Nearly a quarter of the twenty-first century, a new challenge has entered our lives. People of all ages now find themselves with more private audiovisuals than ever before, and with so many. . .
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Almost a quarter in the twenty-first century, a new challenge has entered our lives. People of all ages are now left with more private audiovisuals than ever before, and with so many of those technologies becoming obsolete in just a few years, the smart conservation consultation emerges.
There are undeniable and infrequently effective customer products on the market for digitally capturing analog video and/or audio. Elgato Video Capture, for example, allows users to convert some old VHS tapes, perhaps a movie or a recorded TV screen for personal use. a working VCR to connect Elgato and force his computer. And the older the tape, the more likely it is to have playback problems, and betting now can make the element even worse.
So if you need to stay that way, now is the time to ask an expert.
Fortunately for Northwest Philadelphia, George Blood. Su local company of the same name, which employs more than 50 people, doesn’t just adhere to industrial and professional criteria for conservation. He is helping to draft the criteria.
And according to this specific expert, now is the time to keep all the old documents. Old videos become brittle, reel-by-reel tape becomes sticky, and proprietary formats (such as Audograph, Dictabelts, Magnabelts, VoiceWriter) can be genuine. demanding situations to play.
“The main vector of deterioration, apart from poor storage, is the hydrolysis of the binder, known as sticky excretion syndrome,” Blood said. This occurs when moisture interacts with the glue that retains the recording oxide at the base of the tape, he said. said, causing the binder to break and therefore become sticky.
“He expects that in about 20 years, digitization will be exceptionally complicated and expensive. The machines will stop working and the other people who know how to make paints will die,” Blood said. A concrete example, he said: one of his technical videos has just turned 80 years old.
When it comes to preserving memories, Blood said, he advocates digitizing first and discarding later.
“BLOCKS” is our preservation mantra: “Many copies keep things safe,” he said. , write this data lightly directly on the object – but do not press too much If you keep the audiovisual content, sit down with the circle of relatives and take notes, or better, record them talking about memories.
Preservation is less pressing for some formats, such as CDs and DVDs, as they “have a shelf life,” so there will be a continued demand for players, he said.
Going forward, Blood is betting that his “grandchildren will still be able to buy a universal optical disc drive the same way you can buy a ZIP disk drive with a USB port. “
When asked about the recent return of vinyl and, to a lesser extent, the return of VHS as popular formats among “digital natives,” Blood is baffled.
“The turn back of VHS is crazy,” he said, because it has so low fidelity.
He thinks it possibly has something to do with the tactile and visual sensations of objects.
Blood “is a tactical interaction with vinyl,” he said, but it doesn’t make more clicks and pops than it did 40 years ago.
He began recording music in 1982 and has since recorded over 4000 live events and around 250 compact discs, earning six Grammy nominations along the way.
His company, George Blood LP, grew out of his desire to buy and manage his recordings, prompting him in 1990 to build a temperature-controlled garage in Chestnut Hill. He archived all of his recordings there, as well as those of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Curtis Institute of Music.
It eventually swelled to encompass 4 buildings on Chestnut Hill. In 2018, Blood moved its operations to close near Fort Washington. The company now occupies 41,000 square feet, all under one roof, and is building its workforce with new hires. It has treadmills for 169 other audio-visual formats, he said, but more than 85% of its volume digitizes audio cassettes, audio reels, 78-rpm discs, VHS, U-matic videotapes and 16mm movies.
Nowadays, you find that most new businesses come from other people who want to keep what they have.
“We still record live concerts, but the vast majority of our task is to keep the digitization of audio, video, movies and also data obsolete and deteriorated,” Blood said. “Most of the paintings are for cultural heritage establishments: libraries, archives, museums, universities, as well as a bit of government and a bit of advertising paintings. “
Blood was born in Roxborough, attended the University of Chicago, returned to Germantown, and then moved to Chestnut Hill.