1/2 inch EIAJ skipfield reel to reel video

History

Before Betamax and VHS, the main consumer video recording formats used half inch reel to reel tape with these small suitcased sized recorders. Although aimed at consumers these were very expensive for the time. The EIAJ format in type 1, black and white and type 2, colour specification was the most popular format and will account for the majority of recordings but there was an earlier 1960′s format termed ‘skip field’ that used the same tape width but is not compatible with the later EIAJ machines. We are able to transfer both types, having Sony CV machines, Shibaden and Hitachi EIAJ models and even a Panasonic time lapse machine.

Transfer

These domestic 1/2 inch open reel to reel video tapes can be particularly tricky to transfer well, due to the often deteriorated state the tapes can get into, the age and lack of availability of spares for the machines themselves and the inherent lack of tape interchangeability that this early domestic format has.

In addition to the rarity of working machines and lack of spares, many of these 1/2 inch tapes have physically degraded over the years as they can be over 40 years old. Tapes which have binder problems, shedding oxide or tapes with mould growth must be treated before a successful transfer can be made. These types of tape problem are common with this format and Sony branded Helical Scan tapes can sometimes be the worst. We have sucessfully restored and digitised a range of tapes though including part of a batch found at Bristol City Football Club.

While the quality is not high with this video format and often has inherent visual issues such as dropouts, skew and head clogs due to shedding the material recorded is sometimes of a very valuable nature and much less common than recordings made on later and often cheaper domestic equipment.

We would always recommend transfer to an uncompressed AVI or Quicktime file and DVD Video or MP4 encoded files created from the uncompressed master with this format.