 Thank you, Laura. So I'll just quickly finish up here. So our course schedule, of course today is our third webinar. We'll meet again for a fourth time on Monday at 2 o'clock Eastern, same place and same time. You're, of course, more than welcome to work towards a certificate of completion. And if you are interested in doing so, we ask that you turn in all your homework assignments no later than Wednesday, November 6. And as always, if you have questions, feel free to call or email us. We're here to help you. So to move on to our topic, I am so pleased to introduce today our speaker, Linda Taddick. Linda is the Executive Director for the Audiovisual Archive Network, an independent nonprofit digital library and preservation service for historical sound and moving image collections. She consults and lectures on digital asset management, audiovisual and digital preservation, and metadata with a diverse group of clients. And from 2004 to 2011, Linda was an adjunct professor at NYU's Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Graduate Degree Program. She has more than 25 years of experience working with and managing audiovisual, digital and broadcasting and has also served previously as the president of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. Linda, we are so happy to have you on board today. Thank you for joining us. Thanks, Jenny. Hello, everyone. And thank you to the Heritage Preservation CCAHA for inviting me to participate in this webinar. Now, I do have apologies for the large number of PowerPoint slides for those of you who have downloaded the PDF version of the presentation, but there are many, many formats, the video formats, and in order to identify them, I definitely wanted to give you some detailed images and in fact the color version of the PowerPoint presentation is very important because so many aspects of identification and video formats actually relies on color, what is the color of a videocassette. So let's get going here. So what we'll be covering today are the physical properties and not just a video, but also of optical media, preservation issues for all the media and formats and identification. What we will not be covering is digitization. That's going to be covered next week. Cataloging and metadata, which I know some of you are hoping it would be covered, however, we will not be covering that as well. So the resources that are online, there's a bibliography, a web-based reading. There is a list of video preservation labs in the U.S. I'm sorry for those of you not in the U.S., but these are folks who definitely have experience in working with archival video preservation, with many archives around the world actually. And then there is a list of current video formats which we will be referring to during the presentation. Now there is an additional resource up there which I put up there basically just listing all the formats, video formats, which we will be discussing today as a kind of a cheat sheet for you to keep track because we're going to cover like 30 formats. There's a lot. So let's get started. We're going to start with video. In brief, if it has brackets, it's film. It's not video. Now those of you who attended Sarah Stodderman's presentation on audio, you probably have already heard some of this information where audio tape and video tape are both magnetic media. So video shares some aspects of physical properties with audio tape as well. Video can come in real or cassette form so sometimes it can be confusing to identify, oh, is this video or is it audio? And also video can carry both analog and digital signals just like audio tape. So the primary concerns with video is that boy, there are just so many formats so identification can be difficult. You have format obsolescence. Why are there so many formats? Well, many of them have become obsolete over time. It has a short life expectancy and the concerns as well for like any of the environmental, organic, any inherent parts of the medium that can contribute to signal degradation and also what you human beings can be doing to disturb or deteriorate that video. So how did videotape started? Well, thank you, Bing Crosby. Okay, he actually first started funding development of audio tape because as he was doing radio broadcasts, he wanted to perfect his performance and so he wanted to record in advance and then he decided to do the same thing with video since television had come around. He wanted to record his television performances. So he gave funding to MPEX, a startup, to start developing magnetic videotape. So the original market was in broadcasting. Now like other time-based media, even though it started out in broadcasting, it quickly then became the format that was developed for the consumer market. Now videotape was never, ever intended as a preservation medium. Now there are over 64 formats that have been introduced since 1956 and unfortunately most are obsolete and we're going to be covering 30 of them today. But before we start delving into them, let's first try to understand the general preservation concerns that are based on videotape's physical properties. So here we go. Now this diagram here is from Van Bogart's clear document on magnetic tape storage and handling and I believe it's also a reference for several other presentations or webinars in this series. So just quickly because you can actually look at the document. It's a really wonderful document. On the very bottom you have the backcoat. That's a thin ribbon on which everything else sits on top. The substrate is made of polyester and it is the carrier on which the binder and the magnetic particle sit. The binder, which is that orange area there, on the top of it, that holds the magnetic particles which contain the information. It holds the lubricant. And so in a way, like the metaphor that's often used is like jello. Basically it's jello with marshmallows and fruit and it's all held on top by the top coat which acts as a skin. Now all of these properties have some problems. Of the six, there are four that contribute to signal degradation. So we're going to go quickly through each of these and discuss what some of the issues are with them. So the binder. Now the binder holds magnetic particles as the information again and this is unfortunately the weakest in videotape because if there is moisture in the air and I know that several of you who have signed on are in very high humidity environments so this is a big concern. It can contribute to hydrolysis or commonly called sticky shed syndrome. So the binder starts breaking apart and when it starts breaking apart the magnetic particles are then shed. That's why it's like sticky. The binder starts breaking apart becomes sticky and the magnetic particles then get shed when the tape is played. Now the shedding tapes can also be damaged tapes that are then played in the deck after this one videotape that is shedding because then it can stick on it, it can damage the subsequent tapes. And then once you start losing magnetic particles then from the shedding it can cause dropouts in the signal. Now one of the resources that is on your bibliography is the Artifact Atlas which is hosted at BEDAC which is a video preservation organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. And so I encourage you to look at these actual examples of dropouts and some of the other problems that we'll be discussing. Binder, hydrolysis can also cause mold on tapes and again those of you who live in high humidity environments you probably already have moldy tapes and this photograph here is from Quad Tape Transfer and this website also has several other images of mold and other deterioration problems in two inch quad tapes but still it's applicable to most video formats. So how can you treat hydrolysis? Once it starts it can't be permanently stopped. Now you can bake tapes in a convection oven of course in more of a scientific convection oven not the one you might have in your kitchen. If you have experience in order to do this you can probably set up a lab and if you have enough tapes you can set up a lab to do it in your own facility. That you take it to a professional to have it baked. Once it is baked then you have to transfer the content pretty soon after it has been baked while it has been stabilized. Treating the mold you must carefully remove that mold and again I would highly recommend unless you have a lab set up to deal with mold that you take it to a professional to have that mold cleaned off because not only can you ruin the tape if you don't know how to do it correctly but you can also damage your health spores. Okay lubricant that's the second component of videotape after binder that we'll talk about. The lubricant helps the tape move through the decks as you might imagine however it just naturally drives out over time and especially hot and dry environments will accelerate it. So dry tapes can become brittle and they can get stuck in those playback decks which will then damage the tapes. So to treat this lubricant loss they can be lubricated but again take it to professional because if you over lubricate it it can cause signal loss. Okay the magnetic particles this is critical because again these store the information and they're held in the binder and any magnetic particle loss is irretrievable there is nothing you can do about it. So if you have magnetic particle degradation how do you know it's because you have to diminish hue or color and reduce sound. So and