital Betacam, is still used now. Betacam SP was commonly used throughout… Continue reading Digitising Betacam SP video tapes
Sony High Density V-60H video tape digitised for Comhaltas
We were recently contacted by Frank Whelan of the Comhaltas Regional Resource Centre who wanted us to digitise a recording of the Fleadh Cheoil traditional music festival in Buncranna, Co. Donegal in 1975. Frank sent us an EIAJ ½ inch video that was recorded on a Sony High Density V-60H video tape for Helican Scan… Continue reading Sony High Density V-60H video tape digitised for Comhaltas
Richard Lewis’ Tapes
At Greatbear we work on a range of digitising projects from national collections to personal one-offs. Today we received a ¼ inch open reel polyester and acetate based tape from Carmarthen based teacher Richard Lewis. The tapes are a good example of the types of personal material we are entrusted to digitise. The tapes are… Continue reading Richard Lewis’ Tapes
Rare, cassette tape TDK MA-XG
martyn ford’s master tapes cleaned restored and digitised
We recently had a call from Martyn Ford, acclaimed horn player and arranger on many big albums over the years.
V2000 bad Frako capacitor in Grundig 2×4 Video 2000
Yet again bad capacitors have reared their electrolytic fluid! This time in a Grundig Video 2000 video tape player, or V2000. Pictured above is a X2 mains film cap in the power supply of the video machine, made by Frako. This brand of capacitors are German and used in many Studer audio tape machines too… Continue reading V2000 bad Frako capacitor in Grundig 2×4 Video 2000
Sony V60H half inch reel to reel video archive baked and digitised
We’ve recently had an interesting archive of poorly stored and initially unplayable half inch, EIAJ, black and white video reels dating from the late 1970s and early 1980s. This format was commonly used in education and in industry and was much cheaper than the U-matic and one inch formats. We usually see Scotch and Sony… Continue reading Sony V60H half inch reel to reel video archive baked and digitised
broken DAT / degraded mouldy tape
Early tape based digital formats such as DAT, Tascam DTRS and ADAT, etc are often problematic now, partly with tape issues and also reliability and spares availability. In 20 or even 10 years time these machines will be much less serviceable than the analogue tape machines of the previous generation and as a result more… Continue reading broken DAT / degraded mouldy tape
how to transfer video to dvd
So how do you do it? Contact us, of course! No seriously, how to transfer video to dvd or any other digital format is a very simple concept but the reality can be pretty complex. As with much mature technology, the domestic video formats and machines were often made pretty straightforward to use and hid much of… Continue reading how to transfer video to dvd
Repair Teac A3440 4 track Multitrack Reel to Reel
The Teac A3440 is a classic reel to reel tape recorder from the late 1970s, early ’80s significant in that you could use it to make 4 track multitrack recordings at 15 inches per second, the professional tape recording speed. At the time there was precious little else around at the price to do this… Continue reading Repair Teac A3440 4 track Multitrack Reel to Reel
Quarter inch reel to reel tape audio archiving
We’ve been a bit quiet since last year on our blog here primarily because we have been processing a large, ongoing audio archiving digital migration job for Mood Media Ltd In essence audio archiving, digital migration, transfer or digitisation, whatever term you prefer, is conceptually simple: one analogue or digital format is moved to another,… Continue reading Quarter inch reel to reel tape audio archiving
8 track cassette capstan motor Tascam 238 Syncaset
We specialise in tape transfers, many of which are multitrack cassette tapes. Tascam, Fostex and Yamaha sold cassette multitrack recorders in the golden days of home recording in the 1980s and ’90s. The 4 track format was especially popular but an 8 track format was also developed that squeezed even more out of the small… Continue reading 8 track cassette capstan motor Tascam 238 Syncaset
copy tape to cd, convert video to dvd, is it a good thing?
Digital formats are great and the ease of access and distribution that an Audio CD and a Video DVD offers is fantastic at the moment with cheap players, recorders and personal computers. In the audio and video tape transfer business, getting your business website to rank well in the search engines for key phrases such as… Continue reading copy tape to cd, convert video to dvd, is it a good thing?
