In the fall of 1994 I visited Intermedia Arts  in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a media arts center with an historic regional video collection in need of preservation. Director Tom Borrup took me up to the attic and showed me four 1/2" open reel machines. I loaded them into my car, signed an agreement for BAVC to transfer 100 tapes in exchange for the decks, and drove home to San Francisco. The remastering center's first transfers took place shortly afterwards and were delivered to the Minnesota Historical Society, which houses the collection.

The remastering center was developed over time. In the beginning I tested and set up the basic equipment configuration, heeding any advice I could glean from engineers at Ampex, 3M, Sony and commercial remastering facilities. The first few remastering jobs, in particular the Minnesota Historical Society and the Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library were not documented, but BAVC's Debra Finucane, Preservation Technician, and Grace Lan, Facility Manager, soon developed the first documentation sheets for remastering projects. Debra and Grace also were instrumental in establishing a standardized administrative workflow, essentially transforming a research center into a business center. The administrative workflow continues to be improved.

Perhaps because of the necessary evolution into a business center, the important work of research and development, evident early in the project, has fallen by the wayside. BAVC has an established remastering process, and has no funding to research, modify or develop other methods. BAVC technicians Jonathan Selsey, Preservation Technician, and Heather Weaver, Senior Staff Editor, see this as a real weakness that must be addressed in any future development of remastering systems.

We had no original technical documentation on hand, so technical development for the facility was done without technical manuals for the tape machines. We relied on two resources in our efforts to set up and maintain the equipment. One was a well illustrated book from that era, Charles Bensinger's Video Guide (Video-Info Publications, 1979.) In his acknowledgements, Bensinger writes: "Video being such a visual subject, it seemed desirable to utilize as much visual material as possible." The illustrations are numerous and give a very complete view of the equipment of that time. Bensinger's description of the 1970s state-of-the-art technology guided my understanding of what I needed to know. The Video Guide substantially cut down on my trial and error.

Another resource was the engineer Ken Zhin of Merlin Engineering of Palo Alto, who I located through Deirdre Boyle's Video Preservation: Securing the Future of the Past. Ken works on both obsolete tape machines and on the tape cleaning machine that BAVC uses, and was very helpful throughout the development of the center. Other key information, as noted below, came from Sharon Grace of the San Francisco Art Institute, and from NASA Publication 1052: Magnetic Recording for the Eighties.

In the beginning we did not know it would require seven years to take this first step. We underestimated the complexity of the challenge of video preservation. During this time, discussions concerning appropriate preservation formats, cataloguing, gatekeeper selection processes and video art documentation dominated, while discussion of remastering took a back seat. Each of these topics is Very complex and full of controversy within the field. Remastering was not emphasized perhaps because 1) it was happening at BAVC and other places; and 2) it is a rhetorical/technical quagmire where every step is open to a prolonged debate.

At the time the remastering center was being developed, electronic communications tools like email and the Web were not widely used. Since t that time, AMIA and Independent Media Arts Preservation (IMAP) have provided important information sharing on preservation issues through their listservs. Video Preservation - The Basics (www.experimentaltvcenter.org/history/preservation/preservation.html), part of ETC's Video History site, is another great resource for the media arts community.

However, there is little provocative or new information about remastering. Over the last several years some archives have asked me to help them set up 3/4" U-matic transfer systems, and I've heard from some technicians about small projects they've attempted. However, as far as I know BAVC is the only non-profit in the US doing ongoing work remastering 1/2" open reel.

The following description of BAVC's remastering center - its equipment, system design, some common problems and solutions, and future vision - will be very specific and technical. .
Hopefully, the description will accomplish three important goals:
 

• Provide a recipe for creating a video remastering transfer center
• Identify parts of the process that need further research and development
• Give others a head start in designing and developing remastering services

I provide this recipe knowing full well that, for some, it will not taste like the "remastering center Mom used to make." Like a recipe, you should use the general idea and develop your own ingredients list and process.

This paper deals primarily with the transfer of 1/2" open reel and early 3/4" U-matic tapes. It assumes basic knowledge on analog production processes and equipment. Sections of the Video History project site, in particular the sections Tools - Texts and People Texts  have numerous articles that provide more information. "Video Preservation: The Basics" has several extensive glossaries of technical terms which will be of use. In addition, there are links to other sites with glossaries. The Preservation Area also has posted numerous historical articles on the subject.