Quote:
Originally Posted by Boppo
I transferred my oldest Hi8 tapes. This far it seemed like the older tapes gave the worst quality. Because of this I thought my oldest tapes, from the beginning of 1993, would havr bad quality. On the contrary. They gave really good quality on the first playback and transfer. Maybe because the camcorder was brand new when I filmed those tapes.
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As a general rule, even very old recordings were likely made at the time with fairly new equipment, so if the tapes have been stored well, and not already damaged from playing in faulty players, even after decades they should still be in good shape. DV and 8mm tapes also have a strong magnetic signal which normally doesnt fade.
But the tapes are still fragile, and can easily be damaged just winding or playing them, especially decades later when the playback gear is now decades old. We shouldnt assume the player is still in good shape, or that because it's digitised 50 tapes OK it will digitize the next 50 without a problem. Then as you say, one batch of tapes may have problems of its own due to a manufacturing fault or perhaps poor storage. But either way, the most dangerous time for such tapes is usually when they are played or wound in a player.