Convert, Join, re encode AVCHD .MTS files in Ubuntu Linux
One of our audio and video archive customers has a large collection of AVCHD video files that are stored in 1.9GB ‘chunks’ as xxxxx.MTS files. All these files are of 60 minute and longer duration and must be joined, deinterlaced, re encoded to a suitable size and bitrate then uploaded for online access. This is… Continue reading Convert, Join, re encode AVCHD .MTS files in Ubuntu Linux
azimuth adjustment when you transfer and convert cassettes to cd
Cassette tapes run at a very slow speed of 17⁄8 inches per second (ips) with a very small track width of 1.59mm Cassette decks when they left the factory or a service centre should have been aligned to a standard reference for the position of the record and play heads. Unfortunately they often weren’t all… Continue reading azimuth adjustment when you transfer and convert cassettes to cd
repair of snapped DAT
We often get sent Digital Audio Tapes or DATs for transfer to .WAV computer files. As these recordings are already digital or ‘born digital’ the process should be straightforward. Our audio interface cards accept the SPDIF or AES digital audio stream from the DAT machine and record this as a WAV or BWAV file. This… Continue reading repair of snapped DAT
Sony PCM 7030 DAT repair
We have several of these large, wonderful machines. It’s not often we need or want to get involved in DAT machine repair as generally they are not easy to service machines and many key transport parts are becoming unavailable. The Sony 7030 DAT though has been designed with easy servicing in mind. There’s alot of… Continue reading Sony PCM 7030 DAT repair
Tape baking of unreleased Shoes for Industry studio master
In amongst a batch of very mouldy quarter inch master tapes we were recently asked to look at was this unreleased recording by Shoes for Industry, the Bristol band on Fried Egg Records. Like much late 1970s and ’80s studio recordings, this was recorded on Ampex branded tape that suffers badly from binder hydrolysis or… Continue reading Tape baking of unreleased Shoes for Industry studio master
Tape mould cleaned and removed. Rare lost masters recovered and preserved for Druidcrest Ltd
We have recently worked on probably the worst looking tapes but with some of the best sounding music recordings we’ve seen for a while! A batch of 10.5″ NAB studio masters had bad tape mould growth. Andy Leighton, owner of Bolex Brothers and music publisher of the Rocky Horror Show, found a batch of studio… Continue reading Tape mould cleaned and removed. Rare lost masters recovered and preserved for Druidcrest Ltd
Quarter inch reel to reel tape transfer of Jack Hawkins band archive
We were contacted recently by Jack Hawkins, the renowned arranger and band leader to consult on and digitise personal quarter inch open reel recordings of his band. In case you don’t know, The Jack Hawkins band are probably best known for their performance of the track 30-60-90 made famous in a club sequence in the… Continue reading Quarter inch reel to reel tape transfer of Jack Hawkins band archive
Replace pinch roller on Sonifex NAB Cartridge machine
Once a common sight in Radio stations around the world, the NAB Cartridge machine or Fidelipac was used for short jingles and announcements, sometimes even for longer recordings. Using a similar sized cartridge to a domestic 8 track machine the NAB cartridge was different in that the pinch roller was not in the cartridge but… Continue reading Replace pinch roller on Sonifex NAB Cartridge machine
St. Pauls Carnival 1968, Bristol
Celebrate What? is a documentary we transferred and created DVD access copies for its director recently. He only had a VHS copy of the 8mm original unfortunately but it’s still a great piece of history about St Pauls, the St Pauls Carnival and Bristol. If anyone can recognise themselves or anyone else, please contact the… Continue reading St. Pauls Carnival 1968, Bristol
U-matic transfer and video preservation of Bristol reggae band Black Roots
2 U-matic video tapes were discovered of a Black Roots live performance in Bristol in the 1980s. We were able to restore, digitise and make the umatic transfer of this recording as a high quality, uncompressed Quicktime file then encode and author a DVD for future release by Bristol Archive Records. Some information supplied by… Continue reading U-matic transfer and video preservation of Bristol reggae band Black Roots
Kevin Mabbutt hat-trick against Manchester United EIAJ video reel restored and digitised
We were very excited recently when Chris Bradfield from Soundscommercial uncovered a previously unseen batch of EIAJ half inch reel to reel video tapes. In the process of looking for 1976 footage for their event, Spirit of 76, we uncovered many other gems. One of these goals was the famous hat-trick scored by Kevin Mabbutt… Continue reading Kevin Mabbutt hat-trick against Manchester United EIAJ video reel restored and digitised