archiving & preservation

There’s a very large amount of older undigitised archive audio and video material around the world stored mostly on tape based formats and grooved media. It is sometimes not stored well and can have a number of physical issues that need addressing before good and safe playback can be attained.

Migrating audio and video recordings away from tape to digital file based formats is becoming increasingly needed and recommended. Below are some of the key reasons:

• Magnetic tape can and does degrade making playback difficult, more expensive and sometimes impossible
• Availability of key parts in some tape machines, especially in video, has become poor. Many formats are now at risk as machines become harder to service and repair.
• Digital storage space in hard drives, solid state drives or in the cloud has become and is increasingly becoming larger and cheaper.

We are able to support and work with archives, institutions, museums and others who need to migrate, preserve or manage their tape based archives.