there are several different kinds of magnetic particles. So the first ones were iron oxide then they started to improve on that and they developed cobalt doped iron oxide for all the chemists out there. Then they developed chromium oxide or CRO2 which you would find available in some early VHS tapes and in small format cassettes. Now all of these have oxide in the names and the thing is moisture plus oxide equals rust and so oxide based magnetic particles they can degrade in high humidity environments. So trying to take care of that problem then we have the barium spherite magnetic particles were developed. It has a longer life expectancy than the metal particulate or MP which I'm going to discuss next but it's not as efficient for recording. So most tapes today are created with metal particulate pigments or magnetic particles and it's been used from beta SP to the present. And so these MP particles they are coated for protection against the moisture in the air so they can not deteriorate as quickly within a high humidity environment but on the other hand if they really get immersed in water then it's very difficult to restore these tapes. Now ME tapes even though so we'll be hearing about ME quite a bit during this presentation. Metal evaporated tapes. They don't have a binder and the magnetic particles are laid down directly on the tape substrate. You will find these in the very small format cassettes that you have in your collections. DVKM, MiniDV, the Hi8 to Digital, A8 tapes. They have a thinner magnetic coating so the tapes are more fragile. Just think these little tiny cassettes which basically look like audio cassettes. You can store up to two hours of content so these are very thin tapes. They're very fragile. If you do repeated playing or if you leave as a tape or if you leave them in pause it can damage the tape which can result in particle loss. Quotes that we all say is like we follow a five play rule. So don't play any of these ME tapes more than five times and then you have to transfer it. So avoiding particle loss again once it is gone it is gone. So keep the tapes cool and dry just to try to slow down the loss. Transfer content from those ME tapes those small ones I was just discussing as soon as possible. Don't leave tapes in pause. Don't play them more than five times before you transfer them. Of course if you see evidence of nanoparticle loss then you should transfer that content right away. The substrate this is another component of videotape. This is made of polyester very thickness depending on the format and this supports the magnetic coating the binder and everything else is on it. So it's chemically stable because it is polyester but it can stretch and it can be stretched by a poor tape pack which we'll get into in a little bit and high humidity and temperature and if it stretches though the control track can be damaged and the tape won't run through the deck. So the control track now this isn't a physical property but it impacts whether an analog tape can be read. The control track it basically acts like a film sprocket. It's a pulse that's on the tape along the edge that drives the tape through the videotape recorder the VTR according to the speed that's recorded on the control track. So if it's damaged you can have dropouts on the tape it will ruin the sync between the tape and the VTR and you can also see glitches. So to avoid substrate deformation so again store tapes in a cool and dry environment that's like the mantra make sure the tape has an even pack with no pop strands hopefully you can see this on this image where you can see there's some ridges on that tape that's there that's bad so make sure that it's as flat as possible. Okay so basic parts of videotape conservation so videotape life expectancy so now this doesn't mean a fixed expiration date like it's all of a sudden going to disappear on December 31st 2013 but it means that there is the tape or the signal is starting to deteriorate so you really should transfer that content so for videotape in general it's between five to fifty years but of course it definitely depends on the format and the tape stock and the storage environment so what can you do then to extend that life expectancy? Little steps you can just make sure that that tape every single videocassette based tape not real the cassette based tapes they have some kind of record and save tab or button on it and what we'll do is we go through the formats as I'll be pointing out to you where you can find the save record button make sure it is turned off to save. Okay store the tape standing up because if they're stored flat gravity will loosen the tightness of the tape pack and again the tape should have an even flat line but no pop strands wind to the head or to the end don't ever leave the tape exposed in the plate in the light moisture from the humidity in the air to come into the tape and can damage the tape rehouse the tape to inert plastic containers and you should prioritize rehouse in the tapes that are already in cards there are some tapes that are in cardboard containers because again the cardboard, the acid and the paper accelerates hydrolysis and mold and likewise remove any paper inserts like you might have extra labels or other kind of information that's on paper inside the cases that could hold important information definitely save the paper but take it out of the container and make sure that you have some kind of metadata to link the videotape to whatever insert you took out if it has important information on it now the macro environment is a storage environment don't store tapes in non-archival or stock boxes and often times you'll just see archives which are just storing the videotape in the videotape stock the manufacturer stock box that it came in but take it out of there put them in archival boxes because again the cardboard will accelerate hydrolysis use metal shells definitely not wood because the wood attracts moisture keep them in cool and dry environments and will go through the ANSI standard into the stand for what the ideal environment should be and the good news is that magnetic media does not need to be stored in as cold an environment as film here is the ANSI standard for short term, medium term and long term storage so again what you'll notice here just quickly going through it you'll see for short term storage it can be in a higher temperature medium term is in the middle long term storage so it should be cold and dry so let's go into some other tips don't ever store your videotape above 65% relative humidity now I know that that can be very difficult for those of you who are in very high humidity environments but that is at the rate when fungal growth will occur you'll start having mold on your tape and videotape shouldn't be stored below 45 degrees Fahrenheit that's a manufacturer recommendation because storage below that can result in binder breakdown storage general tips the higher temperature must be balanced by lower humidity fluctuations can actually be more damaging to the tape than having some tape consistently stored at a high temperature or humidity so prioritization let's talk about this and then we're going to jump into the formats now the Ults tape should not necessarily be preserved first we're talking about the media itself of course you have your own based on content you might want to prioritize transferring tape but that is based on your own rules on what is important content but for the physical properties of the tapes then consider the condition of the tape the inherent format stability which we'll be going over when we discuss individual formats the storage environment that the tape has been in over its entire storage life and how often it has been used so how would you prioritize this is going to be a poll question so keep an eye on that those of you who have printed out the handout already you can be amusing over this as we go through and discuss the various formats so a good new three examples an old tape that's a two inch video reel a middle child that's a three quarter enchumatic and then the younger kid on the block is the mini dv and so it describes the age the different storage environments they've been in over time and how often they've been used and whether they're obsolete so we're going to come back to this poll at slide 159 yes we have 100 more slides to go through but it will go quickly I promise and at that point then you'll complete the poll and then we'll see what you all think after hearing about all these various formats okay quickly quickly Amy like one or two questions on conservation actions and to the format yes Linda we did have a few questions that came up and one that I thought was really relevant to a lot of people here there's Aaron from Louisville Kentucky said he had a question about that a lot of meetings at AMIA and IASA there have been a lot of talk about not bothering to rehouse videos because they have such a short life span any time to basically save your money or instead do you have any comment on that? I think that if collections if you have thousands of videotapes then yes you might as well just you know put the cost towards transferring right away on the other hand though if you know that you won't be able to transfer them I mean these videotapes again it depends on the storage how long they might the life expectancy could be so if you have videotapes that are in cardboard containers I would definitely rehouse those right away you know