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: U-matic
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.
SONY’s U-matic video cassette
U-matic made video cassette a core part of many industries. Flexible and functional, its popularity endured until the 1990s.
At Greatbear, we have a significant suite of working NTSC/ PAL/ SECAM U-matic machines and spare parts.
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
Red Beat: U-matic Low Band Transfer and Video Synthesizers
The latest eclectic piece of music history to be processed in the Greatbear Studio is a U-matic Low Band video of ‘Dream/Dream Dub’ by Red Beat, a post-punk band that was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Despite emitting a strong wax crayon-like odour that is often a sure sign of a degraded… Continue reading Red Beat: U-matic Low Band Transfer and Video Synthesizers
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
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
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
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
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
Early digital tape recordings on PCM/ U-matic and Betamax video tape
We are now used to living in a born-digital environment, but the transition from analogue to digital technologies did not happen overnight. In the late 1970s, early digital audio recordings were made possible by a hybrid analogue/digital system. It was composed by the humble transport and recording mechanisms of the video tape machine, and a… Continue reading Early digital tape recordings on PCM/ U-matic and Betamax video tape
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?
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 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
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
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
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