VideoTapes:
Memories that Don't Last
by Andrew Bowman |
| If
you're like most Americans, you have a VCR. Specifically you
have a VHS format VCR and if you're like me, a huge
collection of pre-recorded movies and tapes of your favorite
television shows. A problem the big networks have been facing
will soon be yours. Videotape doesn't last forever.
Turn
Your Old Video Tapes Into Digital Video - Click Here Now!
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| Lessons
From the Past |
| Ampex
invented the first practical video tape recorder in 1956. Bing
Crosby is said to have funded Ampex to push the technology
forward so he didn't have to do his show twice-- once live
on the East coast and then again 3 hours later live for the
west coast and so he didn't have to record it on wax disc.
You may think of videotape as cassettes but the first machines
were reel to reel. A great many television shows were recorded
live on tape so they only had to be performed once. Programs
such as game shows certainly couldn't have the contestants
play again and big stars on variety shows like Ed Sullivan had
busy schedules.
Over time these reels of tape
began to build up. Late innovations in tape began to take up
less space. Machines got smaller. One-inch helical scan
replaced two-inch quad. U-matic, sometimes called the
grandfather of VHS, revolutionized news broadcasts with the
ultra portability of a videotape cassette. The television
networks recorded so much. Then they tossed it in the trash.
It took up too much room. To make matters worse, what they
saved fell apart. Click
Here to "Go Digital" now
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|
".
. . the first machines were reel to reel."
|
That's why you won't see
a lot of classic television shows ever again. Though you've
probably bought a DVD player you own a VHS machine and so have
inherited both storage space problems and if it hasn't
happened already, tape decay. You can act and solve both
problems at once. You stepped into the digital age when you
bought a DVD player. The studios have too. When you see the
best of Ed Sullivan or any old TV show advertised, you almost
always hear the words "digitally remastered.". New
releases of old music also gets this moniker. Both industries
have gone digital. So should you.
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| Tape
Decay - Dust to Dust |
Videotape,
most simply described, is iron dust glued to plastic ribbon.
When exposed to a magnetic field, parts of the iron or other
material are partially magnetized. The magnetic patterns are
used to encode information. Because the ribbon is magnetized
to a small degree, sensitive electronics can read the changes
in strength and then translate that back to sound and picture.
The binders that hold the powder coating begin to lose its
stickiness. The tape comes apart. Picture and sound become
dust.
It's not as if your videotapes turn to trash. It's when.
Just when videotape fails depends on the tape formulation and
how it's stored. Experts give the general number of six to
60 years, the latter only true if videotapes are stored in
special climate controlled archival storerooms. Ten to twelve
years is the
Turn
Your Old Tapes Into Digital Video - Click Here Now!
|
accepted
average. VHS, however, has been around since 1977. That's 26
years of video tapes though for most of us, and its only been
ten to twelve years since the home VCR really took off and we
started our collections. Some of your prize videos are on the
edge of self-destruction. Fortunately the DVD player has come
along to save us.
|
".
. . iron dust glued to plastic ribbon."
|
|
| Digitally
Remastered - New Life |
The
DVD player is the fastest selling consumer entertainment
product on the planet, entering into millions of new homes
every year in North America alone. DVD's are smaller than
VHS tapes and take up less room on your shelf. If properly
handled they will still be around even when the format is long
dead.
|
".
. . the fastest selling consumer entertainment
product on the planet . . ."
|
Turn
Your Old Tapes Into Digital Video - Click Here Now!
Another device spreading
rapidly to over half the households in the US and Canada is
the home computer. Like the DVD player, it is a digital
device. People are already using it to make
copies of regular DVD's but did you know you could use
it to backup all your videotapes as well? It's true. And if
you have a computer and a DVD player you have almost
everything you need to digitally re-master all your home
movies.
Unlike the first VCR's,
computers and DVD players do not come with built in video
recording capabilities. The first home VCR's cost over a
thousand dollars and so did the first video capture devices
for PC's. Like everything else in the high-tech world, the
price has come down. For under a hundred dollars you can own
an add-on TV Capture card like the AverTV Desktop Personal
Recorder or the ATI
TV Wonder VE cards.
Get
an ATI TV Wonder Card - Click Here Now!
|
Expert
Guides, the leader in proven, simple solutions for complex
home-computing questions has written easy to use guides that
anyone can use in creating backups of their own videotapes.
Learn how to create copies of your old home movies and
favorite features on inexpensive recordable CD's that will
play on nearly any DVD player. They can show you how to turn
them into real DVD's and even ultra-compact high quality
DivX and Windows Media Video files which new generations of
DVD players will also play.
|
".
. .digitally re-master all your home movies."
|
The future truly is digital.
Home DVD recorder devices are already in stores but with price
tags of $600 and up and a basic inability to record discs that
will playback in most normal DVD players, home DVD recorders
are a poor and expensive choice for archiving your tapes.
Though immensely popular, the TiVO records video on a built in
hard drive that is all but inaccessible to the most advanced
digital video geeks. Further, TiVO gives you limited recording
space with the inability to take the media with you or add
more space. Computer TV capture devices like the ATI
TV Wonder and AverMedia AverTV Stereo give you the
flexibility you need. Click
Here To Learn To Transfer Your Video Tapes to Digital Video
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| Not
Just for VHS |
| In
the past 30 years there have been a great many developments in
video technology for the home user. Betamax format VCR's
came out two years before VHS and despite its higher picture
quality they had vanished by the mid-80's. 1978 marked the
birth of Laserdisc-- virtually dead by the mid-90's. JVC
improved VHS to make the higher video and audio quality
Super-VHS format but it never caught on. Camcorders became
smaller with the invention of 8mm video tape and then the
superior Hi-8 format. These formats all decay-- even
Laserdisc, if handled too much. Expert
Guides can show the owners of any of these formats how to
use a TV Capture card to digitally archive these, preserving
their content forever. |
|
"Camcorders
became smaller with the invention of 8mm video tape.
. ."
|
Turn
Your Old Tapes Into Digital Video - Click Here Now!
|
