The worldwide stock of audio and videotapes in archival custody is estimated to be at least 40-50 million hours. Tape deterioration, most prominently binder degradation of the magnetic layer, sooner or later calls for the migration of these holdings onto new carriers. This migration, specifically the digitization of analog formats, is extremely labor intensive and will take many years, most probably decades. This time horizon calls for proper prioritizing of digitization/migration: immediately endangered materials must come first, while (yet) stable materials may wait. Consequently, valid and easily applicable methods for predicting the life expectancy (LE) of magnetic tapes are the key to a successful strategy in audio and video preservation.

Authors: Schuller, Dietrich; Kranner, Leopold
Affiliations: Phonogrammarchiv, Austrian Academy of Sciences,Vienna, Austria ; Austrian Plastics Institute,Vienna, Austria(See document for exact affiliation information.)
AES Conference: 20th International Conference: Archiving, Restoration, and New Methods of Recording (October 2001)
Paper Number: 1944
Publication Date: October 1, 2001
Subject: Archiving, Restoration, and New Methods of Recording

Click to purchase paper as a non-member or you can login as an AES member to see more options.

No AES members have commented on this paper yet.

Subscribe to this discussion

To be notified of new comments on this paper you can subscribe to this RSS feed. Forum users should login to see additional options.

Start a discussion!

If you would like to start a discussion about this paper and are an AES member then you can login here:
Username:
Password:

If you are not yet an AES member and have something important to say about this paper then we urge you to join the AES today and make your voice heard. You can join online today by clicking here.