page_title: Media preservation
section_title: Magnetic media - video cassettes, tapes, hard drives
hierarchical_section_title: Media preservation / Magnetic media - video cassettes, tapes, hard drives
caption_attribution_description: Português: Uma fita VHS "Mike Jackson" que era preta, e ficou branca devida ao mofo que cresceu por cima. Uma fita neste estado requer muito trabalho de limpeza, e é mais fácil jogar fora e conseguir outra em bom estado. English: A "Mike Jackson" VHS tape that was black, but turned white due to the mold that grown over it. A tape in this level of degradation requires too much cleaning work, and it's easier to throw it away and get another one, on good state of preservation.
context_page_description: Preservation of documents, pictures, recordings, digital content, etc., is a major aspect of archival science. It is also an important consideration for people who are creating time capsules, family history, historical documents, scrapbooks and family trees. Common storage media are not permanent, and there are few reliable methods of preserving documents and pictures for the future.
context_section_description: Magnetic media such as audio and video tape and floppy disks also have limited life spans.
  Audio and video tapes require specific care and handling to ensure that the recorded information will be preserved. For information that must be preserved indefinitely, periodic transcription from old media to new ones is necessary, not only because the media are unstable but also because the recording technology may become obsolete.
  Magnetic media also deteriorates naturally with typical shelf lives between 10 and 20 years.  Magnetic tape can degrade from binder hydrolysis or magnetic remanence decay. Binder hydrolysis, also known as sticky-shed syndrome, refers to the breakdown of binder, or glue, that holds the magnetic particles to the polyester base of the tape. Tapes which have been stored in hot, humid conditions are particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon and may suffer from accelerated degradation. Severe binder can cause the magnetic material to fall off or sheds from the base, leaving a pile of dust and clear backing. Archivists can bake the tape, which evaporates water molecules on the tape, to temporarily restore the binder before making a copy.
  Magnetic tape can also be destabilized by magnetic remanence decay, which refers to the weakening of the tape's magnetization over time. This weakens the affect tape's readability, leading to reduced sound clarity and volume or picture hue and contrast. Baking the tape will not restore magnetization. Archivists might instead digitally encode a copy of the tape, preserving its content as a digital data file.
  Media at risk include recorded media such as master audio recordings of symphonies and videotape recordings of the news gathered over the last 40 years. Threats to media that must be considered when archiving important record media include accidental erasure, physical loss due to disasters such as fires and floods, and media degradation.
  Along with the actual media being degraded over the years, the machines that are available to play back or reproduce the audio sources are becoming archaic themselves. Manufacturers and their support (parts, technical updates) for their machines have disappeared throughout the years. Even if the medium is vaulted and archived correctly, the mechanical properties of the machines have deteriorated to the point that they could do more harm than good to the tape being played.
  Many major film studios are now backing up their libraries by converting them to electronic media files, such as .AIFF or .WAV-based files via digital audio workstations. That way, even if the digital platform manufacturer goes out of business or no longer supports their product, the files can still be played on any common computer.
  There is a detailed process that must take place previous to the final archival product now that a digital solution is in place. Sample rates and their conversion and reference speed are both critical in this process.
  In floppy disks, the lubricants inside the plastic jackets of many older floppies promote the decay of the magnetic medium. Also, the alignment of the magnetic particles of the disk substrate may gradually degrade, leading to a loss of formatting and data. Early laser disk media were prone to degradation as the layers of the disk substrate were bonded with an adhesive that was vulnerable to decay and would crumble over time. This would lead the different layers of the disk to peel apart, damaging the pitted data surface and rendering the disk unreadable.
caption: A badly molded VHS tape. Mold can grow due to humidity on the storage space, and then prevent modern usage.
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