you don't have to rehouse everything but go and identify the ones that are most important and then segregate them though from the videotapes that are still going to be in cardboard containers or in cardboard boxes because then they aren't impacted by any of the moisture that might come in the air you know based on the acidic qualities of those boxes or the containers. Great. I have one more question for you I think your discussion of the metal evaporated tapes kind of scared some people that five play rule some people are saying that a lot of their collections had been put on to that format for preservation purposes and other folks are wondering is there does that go by any other names any brand names that they should be aware of to look out for? Well as we go through the tapes I had and you'll notice that in the handouts in the slides which they can of course refer to great you guys did such a great job in making the PDF of those. I'm going to show you how you can identify the tape regardless of the manufacturer where you can look for the ME or the MP symbol so you can go through and you can identify what tapes are metal evaporated. Great. So I know you have tons of information to get to so we'll try and address more questions later though. Okay great. Alright so let's keep on going and let's start talking about formats. Format obsolescence. Okay what does obsolete mean in this context? Well the stock is no longer manufactured and the playback equipment is no longer manufactured with old decks and limited supply and it's the lack of access to playback equipment that is the most critical factor here for obsolescence because if you don't have something to play the tape back on you can't preserve it so that's what you really need to pay attention to. Endangered can be where the format rather than being obsolete if there is an adequate supply of operating playback decks that you can acquire but those are still endangered because the decks themselves are no longer being manufactured. So the wake up call. This is one of the handouts that I have provided to you all. The video stock index manufactured as of October 2013. Now this list here, this chart is not meant to tell you oh these are the formats you should be transferring to because you really should try to move away from transferring content from video to video but what this is is just telling you uh oh, look on that right part of the sheet where it lists the decks and the decks which are being manufactured and I have a column there for combo units so if a format no longer has a dedicated format playback deck that's in that Sony and Panasonic column so basically they're creating decks where you can play multiple formats you should probably go out and try if you intend to do transferring or playback of the formats of any of these formats you should go out now and buy those decks especially the dedicated decks if you can afford it or the combo units. So that's the purpose of that handout. So digitization is preservation. As I just mentioned you pretty much that's all you can do. You have to digitize your preservation because video is going away. It is dying. Before transferring now we're going to go through formats really quickly. I might not be able to get to all of them at the end but what I want to do is help you to be able to identify the format that you have to help you identify the tapes or identify just basically by visual identification the maximum running of that tape because a label might say that a work is 21 minutes and 30 seconds but how can you really trust it and you're going to be either wanting to transfer it yourself in-house and so you want to estimate then what would be your digital storage if you're digitizing it or if you're sending it out you want to be able to tell the vendor well this is the format and this is roughly then the running time the maximum running time so they can give you an estimate. And then you need to identify the broadcast standard in TSC which is used here in the US PAL which is used in the majority of the rest of the world and CCAM which is the broadcast standard in French speaking countries. So format identification learn how to identify the physical format and its required playback equipment. So as I mentioned before videotape comes in two packages there's a real and look this kind of looks like an audio tape but it's video and it comes in cassette forms and of many kinds of sizes and colors. So now we're going to jump into the formats we're going to start with the oldest going quickly through them that's the two inch quad half inch and one inch. So the first videotape format was a two inch quad developed by Ampex in 1956 as we just learned from Bing Crosby's financial support and as you can see it was installed in broadcasting organizations it first recorded only black and white with color added a few years later and you can see here that it immediately started winning technical Emmys and people wanted it they could understand the value. Here's a picture of that first two inch quad and look at the cost of it boy not only was the deck of self-expense of the tape was expensive and then you could only play it excuse me 30 times before you could damage the tape excuse me I need to get a little bit of water okay now I want to just show you some pictures of the equipment and how the tape is threaded through the deck now I need to give credit to an organization Outron Technologies Broadcast Store.com which let me come into their facility for an afternoon takeover and photographs the vast majority of the formats of the equipment you'll see here they're really very generous and then let's go through the tape threading so those of you who are familiar with film flatbeds this should look a little bit familiar here so the tape comes in here and then it goes across the head and then it goes out here from the right so it looks very very similar to a film playback deck this is what the case might look like they're very large and they get to 20 pounds they're very heavy the width of the tape just so that you can see so we have a 2 inch on the right and then we have a 1 inch for comparison on the left and if you want to try now the real sizes can come in a variety of sizes and the size of course determines the running time so the chart there at quad tape transfer gives you a chart there for identifying okay this is the real size and this could be the maximum running time of the tape the problem for 2 inch video reel is the actual the reel itself not the tape which is the foam flange we're going to look at a picture of that and then it has glue as well as the foam and that can deteriorate and that can get onto the tape some of the 2 inch containers also have shedding foam that then sticks to the tape and here's an example of a photo from quad tape transfer on the right you'll see that the foam flange is one that has that little edge around the side and it's flat with that no flat reel that does not have foam so here are types of foam underneath if you opened up that reel this is what it would look like and then there's an example of foam deterioration there on the right so again what happens is that foam can just come off onto the tape and get it all gooey so it has to get cleaned out before transfer summary this is obsolete definitely obsolete half inch open reel was actually the next format that was developed it was a prosumer format it was a portable deck with an attached camera it's used you might find in your collections from public access television meeting recordings school abuse video artists lots of video artists used this format and for ENG or electronic news gathering there are 2 versions but the EIAJ is the one that became the standard so here's a picture you can have a deck from scene savers now look at this it looks like an audio reel to reel player but you know it's not an audio reel to reel player because you can see color because audio tape of course wasn't colored didn't have a picture and also then you would have the model members you could do the research on that this is what the cases might look like here's an example on the left and then the one on the right this is a half inch tape case where it feels a bit like soft plastic it ends up like a book or like a DVD jewel case half inch open reel again it looks a bit like it could be an audio reel which I have an example of it down there on the right especially because audio reels can also come in the same size as that half inch open reel so we have half inch video tape width and then we have the one quarter inch audio tape width on the right now of course that's leader that's not actually tape there on the right you can also have half inch audio tape we'll actually look at the the reel itself and see if it says video on it the running time would be roughly 30 minutes it can be black and white or color and again like two inch quad is audio reels and it's extremely rare to find both the decks parts and to find a facility that can transfer it one inch open reel was then developed after the two inch tape to become the next studio or broadcasting format much more portable it could be used in the studio and also out in the field and also archives used it those of you who did preservation of the video in the 80s and into the 90s it was often used as the preservation format for transferring other video tape formats these are what the decks look like and the case looks very similar to the two inches just that is one inch here is one