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
Tag: restoration
DAT restoration: The High – Martin Hannett Sessions
Record Store Day is usually ‘the one day each year when over 200 independent record shops all across the UK come together to celebrate their unique culture. Special vinyl releases are made exclusively for the day, in what’s become one of the biggest annual events on the music calendar.’ This year, due to COVID-19, Record… Continue reading DAT restoration: The High – Martin Hannett Sessions
Mouldy Tape
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.
Binder Problems and ‘Sticky-Shed Syndrome’
Sticky-shed syndrome is a common condition created by the deterioration of the binders in magnetic tape.
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
Type IV Metal Cassettes and Robert Chenciner’s Daghestan Collection
We recently received a fascinating collection of tapes from the archive of Robert Chenciner, an ethnographer with over thirty years experience studying the cultures, human rights and current affairs of Daghestan. Daghestan is located in the north Caucasus region, its neighbouring countries are Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Georgia, while its eastern border is flanked by the… Continue reading Type IV Metal Cassettes and Robert Chenciner’s Daghestan Collection
Re-animating archives: Action Space’s V30H / V60H EIAJ 1/2″ video tapes
One of the most interesting aspects of digitising magnetic tapes is what happens to them after they leave the Greatbear studio. Often transfers are done for private or personal interest, such as listening to the recording of loved ones, or for straightforward archival reasons. Yet in some cases material is re-used in a new creative project, thereby translating… Continue reading Re-animating archives: Action Space’s V30H / V60H EIAJ 1/2″ video tapes
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
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
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
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
EIAJ ½ inch Video Tape Transfers – Working with Community Groups to Develop Digitisation Projects
We understand that when organisations decide to digitise magnetic tape collections the whole process can take significant amounts of time. From initial condition appraisals, to selecting which items to digitise, many questions, as well as technical and cultural factors, have to be taken into account before a digital transfer can take place. This is further… Continue reading EIAJ ½ inch Video Tape Transfers – Working with Community Groups to Develop Digitisation Projects
reel to reel audio tape restoration and digitising of Manchester Oi! band State Victims
Often the tapes we receive to digitise are ‘forgotten’ recordings. Buried under a pile of stuff in a dark, cold room, their owners think they are lost forever. Then, one day, a reel of the mysterious tape emerges from the shadows generating feelings of excitement and anticipation. What is stored on tape? Is the material… Continue reading reel to reel audio tape restoration and digitising of Manchester Oi! band State Victims
End of year thank yous to our customers
What a year it has been in the life of Greatbear Analogue and Digital Media. As always the material customers have sent us to digitise has been fascinating and diverse, both in terms of the recordings themselves and the technical challenges presented in the transfer process. At the end of a busy year we want to… Continue reading End of year thank yous to our customers
Paul Roche recordings & preservation challenges with acetate reel-to-reel magnetic tape
We were recently sent a very interesting collection of recordings of the late poet, novelist and acclaimed translator Paul Roche. During his colourful and creative life Roche published two novels, O Pale Gallellean and Vessel of Dishonour, and several poetry collections, and brushed shoulders with some of the 20th century’s most captivating avant-garde artistic and… Continue reading Paul Roche recordings & preservation challenges with acetate reel-to-reel magnetic tape
Digitising Shedding Magnetic Multi-track Tape & the history of John Peel favourites BOB
An important part of digitisation work we do is tape restoration. Often customers send us tape that have been stored in less than ideal conditions that are either too hot, cold or damp, which can lead to degradation. In the excellent Council on Library and Information Sources’ report on Magnetic Storage and Handling (1995), they… Continue reading Digitising Shedding Magnetic Multi-track Tape & the history of John Peel favourites BOB
A word about metadata and digital collections
Metadata is data about data. Maybe that sounds pretty boring, but archivists love it, and it is really important for digitisation work. As mentioned in the previous post that focused on the British Library’s digital preservation strategies, as well as many other features on this blog, it is fairly easy to change a digital file without… Continue reading A word about metadata and digital collections
Remembering Ray Dolby pioneer of analogue noise reduction
We have already written about noise reduction this week, but did so without acknowledging the life of Ray Dolby, one of the inventors of video tape recording while working at Ampex and the inventor and founder of Dolby Noise Reduction, who died on 12 September 2013. An obituary in The Guardian described how: ‘His noise-reduction system worked… Continue reading Remembering Ray Dolby pioneer of analogue noise reduction
Sony V62 EIAJ reel to reel video tape transfer for Barrie Hesketh
We have recently been sent a Sony V62 high density video tape by Barrie Hesketh. Barrie has had an active career in theatre and in 1966 he set up the Mull Little Theatre on the Isle of Mull off the West Coast of Scotland with his late wife Marianne Hesketh. Specialising in what Barrie calls… Continue reading Sony V62 EIAJ reel to reel video tape transfer for Barrie Hesketh
What is the future of analogue media?
