Looking to the future

From a technician's point of view, there are a number of steps which could improve the process of transferring obsolete tape formats.

There must be more attention and funding devoted to video remastering. More support would increase the number of technicians addressing the issue and broaden the technical knowledge-base. In the nonprofit media arts field, remastering has not grown beyond BAVC's model. Even within BAVC, only a tiny pool of talented technicians has maintained the program. New BAVC technicians tend to forgo learning the remastering process, concentrating instead on learning new technologies, such as nonlinear editing systems.

A larger pool of technicians and the funding for their research will increase the quality and frequency of debate and innovation in video remastering. If engineers, conservators and researchers from related disciplines can join technicians in this work, the dialog willbecome more productive. Currently BAVC works with only one engineer who has the expertise and interest to maintain obsolete cleaning machines and video decks, but his relationship is as an independent contractor, not a collaborator interested in advancing the practice of remastering.

In, particular, there is a need for research and experimentation with the preparation and cleaning process. The methods used by BAVC have not changed since BAVC began remastering.

Specifically, BAVC technicians and colleagues in the field would like to explore:

• Research other preparation techniques such as tape baking or tape washing. Baking is especially interesting, because engineers at 3M and Ampex have already performed this process. While they claim that it may be destructive, allowing for only one transfer, it would be worth further study.
• Develop a combination cleaning/playback machine (replacing record heads with cleaning modules). By eliminating the cleaning machine, essentially integrating it into the playback tape path, it could: 1) make the remastering process more efficient; 2) reduce the cost of setting up remastering facilities; and 3) reduce the number of machines to learn to operate; and 4) reduce maintenance.
• Develop a re-designed 1/2" open reel playback machine, including a kinder tape path with a vacuum chamber, and highly adjustable tracking and skew. Creating a new machine to address this issue is the more expensive approach but perhaps the wisest. Currently, technicians are using 30-year-old equipment to remaster tapes. We are not taking advantage of the innovations in tape handling, and we are not taking into consideration the special needs of a remastering project - where tapes have been recorded on machines that may vary widely in terms of maintenance and calibration.
• Develop a process for transferring the signal from a 1/2" open reel tape magnetically to a new tape. This technology is currently used in high-end VHS tape duplication. A master videotape is run though a machine where it makes physical contact with a new tape and transfers all signals magnetically, without a tape path or video head. If this process could be developed for 1/2" open reel tapes, we could save the wear and tear on the original. The new copy could then be run through the tape path, also saving some wear and tear on playback machines.
• Explore transfer to an uncompressed nonlinear workstation such as the Avid Symphony. The material would be saved in D1 quality as an intermediary, with possible "touch up" done on marginal frames. This process would maintain the quality of the original but give the facility time to review and approve of the transfer before it is transferred to tape.
• Research data backup as an adjunct to remastering. Is there a backup medium and file format that has a long-term future and can hold the amount of data contained in a video tape? Is this format DLT, or the D1 data tape developed for storing media? This process could store signals long term while further research is done to develop or agree upon a preservation format for video.
• Collaborate on such projects as the WGBH's Universal Preservation Format Initiative. If there are better funded projects that are addressing the basic needs of video preservation, the media arts field should be aware of them and, perhaps, participate.