inch tape width I think that slide somehow is gone well the tape width one inch again compared to the two inch the summary is where it is obsolete however you can find used decks in parts because it had such wide use in broadcasting so there are many decks that are still out there that can be found so let's look into the format that you probably have a lot of these formats in your collections the older cassette formats three quarter inch umatic you notice that that's the last one that actually refers to the width of the tape in it's name or how it's referred to so we're going to look at these in some detail so the umatic was the first one that was developed 71 umatic sp came out in 86 so it replaced 16mm film for electronic news gathering you'll see it in two sizes one is a small cassette which is 20 minutes and a large cassette for 30 or 60 now one of the unique problems with these and again this is anecdotal rather than in some you know official guidebook is that archives have noticed that some stock batches in the first ten years have noticeable dropout so if you have three quarter inch umatic not umatic sp but umatic in your collection then from this time period you probably should take a look at them and start transferring them visual identification is there I'm going to get into the actual pictures of them here are the decks and the top one is the umatic deck the bottom one is the umatic sp deck which can also then play umatic decks I'm sorry umatic tapes now somebody who had signed up to the webinar they actually attached an image of this exact kind of tape so what you and they're wondering what is this well what you have is a umatic tape and it's a 20 minute small cassette you can tell that it's 20 minutes here and so this is where we're going to start going into how can you identify the maximum running time there it is on that right bottom side down there it's 20 minutes umatic 60 again we're not talking about umatic sp this is just umatic it's a 60 here is a 60 minute cassette here is this red button this is the only format that has this red button on the back of it and that is the record save button take those out pop those out use them as confetti you know but you need to remove them so that they're not accidentally recorded over now we're jumping into sp so the umatic sp here's a small cassette there again is that red button there on the right now here's how you can identify whether there is a whether your tape is a umatic or a umatic sp okay so look here see there's no hole there and there is a hole above the red button there that if it has a hole above the red button that means it's an sp tape if it does not have a hole then that means it is a umatic and what this was was a sign because again this is from the analog note the digital era if the umatic sp then was just the deck itself would know whether it was playing an sp tape or a um regular umatic tape based on whether there was a hole or not okay how do you find out the maximum running time it's on the spine so there's 20 so you know that that's a 20 minute tape summary this is um an obsolete to endangered format the last deck was manufacturing 2008 and it's actually becoming difficult to find these decks and to find them that where they have usable parts beta max now beta max some of you probably have beta max in your collections even though vhs were in the format war and even though sony lost that war it used the beta max tape the format um as the foundation for its suite of beta cam suites of formats so here's a beta max beta max deck it's top loading here's the tape how can you tell that it is a beta max tape and not another kind of beta tape well there's that telltale b that little script kind of b that's on the tape up in the right corner the summary uh well it is obsolete it um the last deck was 2002 the active date range was up until 1986 okay vhs then that won the war so it was a consumer cassette based format used but it still was used to record original content like home movies you know schools uh recorded events local government event documentation and you can still find the tape uh stock is still manufactured today although very limited and you can only find the vcrs as part of combo dvd vhs units you have to be very careful because there are several formats that look like vhs tapes but they aren't so here's a professional vhs deck here's the front here's the back and here is where you can find the the running time here and then also this is the record save tab you have to break that off okay the summary the last dedicated deck was manufacturing 2008 now let's jump into the beta camp format I'm going to go through some of these formats really quickly because we I don't want to run out of time so but I want to spend some time on the beta camp format and also then on the smaller formats the uh 8 millimeter formats and then the mini dv format so let's just go through this as quickly as we can so uh beta camp formats so when somebody says oh I have a beta tape you have to make sure well are they talking about beta max or are they talking about beta camp beta sp did you beta which beta is it so the first beta camp formats were analog and they were standard depth or sd okay beta camp uh was developed in 1982 it is half inch just as uh beta max and also vhs tapes are half inch and width it has a metal particles which are the barium ferrite magnetic particles here is the beta camp front here is the tape back and you can see the record save tab for all of the beta camp formats tend to be on the side okay the maximum running time you can find it on the spine and also there on the back lower left so that says it's a 10 minute tape summary it is absolutely the stock is not manufactured you can play beta camp tapes though in a combo unit okay beta sp then with an excellent sp is for superior performance and this is the first tape stock that used the mp or metal particulate it's a professional format that was used in broadcasting uh oh looks like we've lost some of the slide images here we go okay beta sp decks look there are four uh different kinds of decks that I have here there are there's just a recorder there's a player and you can see here that down in the bottom right there is a pal dedicated uh uh deck and what that means is again it's that's a broadcast standard you need to know if you have pal or ntsc or secam so this is a pal dedicated deck okay the beta sp tape here's examples of the front the back and again the record set uh save tab is on the side the tape maximum running time you'll find that on the cassette lid so this is a 60 minute tape and the summary is uh the decks dedicated decks are no longer created they're no longer manufactured they can be played in a combo unit and you can still find some used decks and parts available so continuing with the beta camp formats now we're going to go into the digital formats and but the digital the sd the standard death not the high death format so these were the digital beta camp or digit beta and then there's some other broadcasting formats so the digital beta camp came out in 1993 it is standard death I'm not going to go through this technical information on what the digital signal is you guys can read that on your uh your hand out it is a professional format and it is also a common physical preservation format still used in archives in fact in the um the digital dilemma two reports that came out from the academy of motion picture arts and sciences they uh it was determined that public archives if they're not transferring video to um digital files what they tend to be transferring to is digital beta cam if they don't have the digital preservation infrastructure so people are still using digital beta even though it seems like the decks are no longer being manufactured this was there's an email out from Sony about two years ago saying they're going to start manufacturing the decks even though you can go on to their professional site and see that they're still selling the deck so digital beta tapes come in two sizes small and large here is the back and you can see there there's that record save tab and then down here you have to take next from running time the summary is and I have for the active date range I have 2012 is for the question mark just because again it's not certain if they really have truly stopped manufacturing a dedicated digital beta deck but you still can play them in a couple of combo units and they're definitely widely available okay now we're going to go through some of the more professional broadcasting tapes which I'll just go really quickly through because you might find them in your collections beta cam SX again these are standard depth this is a highly compressed signal decks no longer made these are yellow this is where the color coding comes into play so if it's beta cam SX you'll see the cases and the tapes are in yellow you will find the record save tab again on the side and the maximum running time the maximum running time both on the lid here and also then down there on the back okay the summary is where again there are no more dedicated decks that are being created the tapes can be played in a combo unit and let's keep going to the MPEG IMX so this is another beta cam digital format which plays an MPEG II flavor is again another professional broadcasting format you have an example of the MPEG IMX tape so again you have the running time which can be on the lid here and also down here in the left back bottom corner record