Digitising Old Tapes, Film and Photographs

TECH · GLOBAL

Digitising Old Tapes, Film and Photographs

Why formats degrade, what to prioritise, resolution and backing up the results

Home video tapes, cine film and photographic prints all degrade, and unlike digital files they degrade whether or not anyone touches them. That is the argument for doing something about it now rather than eventually.

What degrades and how fast

Magnetic tape loses signal over decades and can suffer sticky-shed, where the binder absorbs moisture and the tape sheds oxide. Colour film and prints fade, with the dyes shifting towards magenta.

Heat, humidity and light accelerate all of it. A loft or a garage is the worst place to store any of this.

Playback equipment is the harder problem

Working VHS decks, camcorders for tape formats and cine projectors are becoming scarce and expensive to repair. In practice the equipment disappears before the media does.

Prioritise

Start with anything unique and irreplaceable, and anything showing visible damage, mould or a vinegar smell, which indicates film decay. Commercially released tapes can be replaced; family recordings cannot.

Resolution and format

There is no benefit in upscaling standard-definition tape beyond its native resolution. For photographs and negatives, scan at a genuinely high optical resolution, since rescanning means handling the originals again.

Ask what file format you receive. Compressed video is fine for viewing; an uncompressed or lightly compressed master is better if you intend to edit.

Keep the originals

Do not discard tapes and film after digitising. A better transfer may be possible later, and originals are the ultimate backup.

Back up properly

Three copies, on two types of media, with one off-site. A single hard drive or one cloud account is not a backup, and this is the point at which families lose everything.

Doing it yourself

Capture devices for video tape and flatbed scanners for photographs are inexpensive, and the work is slow rather than difficult. Tape plays in real time, so a hundred hours of tape takes a hundred hours.

For a handful of items, doing it yourself is reasonable. For a boxful, a service usually wins on time.

Sending originals away

Check how the company tracks items, what happens if something is damaged or lost, and whether originals are returned. Photograph and inventory everything before it leaves the house.

Send in batches rather than everything at once, so a single loss is not total.

Storing what is left

Keep originals somewhere cool, dry and dark rather than a loft or a garage, in acid-free boxes or sleeves. Standing photographs upright rather than stacking them prevents sticking.

Slides and negatives are frequently better quality than the prints made from them, so keep those too.

Label as you go

Add names, dates and places while someone still remembers them. Unlabelled digitised footage is only slightly more useful than a box of tapes.

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