For a current list of degrading analog tapes, click here.
Teaching people how to identify tapes that are suffering from sticky shed syndrome is often difficult.
I would like to propose that a careful inspection of how the tape comes off the pack may be a good way. Please provide comments as to how it’s working for you.
The tape should come off the tape pack at a precise tangent to the tape. If the tape starts to adhere and not pull off straight, that is a sure sign that the tape needs baking.
Of course, don’t bake acetate tapes even if they show this indicator, but on the last batch of questionable SSS tapes, I’ve been looking at this and it’s a fair indicator, and it seems to show at the outer edge of the pack.
More than one “test” or “factor” is needed to be sure, but this one is looking good.
Another almost sure sign of SSS is brown oxide and black back-coat.
About two years ago, I asked the EBU to make available a copy of their historic document, Review of existing systems for the synchronisation between film cameras and audio tape-recorders and they complied, making it available on their website.
I asked the National Association of Broadcasters about their Cartridge, Cassette, and Reel tape standards as well as their Disc standard and they gave me permission to post these standards at my website.
These five standards plus some other articles of historic interest are available here in the history portion of this website. I hope that you find these of use in unraveling some of the challenges that old media present.
My storage systems have grown to keep up with storage needs. I am currently running two NAS units in RAID-5:
Unit #1 for client audio projects is a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ with four 500 GB drives, providing about 1.3 TiB of storage.
Unit #2 for personal projects and general data is a Thecus N5200 Pro with four 1000 GB drives, providing about 2.7 TiB of storage.
These two units are then duplicated off-site and connected by a fibre optic link (currently running at 100 Mb/s while the rest of the network is running at 1000 Mb/s). (more…)
The Studer A80RC as designed stops only when both tension sensors lose tension. When using fragile archival tapes, especially at slower speeds, this creates some difficulties as the tape end weaves through the head block. Here is a modification which makes the A80RC operate like an A810, stopping the tape when either tension sensor looses tension. The mod is completely done on the 1.081.393 Command Receiver board and involves adding two parts and removing one.
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I apologize, but I have been receiving 2000 spam comments a week recently and it fills up my inbox and the users have to be deleted. They’re not going to get their comments posted, but I’m tried of this. If you wish to leave a comment on this blog, please email it to me and I will post it in the article. Sorry. I am moving all the excellent comments into the articles and that should be done shortly.
The format page for 0.15 inch wide tape has a drawing (click for large version) that clearly shows that mono cassettes have one wide track and stereo cassettes split this track in half and add a small guard band. Most mono cassette recorders follow this format. It turns out that the mono Marantz PMD201 uses a two-channel head and records dual mono. Most other mono recorders seem to follow the standard.
While this is a theoretical problem, few if any good mono recorders are available for reproducing these tapes anyway, so most of us in the domain transfer field use good quality stereo machines for all cassette transfer work. (more…)
For many years, I had been in favour of the Primera Z1 small optical disc printer. When Primera discontinued this several years ago, I was not pleased and purchased two as spares, hoping at least the ribbons would continue.
It appears that I am not alone in thinking this is a good product as it has resurfaced as the U-Print CDP78, now in black, and available from many online distributors. The cartridges appear to be interchangeable with the Primera. I can now suggest that this is a good alternative for safe, long-lasting, and reasonably attractive text labeling of CDs and DVDs. It appears that the Teac P11 is also similar. The last time I checked, the Casio required manual rotation of the disk, rather than the Primera’s automatic rotation.
Please provide me with any feedback pro or con—preferably as comments to this post.
It has become obvious to me that there are good ways and bad ways to pack equipment for shipping.
There are some basic goals that one needs to achieve in the packing.
- Protect the equipment from excessive shock and vibration
- Keep the equipment solidly centred within the outer box(es)
- Keep the equipment safe from small object impacts
- Prepare it to be dropped
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If you ever worry about a bit error happening to your files and not finding out about it, you should use MD5 checksums (or some similar method) to be able to verify that the file has not changed.
The general theory behind a checksum (or “Message Digest” = “MD”) is that it provides a unique 128-bit number for each and every file, based on its content. If one bit changes, the MD5 checksum (sometimes called “hash”) changes. The checksum is repeatable, does not permit discovery of two different files that produce the same checksum, and is non-reversible (i.e. you can’t create the content from the checksum). (more…)
It appears that many old acetate tapes when played on high-quality audio recorders will suffer spoking when left in a play wind condition. I have discussed this problem here. Since posting that, I have taken one of my Racal Store 4DS recorders and removed the heads to save them from wear and now use that to re-spool any tape that shows spoking when played on a Studer A80, Sony APR-5000, or Studer A810. (more…)