save tab again is on the side so again they look exactly the same size both the SX and IMX just different colors so this is where the color coding comes into play IMX is the same as SX where the stock is still manufactured but there's no dedicated deck and it can be played in combo units the HD beta cam format so these are the last of the beta cam formats that we're discussing that's the HD cam format and the first one was developed out in 1997 it is a professional format the HD cam tape not the HD cam SR but the HD cam tapes have an orange lid it has two maximum running times because the camera if you're recording the camera then they're all the same size you have to look at the color coding and also what is called of course on the tape itself to identify what format it is the SR format which is the format that is the most common use today as people are still using videotape professionally it can record even up to 2K resolution and even some TV shows some sports events are recorded on it as well there was a big shortage of HD cam back in 2011 from the Japanese tsunami when the one facility that creates these tapes was flooded so that was really also another wake up call to the whole industry saying oops we don't have videotape anymore we need to start going digital HD cam SR tapes have a cyan colored lid they have two maximum running times again this is pretty much the only professional grade format that is still in active production both the stock and the decks are being manufactured so let's go into the small formats that are out there so there's 8mm tapes which were developed for the camcorder market they're pretty much the size of an audio cassette and then they have been superseded by the mini DV format of the 8mm formats I want to just give you a heads up there that look at if it's what's the metal particle there's MP and then you have high 8 which is MP and ME and of these formats high 8 is still being manufactured so here's a high 8 deck no longer manufactured here you can see here is it MP or ME this one is telling you that it's MP it's metal P plus it says MP here you go there it is you can see that that is MP right here high 8 tape back so you have the record save tab it's here on the spine that's over here on the edge high 8 tape can come in both MP and ME so again somebody was asking how do you know from different manufacturers what is what well here it says MP and then here it says ME so you really have to look to try to identify if you have an MB-ME tape okay 8mm video summary so of all of them the only stuff that is being manufactured is the high 8 tape the DV tape DV tapes formats so you probably have a lot of these in your collections because they are commonly used for oral histories and for also just recording events so let's just go into these the tape width is 1 quarter inch and all of these formats are standard depth except for you can record HDV and also DVC Pro HD okay the mini DV tapes 1995 started out in 1995 it captures a DV signal or DV25 again I'm really sorry I'm going to skip over the technical information because there isn't time all mini DV tapes are ME they are now evaporated so that's a critical thing for you to remember mini DV tapes are very tiny look at this it's not even like 3 inches long and they have 2 running times based on how it is being recorded in the camera and you note again that it is ME here you go there is where it says ME mini DV tape back and then the record save window is along the spine at the side mini DV tapes can also be used for both DV and for HDV recording it just depends on the camera that's being used you can see it's HDV and DV summary is for mini DV it is still in current use and it can still be played back in a combo unit DV cam then 1995 Sony developed this also DV25 stream which is at a higher speed though and all DV cam tapes are ME here's a DV cam deck that can also play mini DV tapes and here's an example of a DV cam tape again look here there's ME right there so you can tell what it is here's an example of the DV cam record on and one off so the off you can see the red in the window DV cam summary again is quarter inch and it is still in current production the stock is still being manufactured and you can still play it in several different kinds of combo units moving on to DVC Pro so this was developed by Panasonic and it comes in three different flavors DVC Pro, DVC Pro 50 and then HD and again you might have these in your collections because it can be used for all histories independent production DVC Pro media are interchangeable so basically depending on your camera or DVC Pro 50 on a DVC Pro tape and all DVC Pro tapes are MP not ME and that was a purposeful decision by Panasonic because Panasonic believed that the ME tapes would did not have as long life expectancy and were not as durable and so they specifically wanted to make MP tapes so here are some examples of some decks now if you have a small DVC Pro tape you have to use that adapter which is there on the right side DVC Pro tape lids are yellow and you can also record as I mentioned DVC Pro 50 on that media and there is where you can find it maximum anytime this is 66 minutes and there is the record save tab DVC Pro HD tapes have red lids again color coding DVC Pro summary it is currently manufactured the stock is manufactured you can find decks it is definitely available still out there but here is an example now look at all these different sizes DV cam on the top DVC Pro hi-8 down to itty bitty mini DV so you can see here kind of the sizes here on this graph there are many different kinds of small cassettes so let's go back to the poll so actually Jenny how do we do this poll do you bring it in there we go I'm going to go ahead and pull up the three options here sorry I was muted it takes a second to unmute myself and I'm afraid I'm going to have to cover up your slide to do that here we go I'll give you all just three seconds to fill it out and then we'll review what everybody pulled it looks like there is some clear some obvious pics right here alright it looks like about everyone we have a few more people clocking in but I think that's most everyone is this what you are expecting to see Linda it's actually can I scroll this down let me know when you want me to move these off okay so basically what do we have we have the number one I can see this people are saying the three quarter and number okay and then the second one folks are saying the two inch and then the and they're saying the mini dv is third okay that's really interesting well I agree with everybody who said the umatic should be transferred first you know number one actually yes if you could remove them Jenny I'm sorry so you can see the slide we're just talking about the content at all we're just talking about just looking at the format and the age oops my phone just clicked can you all hear me okay I guess I'm right okay great thank you alright based on the storage environment and how often it has been used okay the folks said the three quarter inch umatic absolutely it's from 1975 so it's within that 10 year first 10 year period when the stock might not be that good even though in the last 10 years it was stored in an excellent environment before that it was stored in a horrible environment you know high temperature high relative humidity and it also was heavily used so definitely yes I agree that should be the first no again content irrespective that would be the first format to be uh transferred okay now what folks said uh should be second was they mentioned that the two inch video reel should be transferred and they said third would be the mini dv I would probably actually go myself for the mini dv on the metal evaporated stock before the two inch video reel again we're not talking about content and the reason that I would say that is that two inch video reel even though it's the oldest it has been stored in a very good environment for most of its life and so it is still within its term of life expectancy whereas that mini dv it's on metal evaporated stock it's on the older end of the tape as well as 15 years old it's been stored in a high environment and it was heavily used and so I would probably want to get that content off that mini dv tape before the two inch tape you know but again people could you know it depends so much on the content of it but this is how I would prioritize but thank you everybody for really thinking about it and participating so let's go on and I am going to skip through these less common formats because again I tried to document them well thinking I wouldn't have time to cover everything and so you can look at the handouts and see the pictures of the formats and learn about them so I am going to skip through and get to the end of the video section let's see actually I can go through okay end of video literally not just of that segment but also about the video itself is really dying everybody knows it you know physical video is dying everything has to be transferred to digital formats so does anybody have any quick questions on video format identification? Linda I think there is a few questions not so much on necessarily the ID and perhaps you will get to these a little bit later and might want to defer but there were a few people that had questions on any basic maintenance or cleaning any tips for the actual playback machines? Yes and actually I believe that there are some good if you look at the documentation that I have the handout you