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Videotapes

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Articles

Dance Videotapes at Risk
Dance Heritage Coalition
Videotape is extensively used by the dance community to document performances. This detailed article discusses the risks to videotape by physical deterioration and obsolescence. It also contains recommendations for improving storage conditions, safe handling and playback and copying and reformatting.
http://www.danceheritage.org/publications/dance_video_risks.html
Also available in .pdf.
Safekept
Historical Digital Video Preservation Reformatting Project : a Report
Media Matters (Date Created: Jun 2004)
This report (88 p., 2MB) was undertaken on behalf of the Dance Heritage Coalition and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It is intended that the results of this research will be used as the basis of a nationally-accepted model, providing a technical foundation to those engaged in dance documentation and preservation, as well as others who use videotape to document their experiences and research. The report describes some of the problems with lossy compression compared to the viability of JPEG 2000 compression as a lossless alternative. Also discussed is the concept of 'file wrappers' by audiovisual digital media which combines video files, audio files, and metadata into a single, unified format. A chief goal of this report was to endorse a specific file format to use for the preservation of dance material. The report concludes by recommending the file format Material Exchange Format (MXF) container format. The report also recommends use of JPEG 2000 compression, as it serves preservation needs and is affordable to implement.
http://www.danceheritage.org/preservation/Digital_Video_Preservation_R
eport.doc
Historical Research into Four Media Installations
Wijers, Gaby; van Saaze, Vivian (Date Created: Dec 2003)
Four case studies are used to illustrate the various aspects of the documentation, registration and preservation of multimedia art. The main objectives of the study were to identify what particular aesthetic and technical elements are essential, and should be preserved in order to ensure that the integrity and significance of the work remain intact during future presentations and to identify the criteria for preservation and re-installation.
http://www.montevideo.nl/en/nieuws/detail.php?id=52&archief=ja&showjaa
r=2003&beginjaar=2004
Transferring Old Analog Videotapes to a New Digital Medium
Wheeler, Jim (Date Created: Jan 2006)
The paper focusses on archiving video.
http://www.wheelertapeforensics.com/ArchivePaper.pdf

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Organisations and Websites

Getting to Disk-based Loss-less Digital Video Preservation
National Library of Medicine
This website includes the presentations and summary notes from an event held on 1 August, 2005, at Maryland (U.S.). Sessions include prospects and challenges of migrating to digital moving image archives, video preservation workflows, motion JPEG 2000 and video archiving.
http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/VideoArchivists2005/
Conference held at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland (US) on 1 August, 2005.
Historical Immaterial Variable Media Art / Video Art Preservation : Studies and Suggestions
Danish Video Art Data Bank (Last Updated: Nov 2004) (Denmark)
This website concentrated on the preservation of videotapes. It covered a wide range of aspects including storage, handling, preservation strategies, obsolescence ratings and case studies. It also Included a bibliography and links to other sites of interest.
http://www.videokunst-danmark.dk/preservation/start-2.htm
Video Preservation
Frost, Hannah (ed.) In: CoOL Conservation OnLine : Resources for Conservation Professionals (Regularly Updated)
A bibliography of resources on the preservation of video recordings, maintained on the Conservation Online (CoOL) website. The bibliography includes resources on video media and formats, care and preservation best practice guidelines, as well as resources on digital video formats and organisations involved in video preservation.
http://cool.conservation-us.org/bytopic/video/
Video Preservation Website
Messier, Paul; Vitale, Timothy (Date Created: 2007) (United States of America)
This website encourages preservation of historic video using digital capture to create individual video files, which would be stored on mass storage media such as hard drives (HDD) or data tape (DT). The site includes images and documentation for historic videotape equipment.
http://videopreservation.stanford.edu/index.html

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Policies, Strategies & Guidelines

Dance Videotapes at Risk
Dance Heritage Coalition
Videotape is extensively used by the dance community to document performances. This detailed article discusses the risks to videotape by physical deterioration and obsolescence. It also contains recommendations for improving storage conditions, safe handling and playback and copying and reformatting.
http://www.danceheritage.org/publications/dance_video_risks.html
Also available in .pdf.
Short Guidelines for Video Digitisation
Pavuza, Franz (Date Created: Aug 2008)
This brief guideline (8 p.) provides practical advice on procedures for digitisation of videotapes and includes a useful list of references (3 p.).
http://www.tape-online.net/Short_Guidelines_Video_Digitisation.pdf
Videotape Identification and Assessment Guide
Texas Commission on the Arts (Date Created: 2005) (United States of America)
This guide covers 15 common video formats. Topics covered include format identification, risks to longevity of videotape, condition assessment, and conservation actions. There is also a glossary and links to resources.
http://www.arts.state.tx.us/video/
Also available as PDF http://www.arts.state.tx.us/video/pdf/video.pdf.
Historical Videotape Preservation Handbook
Wheeler, Jim (Date Created: 2002)
This document covers videotape formats, common problems, care and handling, cleaning and maintenance, risk management and preservation. Also included is an extensive glossary and a list of related organisations, websites and other resources.
http://www.media-matters.net/docs/resources/Traditional%20Audiovisual%
20Preservation/WheelerVideo.pdf

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Projects and Case Studies

Historical Research into Four Media Installations
Wijers, Gaby; van Saaze, Vivian (Date Created: Dec 2003)
Four case studies are used to illustrate the various aspects of the documentation, registration and preservation of multimedia art. The main objectives of the study were to identify what particular aesthetic and technical elements are essential, and should be preserved in order to ensure that the integrity and significance of the work remain intact during future presentations and to identify the criteria for preservation and re-installation.
http://www.montevideo.nl/en/nieuws/detail.php?id=52&archief=ja&showjaa
r=2003&beginjaar=2004
Historical Sustainability of Video Art : Preservation of Dutch Video Art Collections
Foundation for the Conservation of Modern Art (Date Created: 2003) (Netherlands)
This collaborative project was completed in 2003. The project report has three parts; part one is the report itself, part two is the list of preserved video art works and part three is the glossary and bibliography. The report discusses the preservation methodology that was developed and evaluated during the project.
http://www.montevideo.nl/en/pdf/CONSERVERING_1tm80.pdf

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Bibliographies

Video Preservation
Frost, Hannah (ed.) In: CoOL Conservation OnLine : Resources for Conservation Professionals (Regularly Updated)
A bibliography of resources on the preservation of video recordings, maintained on the Conservation Online (CoOL) website. The bibliography includes resources on video media and formats, care and preservation best practice guidelines, as well as resources on digital video formats and organisations involved in video preservation.
http://cool.conservation-us.org/bytopic/video/

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Related Topics: Digital video

Broader Topic: Magnetic tapes

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