Quote:
Originally Posted by knobtwiddler
...Sending out a message that you can simply play these tapes (they could need baking) is deeply irresponsible IMO. The tape might be fine, sure. At the same time, it might play once, shed its oxide and that's that. There ought to have been warnings for viewers with old tapes.
|
Well, yes, it
might need baking or shed oxide, but I think that’s extremely unlikely. I have personally replayed literally dozens of domestic and higher grade tapes on conventional tape decks and transcribed the content, and never once experienced a problem. Some dated back to the late 1950s. I have read that it’s the commercial tape formulations that were most prone to shedding their oxide layers, and even then only certain brands are prone to the problem.
I’d go so far as to suggest that reel to reel tape is far more secure as a long-term storage medium than any hard disk drive.