can look at some of those sites and it also gives hints on it but basically what you need to do is if you have a collection and you believe that it is older tapes and they could be gumming up the the decks you should be using alcohol to clean them be extremely careful that you don't also touch the plastic parts on the deck you really should go through some train don't just open it up and try doing it you can look online as I mentioned and find some guidance on exactly how you should be doing it but you definitely should be cleaning those decks. Some other questions that we had go back to when you were talking about preservation and that idea of you really need to get that flat pack on the tape and how do you make sure you are actually doing that do you have any tips there? Well unfortunately the only way you can do that is actually by playing the tape in a deck and just running it slowly in real time as it goes through the deck so you can get the flat pack now the problem is though what people say on the other hand is sometimes it can be difficult to achieve a totally flat pack so don't risk wearing out your tape and damaging your tape by playing it too many times sometimes just make sure that then you know rewound either to the head or to the tails of the tape but that's the only way to try to get a flat pack just by actually playing the tape so we just want to make sure we're not leaving it in the middle of the tape there you know if you're taking something out of a deck alright there have already been some discussions about people wanting to perhaps do some reformatting on their own because of the size or scope of their collection and Philip from New York was asking if there are any thoughts on a good place or a good brand of a professional VHS deck to get. VHS decks are no longer manufactured so if you want to buy as far as like a dedicated professional VHS deck they're just no longer made so you have to buy a used one and so if you want to buy a used one not necessarily just go to eBay to buy one you might want to go to a company that actually has purchased old decks and they refurbish them so that you know that it's going to be playing right and it won't damage your tapes so I don't know I can mention there are some vendors who actually sell them but I don't also want to be doing commercials for them yes I would just say look at the list of vendors who do the transfers and you can give some of them a call you know I wish I could recommend some folks to you but I feel like I probably should not do that and call them and see if they have any decks that are available because if they're doing the reformatting themselves professionally then they have extra decks on hand as well as parts and they know where to find them well Joanna from Mexico City had a question about LTO tapes and wanted to know your thoughts about using those as the long term survival storage that gets into a very long answer LTO tape is not the same manufacturer as videotape it has some similarities but there are also some very different ones it depends on the generation it depends on your infrastructure and I would love to answer your question but I feel like I don't have the time to really get into it okay fair enough we only have an hour and a half so fair enough but I will go back one last question before we go off into the next section goes back more into the conservation and preservation section you had mentioned about the fact that the short term fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity are perhaps more damaging the sustained high temperatures can you maybe clarify just the environmental issues a little bit more what the problem is if there is fluctuation in temperature and relative humidity then that tape is being stressed just by the environment it can make it expand it can contract it can cause it to stretch out so that is why it is actually more dangerous than just having it even unfortunately at a high temperature high humidity is not good no matter what if it is consistently in a high humidity environment especially as I was mentioning 65% and above I mean you are destroying the tapes it is there in that kind of environment they definitely will not last very long but again it is why the fluctuating is worse though than having something to be okay it is cold today but fluctuating is worse than having a more consistent format because it can actually damage the tapes because it is just the physical nature of expanding and contracting great well we do have some more questions but we will save those for the end okay alright thank you alright so let us jump into optical media so optical media there are four kinds of formats there is laser disc, CDs, DVDs and blue ray we are not going to discuss laser disc because that was more of a consumer based distribution format for content what I want to focus on are the optical media formats where you can actually record content and there might be content on it that you need to preserve that you have created or acquired so we will jump into CDRs first now the CDR ROMs I just mentioned that is more the commercial distributed format those are like your audio CDs that you buy those are read only those are manufactured in a different way than the R's the content is stamped on so we are not going to discuss those CDRs which is recordable media and CDRW which is re-writeable but again we are focusing on recordable CDRs first were released in 1990 but really they didn't become affordable until the late 1990s and as you might be using them in your own organizations they are used for storing images, audio and smaller files and they have a limited storage capacity up to 700 gigs so as I was mentioning the CDR are recordable you can write on them CDRW are write and erase now these are not compatible with all CD devices playback devices so audio CDRs were in from the early 1990s and at that time they made a distinction between the audio and data CDs mainly just because it impacts the playing devices but the construction of them the physical properties are the same as CDR oh I'm sorry somebody just caught a typo there thank you Meg's not a gig sorry about that, thank you for catching it ok DVDRs I'm going to first go into the DVDs rather than talk about the physical properties yet because they share CDs and DVDRs share some of the same physical properties so DVD minus R's were released in 1997 and the DVD plus R was released in 2002 what's the difference between them well basically the plus R was developed to have improved error management so if there was a skit for something it could correct more easily most of the drives today can play both although more commercial DVD video players favorite the minus R the RW is available in both minus R and plus R if I see a lot of people I'm sorry they're chatting and saying about the gigabytes no no no it is it's megabytes I'm sorry about that typo ok so the DVD minus R and plus R again you probably have them where you might be recording yourself they're a bit larger in size storage capacity 4.7 gigs similar construction to CDRs but there are two discs that are glued together so how can you tell if you have an RW or an R you can see here if you can see it in this image well enough there's an RW there so you can see this is a minus R this one's minus R and this one is a plus R and this plus R is an RW ok so how does this optical media work the R is the recordable one so they use a laser the laser writes data onto what they would call pits that are on the data layer the data layer in the CDs and DVD R's are made of an organic dye and the dye changes when the data is written on it now with the RW it's a face changing film that's used for the data layer rather than a dye otherwise the construction is pretty similar to the R's the data is written from the inner hub to the outer edge it follows grooves like an LP so if you hold up one of these CDs or DVD R's at a certain angle to the light and if you can see that some of the underneath it it is a darker area that darker area is the area that is being written so when the laser is reading the data then it uses there is a metal reflective layer that is in the media itself and so it points back to the laser photo sensor so just a quick diagram here of the CDR layers so you have the bottom which is the polycarbonate substrate that's the shiny side of the CD or of the DVD and then you have the data layer that is sitting on top of that polycarbonate substrate that's the organic dye you have the metal reflective layer the CD is made of gold, silver or silver alloy there is a lacquer just to go on top of it and then the label area is on the top where you might actually have a label or where commonly people would write on it DVDs are pretty much the same except it has two polycarbonate substrates so there is an additional one on top to help keep it stable and so there is glue in between those two layers and we are talking just about single sides here so the RW disc differences is where they are using a film rather than a dye and the metal reflective layer is a aluminum and the problem with aluminum is that it can oxidize it can deteriorate a lot faster than any of the gold or silver alloy media that is used in the R media formats so it definitely is not considered appropriate for long term storage the RWs now what are some of the problems here the substrate that's the bottom you could be reading from the under again that's the shiny side if you have smudges and dirt that's going