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Brian Eno Archive Video

As I write, just before 17.00 GMT / 12.00 EST, 24th January 2025, Anamorph.com are about to go live with the 24hour global streaming premiere of creative film maker Gary Hustwit’s unique documentary feature ‘Eno’. Echoing Brian Eno’s long-running explorations of generative technology in composition, Hustwit and digital artist Brendan Hawes have created Brain One… Continue reading Brian Eno Archive Video

MII

MII also known as M2 (Panasonic) video cassettes

U-matic

U-matic (Low-Band, High-Band, SP) ¾” video tape in PAL, NTSC & SECAM

Gregory Sams’s VegeBurger – Food Revolution

‘Watch out: the vegetarians are on the attack’ warned an article published in the April 1984 edition of the Meat Trades Journal. The threat? A new product that would revolutionise the UK’s eating habits forever. Gregory Sams’s VegeBurger invented a vernacular that is so ubiquitous now, you probably thought it’s always been here. While vegetarianism can… Continue reading Gregory Sams’s VegeBurger – Food Revolution

Spoking – Treating and Assessing Magnetic Tape

Assessment and treatment is an important part of Greatbear’s audiovisual preservation work. Even before a tape is played back we need to ensure it is in optimum condition. Sometimes it is possible to make a diagnosis through visual assessment alone. A tape we received recently, for example, clearly displayed signs of ‘spoking.’ Spoking is a term used in… Continue reading Spoking – Treating and Assessing Magnetic Tape

VHS – Re-appraising Obsolescence

VHS was a hugely successful video format from the late 1970s to early 2000s. It was adopted widely in domestic and professional contexts. Due to its familiarity and apparent ubiquity you might imagine it is easy to preserve VHS. Well, think again. VHS is generally considered to be a low preservation risk because playback equipment… Continue reading VHS – Re-appraising Obsolescence

Motobirds U-matic NTSC transfer

Motobirds, a 1970s all-girl motorbike stunt team from Leicester, have recently re-captured the public imagination. The group re-united for an appearance on BBC One’s The One Show which aired on 1 April 2016. They hadn’t seen each other for forty years. The Motobirds travelled all over the UK and Europe, did shows with the Original… Continue reading Motobirds U-matic NTSC transfer

Going CD-R-less – digital file-based delivery

Often customers ask us to deliver their transferred sound files on CD, in effect an audio CD-R of the transfer. Although these recordings can still be high resolution there remains a world of difference—in an archival sense—between a CD-R, burnt on a computer drive (however high the quality of drive and disc), and CD recordings… Continue reading Going CD-R-less – digital file-based delivery

Grundig C 100 and the early history of the Compact Cassette

The recent arrival of a Grundig C 100 (DC-International) cassette in the Greatbear studio has been an occasion to explore the early history of the compact cassette. The compact cassette has gained counter-cultural kudos in recent times, and more about that later, but once upon a time the format was the new kid on the… Continue reading Grundig C 100 and the early history of the Compact Cassette

Dr Spira and the Human Beings – BASF LGR 50 tape on AEG DIN Hubs

The latest in a long line of esoteric musical recordings moving through the tape transports in the Greatbear studio is a collection belonging to Dušan Mihajlović. Dušan was the main song writer in Yugoslavian new wave band Dr Spira and the Human Beings / Doktor Spira i Ljudska Bića. Dr Spira have a cult status… Continue reading Dr Spira and the Human Beings – BASF LGR 50 tape on AEG DIN Hubs

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies Audio Cassette Transfer

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is widely heralded as a classic of 20th century English literature. The book adorns English Literature syllabuses throughout the UK, its provocative events continue to inspire debate about the nature of humanity and ‘civilisation.’ We recently transferred an audio cassette recording of the Nobel-prize winning author reading his famous novel.… Continue reading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies Audio Cassette Transfer

Audio Cassette Parallel Ingests

Great Bear Parallel Ingest Stack

The scale of digitisation jobs we do at Greatbear often varies. We are asked by our customers to reformat single items to large quantities of tape and everything else inbetween. Reformatting magnetic tape-based media always takes time and care. Transfers have to be done in real time; if you want a good quality recording there… Continue reading Audio Cassette Parallel Ingests

British Stand Up Comedy Archive’s audiovisual collections

Greatbear have recently worked with the British Stand Up Comedy Archive (BSUCA) to reformat a number of Digital Audio Tapes (DATs) and U-Matic video tapes from their collection. Established in 2013 and based at the University of Kent’s Special Collections, the BSUCA aims ‘to celebrate, preserve, and provide access to the archives and records of… Continue reading British Stand Up Comedy Archive’s audiovisual collections

Save Our Sounds’ £9.5 million boost

This article is a bit late to break this news, but it is worth highlighting again in case you missed it first time round. In May 2015 the British Library were awarded over £9.5 million pounds by the Heritage Lottery Fund to help them deliver their hugely important Save Our Sounds project. We told you… Continue reading Save Our Sounds’ £9.5 million boost

Analogue to analogue – the Courtyard Music Group

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

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

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

Note the visible drop out in the image

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘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

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

Digital Optical Technology System – ‘A non-magnetic, 100 year, green solution for data storage.’

‘A non-magnetic, 100 year, green solution for data storage.’ This is the stuff of digital information managers’ dreams. No more worrying about active data management, file obsolescence or that escalating energy bill. Imagine how simple life would be if there was a way to store digital information that could last, without intervention, for nearly 100… Continue reading Digital Optical Technology System – ‘A non-magnetic, 100 year, green solution for data storage.’

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