In a recent blog article on the Presto Centre website, Richard Wright argues that ‘the audiovisual collections of the 20th century were analogue, and we are now at a critical time for considering the digital future of that analogue content.’ He goes on to say, emphatically: ‘All analogue audio and video formats are obsolete. Digital… Continue reading What is the future of analogue media?
Digitising Ampex U-matic KCS-20 Video Tapes
We are currently digitising a collection of U-matic Ampex KCS-20 video tapes for Keith Barnfather, the founder of Reeltime Pictures. Reeltime Pictures are most well-known for their production of documentaries about the BBC series Doctor Who. They also made Doctor Who spin-off films, a kind of film equivalent of fan fiction, that revived old and… Continue reading Digitising Ampex U-matic KCS-20 Video Tapes
digitising tape issues
The main work of Greatbear is to make analogue and digital tape-based media accessible for people living in a digital intensive environment. But once your tape-based media has been digitised, is that the end of the story? Do you never need to think about preservation again? What issues arise for information management in the future,… Continue reading digitising tape issues
Digitising U-matic tape: Diagnosing & Treatment
We have recently completed a job for Quarry Faces, the Mendip Hills Community Heritage Project which has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Quarry Faces gave us 20 U-matic video tapes that were commissioned for a corporate video in the 1980s. The Quarry Faces project aims to tell the industry’s story, produce teaching materials… Continue reading Digitising U-matic tape: Diagnosing & Treatment
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
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
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
NTSC U-matic transfer of The Members – Solitary Confinement
Unseen to 32 years, although there could possibly be other tapes in the vaults at Abbey Road. This NTSC U-matic transfer to uncompressed quicktime files was a damaged tape that at some point in its life had been ‘eaten’ by a greedy U-matic machine! The tape shell also had some plastic debris inside that needed… Continue reading NTSC U-matic transfer of The Members – Solitary Confinement
tape repair and restoration
We often receive enquiries about audio and video tape that is not in the best condition having been stored in humid conditions, suffering from binder hydrolysis (sticky shed) or not wound on its reel well, but we were surprised when we received this tape recently. It literally is a bag of tape! It is a… Continue reading tape repair and restoration
Audio data recovery from external USB drive using ddrescue
High resolution audio and video digital tape conversions can use large amounts of computer storage. 8 bit uncompressed Standard Definition (SD) PAL video runs at 70 GB per hour and 24 bit 96 kHz audio files at 2 GB per hour. As a result of this many of our analogue to digital tape transfers require… Continue reading Audio data recovery from external USB drive using ddrescue
U-matic transfer to DVD, Uncompressed Quicktime and Digi Beta
We’ve been honored recently to have won a large contract to help in the digital migration of an extensive educational video archive by the transfer from U-matic archive copies to uncompressed video files. While the archive had been stored in an suitable environment and rarely if at all played, they had not survived well. The… Continue reading U-matic transfer to DVD, Uncompressed Quicktime and Digi Beta
DVD video restoration / editing helps convict serial Bristol flytipper
Greatbear recently helped the Streetscene section of Bristol City Council in an investigation in a serial flytipper. DVD footage of the flytipper had been taken by a member of the public of flytipping activity but this DVD had other unrelated footage on that needed removal. The DVD was also damaged and needed slow, repeated reading… Continue reading DVD video restoration / editing helps convict serial Bristol flytipper