to block the laser from being able to read the data now little scratches normally the laser can compensate for minor scratches but if you have a clump of minor scratches that acts the same as if it were a fingerprint that's going to block the laser from reading the information you can also have moisture that's absorbed into the disc through that substrate area which can then lead to the metal layer oxidizing so with the DVD the related issue to that is that if I mention there's glue that's holding the two parts together and so the glue can fall apart actually and so the DVD can fall apart or the glue can fail it can start deteriorating and if it starts deteriorating then that can open entry points for moisture creeping in which can then help deteriorate that media so the data layer is the next part we just talked about the underside of the substrate now the data layer is where the dye is now the organic dye again organic and so it's acceptable to several problems and the main one is actually it can fade from UV rays from light and also from heat and if that dye fades you can't read the data on that disc so there are three kinds of dyes there is cyanine which was the earliest dye and then there's some ways of identifying as I have here where depending on the kind of metal it's going to look a certain color that can help you identify what the dye might be and cyanine dye is the most sensitive to fading of the three kinds of dyes phthalo cyanine is considered to be more durable than cyanine and probably the most stable and that's why you'll find it often in what some manufacturers call their archival media they tend to be using phthalo cyanine dye then you have azo and the azo is going to look a bit green or blue depending on the media most DVD are use azo dye and when you test again there are different research organizations are testing the dyes and again everybody is always in search of the best long term storage media so they're testing these media and they think that maybe this could be the most resistant to UV rays however again the phthalo cyanine has supposedly the longest life expectancy so the metal reflective layer then that's the other part so as I was mentioning the gold ones are non corrosive and these are the ones that are going to be the archival media if a manufacturer says it's an archival CD and archival DVD they tend to be made out of gold and the media the metal reflective layer itself could last 100 years silver and silver alloy itself can be corrosive pollutants can impact it so those media that are made with silver and silver alloy metal reflective layers tend to have a life expectancy for a few decades now if you have mold on any of your optical media that usually means that it has an aluminum metal layer which would be a ROM disc or a an RW disc so what do these look like how can you determine so here is our images of underneath on the right side of these discs on the left you have DVDs on the right you have CDs so you can see these DVDs look the same these but we know that the top one is an R and the bottom one is an RW and that's because on the other side those are the examples I showed you before where you can look to see that it's an RW disc so that bottom one is on aluminum and the top one then is on a silver alloy so on the right then you have the CDRs and the one on the top right which is silver that is phthalo cyanide dye on silver alloy the bottom one then is one of these gold archival gold CDs so phthalo cyanide on gold so the problem is then with the label side so the label is literally again it's where a label can be affixed or it is often then where people will be writing now if you have a scratch on the label side it can harm that metal reflective layer which can then impact whether the laser can actually read you know it's going to bounce back from that metal layer to be able to read the information on it so if that is harmed then it might not be able to read the information and also if you have a sticky label on it then that label the stickiness can start deteriorating it can also then start breaking apart going down into that metal reflective layer as well Blu-ray is the most recent optical media and you can use it as a writable medium as well released in 2002 and the just the straight ahead R was released in 2005 basically what the CDs and DVDs were called RW the Blu-ray products were called RE for recordable erasable and so Blu-ray is used for storing larger files and also HD video it has larger storage capacity you can see that for single layer and then for dual layer capacity it's even larger differences are basically why is it called Blu-ray is because the laser is blue violet it's a different frequency than DVD which is a red laser a red frequency that's why it's called Blu-ray the dye here's the critical thing the dye in Blu-ray is inorganic so it's not going to have those fading properties as the regular organic dye that's in CDs and DVDs except for one of the versions which is anything that would be LTH that does use an organic dye so here are just some images of the different kinds of Blu-ray you have B,B,R,E the LTH which again is the one that has the organic dye and then the dual layer which has larger capacity there's also a version in broadcasting for non-take media so they developed out of a Blu-ray product EXTICAM so they developed this it's a Blu-ray based format it's used to shoot ENG it has higher beam rights but it is still writable and erasable format so what are the problems that can impact data readability while that organic dye can fade in light and heat the metal reflective layer can corrode media obsolescence as with everything poor handling that's what you can do so that would be fingerprints and scratches writing on the media the ink and scratch possibility and then you can also have the danger of erasing files on those RW or RE disks so what can you do to help these disks live longer well the life expectancy is basically 2 to 100 years it depends so much as we were just talking about the metal layer the dye the quality of the writing and the storage environment I mean if you store one of these disks on a car on a dashboard in the sun it's not going to last 100 years so what can be done to extend the LE okay little steps you can do you can rehouse them like with everything else in inert polypropylene jewel cases and again this would be for content that you want to last for a good long time remove any paper inserts same as you do with video store upright like books don't write directly on the media recording area so where you should be writing is in this inner hub area here where there's no information that's this area right here you could use a water soluble pen a very thin one and write just some kind of identifying mark like an identifying a unique ID an item ID whatever you could use to identify and of course in the metadata for that record then you're going to be tracking exactly what's on the content rather than adding the title or any other kind of information on to the writing area over here you don't want to add anything to the writing area here what some archives will do is see this number here this is the manufacturer number they'll just track in the metadata the manufacturer number that's already stamped on that inner hub and not even write anything period so this becomes on the inner hub even so this manufacturer number then becomes the unique identifier for the item micro steps again don't touch that under recording side because remember if you have all those the smudges you know anything on it that could then impact the layer I'm sorry the laser from being able to read the data to remove fingerprints smudges or other dirt use a very soft like a shami cloth or even like an eyeglass cleaner cloth and isopropyl alcohol now if you clean it you go in a straight motion go from the hub out because when the laser is writing the data they're going in grooves like an LP and so you could inadvertently make a scratch you know along that underside it goes in a groove motion and the laser could just hit a ride basically on that scratch versus and it will stop reading the information that's on the groove so go from straight go from the inner inner hub going out so if you're recording to media if you're using this actually as your storage medium don't fill up the disk you know make sure that there are blank space at the edges because sometimes if there's edge damage then of course it's going to be damaging the content on the and you won't be able to read the content that's on the disk because the media again it writes from the hub to the edge out don't use RW media for longer life expectancy use gold media with the OSI-9 die macro environment and keep out of the light keep it away from the light because those UV rays are going to cause the die or the data layer to fade try to store in archival boxes so again not in cardboard use metal shelves like with everything else not wood storage it can vary it depends on who you talk to basically in all of the different standard bodies but the temperature basically can be as cold as 41 and up to 68 and the relative humidity 30 to 50 but obsolescence is a critical factor here because these optical media formats they're going to become obsolete before the media dies you know being able to play it back is going to be disappearing even if say they say that an archival medium can last 100 years well there won't be really decks around to play that back in 100 years so that