VideoPreservation Website

by Charles Bensinger (1981)

Full text and image set is online and completely searchable. The information is first rate and written in a highly accessible style; especially when compared to today's complex technical texts on video technology. There are a vast number of images and descriptions of historic VCR/VTRs, plug diagrams, and hookup diagrams.

Videotape Preservation Handbook

Jim Wheeler, 2002

located on the AMIA website under Publication and Resources

Jim Wheeler is one the great resources on magnetic media, retired from Ampex, he is still active on AMIA-L, preserving magnetic tape and with preservation initiatives.

CoOL Video Preservation

Edited by Hannah Frost, continually updated.

A key resource for the preservation of video with a wide variety of publications, links and resources.

AMIA Video Preservation Fact Sheets

Written by Jim Wheeler; Edited by Hannah Frost, 2004-5 -- now as a 42-pg PDF on amianet.org --

A valuable resource by one of the best know workers in the field (retired Ampex), with excellent editing (Stanford Univ. Preservation Librarian) making the information even more valuable .

Magnetic Tape Storage and Handling

A Guide for Libraries and Archives

Dr. John W.C. Van Bogart (National Media Laboratory) June 1995; Published by Commission on Preservation and Access; online version at <www.clir.org>.

A valuable resource by one of the prominent workers in the field.

Magnetic Recording Theory for Instrumentation Ampex Corp. 1963

by Charles Lowman and George Angerbauer

This is one of the essential early publications on the theory and application of magnetic and videotape recording. It is invaluable historic resource and is a must read for all interested in the history of video recording.

LabGuy's World: The Birth of Video Recording

By Charles P. Ginsburg

Charles P. Ginsburg first delivered this paper, in a slightly different form, at the 82nd convention of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) on October 5, 1957, 18 months after Ampex demonstrated the world's first practical television videotape recorder; transcribed by Jerry Burling, SBE, Chapter 47.

LabGuy's World: Remembering  IVC (International Video Corporation)

IVC's world headquarters building used to be at: 675 Almanor Avenue Sunnyvale, California. International Video Corporation flourished from about 1967 well into the late 1980s. IVC manufactured dozens of models of VTR's, cameras, film chains, switchers and other video equipment for the low end broadcast and high end industrial markets. They sold equipment into virtually every country in the world. I personally remember seeing the IVC color cameras at TV station KRCR, Channel 7 in Redding, California.

Brief History of Imaging Technology

by Tim Vitale, updated June 2008, v10

Features a Table of Dates with a brief description of the significant events (and persons) starting with polished stones used for magnification (3000BC), through modern high-end video and still imaging cameras and chips.

Sony History Since 1946

A general history of the Sony Corp., but with several very interesting entries on VTRs such as Sony's first experimental 2" VTR about 1958-59 and the first transistorized VTR PV-100 in 1959.

Chronology of Ampex Professional Products (Draft: 29 Oct 95; Rev. 4 Nov 99)

Compiled by Howard Sanner

Image: Ampex 200A VTR Serial No 003

Ampex Legacy Equipment Manuals

Mostly audio equipment circuit diagrams and images, but there are positions allocated for video equipment

BBC- The History of Video Recording

located on the <bbc.co.uk> website, along with BBC News' "The Rise and Rise of the Video"

Puts Magnetophone (1936-7 Germany) BBC VERA (2" wide steel tape on 21" reels moving at 200 ips) and Ampex VR-1000 (2" plastic magnetic tape at 100 ips) in context, by one of the players in early video history.

Bill Vermillion's Article on Tape Deck Alignment

This interesting email is on audio deck alignment, linear recording tracks, but has generic application to VTR use.

Located: Howard Sanner's - Ampex Virtual Museum

Digital Video Preservation Reformatting Project -- Report
Prepared by Media Matters, LLC (SAMMA) for the Dance Heritage Coalition. Presented to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, June 2004.

This is a valuable resource. Jim Lindner (Media Matters) address many issues including the cost of storage on data tape; the value of lossless compression; the damage of lossy compression; and the evaluation of video codecs based on both user viewing evaluations and the Genista’s Media Optimacy (Tokyo) technical metrics. "A chief goal of this report was to endorse a specific file format and codec to use for the preservation of dance material. Regarding file format, the Material Exchange Format (MXF) container format is recommended."

Moving Beyond Manual Media Migration

James Lindner and Gilad L. Rosner of Media Matters, LLC (SAMMA)

Valuable essay on moving from traditional migration procedures to automated procedures. Especially valuable is the section on cleaning videotape. "Current cleaning machines are blunt and simple: they clean forward, and they clean backwards. In an attempt to reduce the potential for further damage, traditional migration companies pay a person to watch the cleaning tissue in the cleaning machine all day."

Converting Analog Videotapes to Digital

by Jim Wheeler, April 2008

for DigitalForward -

A very useful essay on the use and advantage of using harddrives (HDD) and data tape (LTO) for the storage of digitized analog video files.

Research Report on JPEG 2000 for Video Archiving

Ian Gilmour, Media Matters LLC (SAMMA)

Abstract: Motion-JPEG2000 lossless data reduction is implemented as a key technology for reducing file size in storage and for reducing data rates in networked file transfer. Specific quotes (8-bit vs 10-bit) " The 10-bit files were 47% to 58% larger than the 8-bit files, rather than the 25% increase which simple math would predict." and (Conclusions) "The range of image content in this preliminary study of lossless JPEG encoding has provided valuable data on file sizes which generally accords well with theoretical predictions..."