VHS Shelf Life

[Rockslinger]

What is the shelf life of a recording on VHS tape? My experience is that it is good up to 10 years but is a mess by the 15th year. I am now busy copying my VHS tapes to DVD discs. Questions:

1) Can playing a 15-20 year old VHS tape screw up your VCR?
2) At what age should a VHS tape be tossed out and not use for any more recording, even if it is still in the original shrink wrapped box?
3) What is the shelf life of a DVD recording?
4) I am using Ridata 16X DVD-R blank discs and the failure rate is around 10%. Is this normal?

 

[shakenbake]

What is the shelf life of a recording on VHS tape? My experience is that it is good up to 10 years but is a mess by the 15th year. I am now busy copying my VHS tapes to DVD discs. Questions:

1) Can playing a 15-20 year old VHS tape screw up your VCR?
2) At what age should a VHS tape be tossed out and not use for any more recording, even if it is still in the original shrink wrapped box?
3) What is the shelf life of a DVD recording?
4) I am using Ridata 16X DVD-R blank discs and the failure rate is around 10%. Is this normal?

Google "If I had known you were coming, I would have baked a tape", or something to that effect. This may also apply to VHS tapes.

http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html

Back some time ago, some bright mind had made a mistake with respect to a binder component. The recipe had called for medium molecular weight urethane material. However, what the suppliers had provided was a mixture of low and high molecular weight urethanes in the binder recipe. The low molecular weight components would attract moisture form the air and would gum up the binder (the mixture of polymer and magnetic particles in the coating) through hydrolysis. the one way to help to restore the informatino on teh tape is to dry it out, copy the information and then 'lose' the tape.

The best way to store magnetic media is in dry and cool conditions. Also, for audio rell-to-reel, as wel as for any other tapes, it woudl be wise to store in a 'played' wound state to minimise the effects of print-through. I could go on and on.........

Long and short, I have some tapes that go back about 40 years (audio) and are still playable. However, they hav ebeen stored correctly.

As for Ridata DVD-R, many would maintain that Ridata makes the among the best media out there. I have only had issues with Ridata when my software and/or firmware needed updating.

Perhaps, a good source of informaion would be, for starters,

http://www.videohelp.com/

Have fun and let us know how you make out!

shakenbake

 

[cypherpunk]

1) If the tape is dirty, you might need to clean the VCR a bit, but I can't imagine it causing any real damage.

2) Depends on storage. Probably a really long time. If it records well, it's good.

3) Depends on storage. And there actually two shelf-lives, one for unburned and one for burned. You should burn things within a year and test the burn of any old discs. A properly stored burned disc can outlast you. An improperly handled disc can fail pretty quickly.

4) I use TDK and the failure rate is around 0%. I only burn maybe 150 DVD-Rs a year though, and usually burn at 8x or less.

 

[bobistheowl]

I have a lot of old VHS tapes recorded from TV in either SP or EP mode, dating back to 1988. I have found that the sound will degrade faster than the picture. The type of VHS tape used was also a factor, as was the age of the VCR when the tapes were made. Scotch and Kodak tapes have maintained integrity longer than BASF and generic brands.

If SP mode was originally used for the reecording, the tapes tend to last longer without appeciable loss of quality. As mentioned above, how the tapes were/are stored is a major factor in how well they survive intact. If an old tape was not rewound to the beginning, you would expect to see some colour bleeding for about a minute before and after the spot where the tape was stopped.

You're more likely to damage the tape than the VCR if you are trying to digitalize old VHS. Older tapes are more brittle, and are much more likely to become tangled in the recording heads when ejected. If you're trying to repair a damaged tape, the screwdriver that works best is a Phillips 0. A watchmaker/eyeglass repair set of small screwdrivers will also contain one that is the right size for removing VHS tape screws. Flipping the tape over after removing the screws makes repair a lot easier, as there are several small pieces inside a VHS tape that tend to fall out if you lift the side of the tape where the screws go in.

I use a JVC HR-S591U S-video VCR, ATI TV Wonder Pro video capture card, and SoundBlaster! Live audio capture card. this creates an MPEG-2 video file, equivelent to .vob. I then compress the files to divx or mpg for Internet distribution, but you would bypass that stage if you plan to keep the digital video on DVDs for personal use.

What's most likely to damage an S-video VCR is a poor quality head cleaning tape. Spending about $10 for a professionally one instead of $1.50 for a generic in a five and dime store can save you the $250 or so cost of replacing a VCR stuck in fast forward mode because of head cleaner damage.
Ask me how I know that.

 

[WoodPeckr]

I have videotape recorded in SP, LP, & EP from 1980 that still play fine. Home movies taped in 1980 with a RCA video camera and a portable VCR deck in LP, they didn't have 'cam-corders' back then, still look great with no apparent loss. Some dubbed from another VCR or TV, show some loss.
I have some audio cassette tapes from the 70s that still sound great.
TDK SA tape was my first choice in over 95% of the tapes used.

I only wished CD media was as durable.