is a critical problem so get that content off with any AV media whether it's videotape, audio tape, optical media focus on preserving the content rather than the physical object but you want to keep that physical object alive as long as possible of course so you have the time and the funds to be able to preserve and get that content off it copy the files from optical media to hard drives or servers just get it off and I want to say thank you and I just added a picture of me they're holding a 2 inch quad case like as a fashion accessory basically you can see how huge those cases can be thanks to all the folks who allowed me to photograph, alter in technologies and broadcast store.com where I could photograph all those video formats and then thanks to all the other folks who also provided photographs and information so that's it with my presentation so I guess we can open it up for questions we have lots of questions for you Linda I'm sure you're ready to go we'll see how many we can take in the next 8 minutes or so but going to your last point that you just mentioned about preserving the original as best we can but ultimately there's this need to reformat a few people had questions over the course of your whole talk about do you still keep the originals after reformatting what do you do with these things or is it just best to always keep them unless they're completely dead so what's your take on it okay this is my personal opinion versus anything that's out there in literature or in any kind of standard if you have the storage capacity to hang on to the original media I would actually hang on to it even if you transferred it because it also depends on what you transferred it to so let's say that you have a very important video file and but then you wound up I'm sorry not video file but a videotape and you transfer the content into a very low res video file digital file and that might be all you could do today but maybe in the future you could transfer that videotape content to a better resolution file so hang on to it of course hopefully it's going to happen very quickly after you've gotten it off into a lower res format but hang on to it just in case you have the opportunity to do it better in the future even though while it's sitting on the shelf that original media is deteriorating you know every second passes by but once the content is totally gone and there's nothing on it is not salvageable then definitely you don't need to hang on to it okay great so a mixed answer there but yeah so there was also a discussion in the chat box that I thought you love to have you weigh in too Flavia from Boston had said that she heard that Blu-ray deaths were going to disappear from the market soon and have you heard that and then there's into some discussion about well what's next you know what's the next emerging thing that we're going to have to worry about right oh boy well the thing with Blu-ray is I it didn't have much you know uptake in both in well I guess in libraries you know you have a choice of buying a DVD or a Blu-ray but again that's more for commercial releases so we're talking here more about for purposes of this discussion about recordable media and no you're correct I mean it really has not had much uptake as far as recordable media goes every media disappears I mean look at all the obsolete formats we just looked at it's definitely going to be gone I mean it will be gone and there will be another format around the corner in fact there is something that was just announced this week about it format that will last a million years but the problem with any format that comes out is that will you have that playback opportunity in the future in a million years can you play it back which is one of the things I've been stressing here about the obsolete lessons of the playback materials whether it's optical media or any of these video formats so the thing is I think is to not worry so much about the physical medium that you're going to store it to what will be a format for recording but everything is going media less everything has to go digital which will be the topic of another webinar or another conversation so if you're transferring content now transfer it to a digital file but then make sure you have a digital preservation strategy for keeping those files alive over time Linda I'm just going to this is Jenny I'm just going to hop in here real quick and pull over a link to the homework assignment for this webinar and then also I'm going to ask all our folks who are watching in a group only one person logged in but multiple people are trying to earn that certificate of completion if your group leader could just go ahead and put in your everyone who's watching with you that will be great and we have about six more minutes left so Laura you have a ton of more questions yes so I'm just going to go from the top of my list on down as long as we have time both for videotape and you were mentioning for the optical disc as well there is this chance for mold and you had mentioned cleaning techniques for the optical disc but someone had had a question about what do you do with mold for on videotape for that I would I would send it out to a professional cleaner who can take that mold off because again you can if you don't know what you're doing you can because we have to take the tape out of the cassette itself which again if you don't know what you're doing you can damage it you have to have the appropriate equipment to be able to clean it off and clean it off well so for that I would definitely recommend sending it to a provider of which there aren't that many who can actually get mold off of tapes but on that handout of vendors you can contact any of them if you call them and contact them and ask them you know can you remove mold from videotape they will tell you yes or no they're not going to tell you they can do it if they don't know how to do it we have a someone in the group from Germany and they posted that they said in Germany there's also a format of video 2000 that was used in the 1980s do you have any experience with those I do not know what that is so that is great case of stumps the expert there yeah I'm going to write that down and look it up thank you so there were a few related questions and I'm going to ask them just as they were typed so that I don't perhaps misinterpret what people are saying but they all seem to be related so there's three questions because do you think we should double up on archival by HDD data copy and a physical disk version and related to that was what kind of HDD and then the last one was where do flash drives fit into all of this oh boy I could really I would pull in LTO into this conversation as well I don't know if I'll be stepping on the toes of the reformatting presentation if I go into those if I answer those questions I mean what do you think I would say go ahead and answer because I think next week we're just going to be going into it more in depth okay okay for the HDD medium the external hard drives if you want to store content on that the main thing is also redundancy don't just have one copy of a file you want to have two if not three I would recommend you to have three copies on all of this different media the external hard drives try to not go with a size that is more than a terabyte just because there has been there have been some reports about the larger I mean it's really tempting boy go get much larger terabyte storage device but there are stories about those that have larger storages where it's basically it's writing the information around Groove it's magnetic media actually as well and so they have to make those those to be very narrow they're all squished together really fine and there's more of a chance to fail I mean I'm just telling you about reports that have come out about these media so try to copy them on to hard drives that are no more than one terabyte maximum size don't fill up the whole disk again and have multiple copies if you go to LTO then you need to be able to have the technology again you have to keep up with the different generations so you have like with LTO it's only two generations backwards readable and one generation backwards writable so then you have to be able to make sure that your technology plan that you're going to be upgrading every two generations to LTO tape index that's when consideration there but I could go into a whole lot more about this flash drives flash drives can be expensive I mean they're going to be coming down but it's as far as a storage medium there aren't people who are really using it seriously for storage itself only flash drives I mean they'll be using it within a more enterprise level storage system mainly just to help with performance but not as storage itself I don't know did that answer help I think so and I think that brings us to the end of our time as well so okay I will go ahead and just jump in here and remind everyone that our next webinar is Monday at two o'clock same place Linda and Laura thank you so so much this was a fantastic presentation well thank you thanks for having me and I'm sorry there was just way too much information but hopefully people can just refer to the resources you know the PowerPoint handout well this will be a great resource down the road too and we've had a lot of folks comment that they're going to definitely watch this again so thank you so much and thank you to everyone who's logged in we'll see you on Monday have a great weekend