Image quality in old videotapes
 

From time to time I see old videotape clips--sports events, mostly--rebroadcast on television, and the images are invariably blurry. Did it look that way when they were originally broadcast, or does the image quality deteriorate over time?

Some of the early recording gear was not made to record the full signal, and some tapes were played too many times before being copied to a fresh tape, disc, hard drive.

Machines used to play them may contribute issues too.

So if I understand right, the picture quality does not deteriorate just because the tape sits on a shelf in a vault for a long time.

If it is stored in the kind of environment you would want to live in than the tape should last indefinitely. Tapes can start to have chemical issues though. For instance the early prosumer EAIJ fromat tapes tend to have an issue with the glue that holds the magnetic particles to the tape degrading and making the surface of the tape too sticky to run through the decks. These and some of the 2" quadraplex tapes need to be cleaned before playing or both tape and deck will be damaged. After cleaning these tapes will be just as good as new.

As a further example of taped signal not degrading take the few surviving reels of pre-WWII, and post war paper tape. These will still play with the same sound quality as when recorded decades ago.

I even have several spools of recording wire with material from the 50's that still sounds real good.

About the only thing that will damage the signal of a tape recording (short of mutlating the the tape or recording over it) is to expose it to a strong magnetic field (an AC field or a DC field can both do similar harm if strong enough).

Sorry, what does prosumer EAIJ mean?

EIA-J was an early 1" reel to reel video tape format. Keep in mind that older footage was shot with tube cameras, which weren't nearly as sharp as today's modern CCD based cameras.

Please read this link for more background: http://www.videointerchange.com/vint...ality%20Issues

Further down, he remarks that the best TV for vintage video viewing is around 17 inches in size.

OK, thanks for sending that along.

Reinhart,

It is a regretable history of archiveing with formats at hand at the time as they thought to save the programs for possible replay later. They did archive but diluted the quality each time as the archive formats were lesser specs than the originals every time.

Kinescope film copies are for another time.

In the beginning. The old quad (2") tapes recorded a fairly good representation of the cameras of the day but "garbage in...garbage out" did apply to those recordings. Cams so so, recording good. I would love to see a quad recording of a modern analog camera but that train left the station. And the quad tapes were expensive so as other formats came along, copies were made to archive and free up the quad tapes (and storage space) but the new formats were lesser quality by large jumps.

EIAJ was the first. BW at first and then color through the late 60's to the mid-70's and not usually a broadcaster archive format. 3/4" color cassettes were next in broadcasting in the mid-70's that the broadcasters used daily. VHS and Beta take up the rear at the time but not in broadcasting as a rule. Just some lucky recordings that have survived by engineers and collectors. 1" helical came along just in time in the late 70's and may be the best of the archives if copied from the original quad.

And then there is the deterioration of all of these tapes in these formats which can strike any of the tape formats.

What we see today is more of a circumstance of good fortune that the tape survived and still plays many generations of copying later.

I've got some EIA-J B/W recordings from 1969 that look good. Same for color, except for a bit of 'smearyness.' I've got some U-matic cassette recordings from 1972 that look good today. I agree about the camera issues. They did look kinda naaasty.

Sometimes, I think modern TV adds problems to old video just to help get the point across that this is OLD video, and not the quality of today... whatever that is...

I've seen some kinescopes that were beautiful.... some.....

I have never heard of paper tape before. Can you tell me a little more about it?

I've never seen paper tape, but I understand they used it before they figured out how to make mylar and acetates. I have a picture somewhere of an early tape recorder with a spool of paper tape with a magnetic coating. Somewhere.

Stereorob posted a thread about a reel that he has and played reciently. I've also seen it mentioned on the history channel a couple of times.

How many generations of copying did it take until a VHS tape become unwatchable/useless ? 4 or 5, IIRC...

Hello I have beta tapes back from the mid 70s from our local tv station channel 6 the picture looks real lite when played but is still wacthable maybe it is due to the age of the beta tapes, What do you think?

I've got Gone With The Wind recorded on Beta from its first regular TV airing on NBC. It looks kinda lifeless now, but still plays. I'll look and see if it is lightening up.

I think 4-5 is about it. I've some 3rd generation things. Not pretty.