Transferring old home videos: The Sequel
First off the good news. If anyone remembers my previous project thread, there were some home movies that I was trying to obtain from family members that we were not really talking to anymore. I have managed to retrieve at least some of the tapes. I don't know if its all of them, but the ones I have were the most important ones I was looking for (pre-date our camcorder purchase in 1987).
Now the bad news. One of the tapes has evidence of slight mold damage, the best I can describe it is that it has a tiny white speck visible on the reel. The other two tapes appear "ok" to the eye. The tapes are in Betamax format (BII speed). Currently I have a Sony Betamax deck that I need to have sent to the shop for cleaning and static tracking alignment that I would like to use for the transfers but I'm afraid of contaminating the deck with unseen mold. Are there any at-home solutions to deal with very minor mold problems? I was thinking maybe its possible to completely fast forward and rewind the tape in a spare VCR to knock the mold loose. I do have a $10 thrift store Sanyo Beta deck that I can sacrifice for this project, those machines wind the tape in the cassette in the shell away from the heads. It needs new belts so I don't care what happens to it. My only other option is to send them out to a recommended service for cleaning and transfer, but thats big $$$ and I'm kinda OCD about quality of the final product (I know my equipment can do the transfer "right"). If anything I would have them transferred to a hard drive lossless and I'd handle DVD creation myself. |
Your FF/REW idea was a nice try, but that's a dead end.
Mold is a spore, and it's alive. It sticks to something that was moist, and grows like the nasty fungi that it is. Generally speaking, mold has a high tolerance of temperatures, and a long life span, so never assume it's "dead mold" or "old mold" (meaning "too old" to be a problem) as I've seen discussed on other sites in the past. It often spreads by way of household dust (a good reason to keep tapes in dust covers!!!), and will fling off into any equipment where the tape gets played. The only choice to "fix" this problem is to clean the tapes ---- and/or possibly bake the tapes, using a special kind of chemistry oven. No, not the oven in your kitchen, unless you want a smelly pile of black goo. For this, you absolutely must use a reliable service. It's not safe to do on your own, and you likely lack the proper tools. VideoInterchange specializes in serious physical tape damage (in contrast to The Digital FAQ, who specializes in signal damage and minor physical defects/damage). From their site: Quote:
A single tape will easily run in the $50-100 range, to treat for mold damage. We don't even mess with mold-damaged tapes -- it's too dangerous (health risk, insurance liability, etc), and it's best to simply let the experts handle this one. (That's what we say about our own services, after all! Don't try to do something difficult yourself, let the pros handle it, that's why they have the equipment, training and experience. And you don't want to "learn on" an irreplaceable family video.) We outsource those to VideoInterchange. Same for flood-damaged or mud-damaged tapes (because those can contain raw sewage, etc). |
I was looking at their services along with a local company ( http://www.specsbros.com/ any personal experience/reviews?). The good news is that it seems to be only one tape that was affected, and thankfully its the shortest tape (L-370, 1.5 hours at B-II speed). I'll look at sending it out after vacation. I have the funds already set aside to repair the Superbeta, I'll just devote them to getting this tape transferred (That VCR can wait). These tapes were stored in sleeves. It seems to have kept the damage low, the tapes without them were in worse condition.
I'm well aware of the dangers of mold and mildew and how much of a pain it is to get rid of. While NJ isn't any wheres near as humid as the south, we still have moisture problems in basements around here. |
The one thing I can say about Spec Bros is this: They don't say anything stupid on their site/documentation. And that alone counts for something in my book. Most video transfer services have asinine mythical inaccurate BS on their sites that clearly demonstrates their video knowledge came from Wikipedia and Best Buy salesmen. Show me 100 video services, and I'll show you 90 that don't know what they're doing.
SpecBros info seems fine, and I just looked again real quick. VideoInterchange is also accurate, though it's been at least a year since I gave it a once-over. And of course, we do our best to avoid wrong info, too! (Though we don't handle mold damage.) VI gets backlogged sometimes. Not sure about Spec. That may be your determining factor, more than anything else, to be honest about it. I know Spec advertises a lot, especially in magazines like Broadcast Engineering. VI doesn't need to advertise. |
This was written about a year ago: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/vide...g-problem.html
Not that it adds anything to the conversation, just mentions Spec. Don't let "local" influence you. Go for the best option, not the local option. If the best options happens to be local, then great. |
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