[TUHS] reading historic magnetic tapes

[Steve Simon]

i worked for some years on video and film archive restoration.

baking old, badly stored magnetic tapes prior to reading them is a common practice.

my favourite was a story of a rock band (i think the stones) who wanted to play an old 24 track master tape but discovered it seemed to be stuck together.

there is a nasty affliction of mag tapes called sticky vinegar syndrome, so they did the right thing and sent a section of tape for analysis.

the results came back: the tape had suffered impregnation with “vodka and coke”.

some things never change.

-Steve