News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on For Sale: A Massive, Obsessive and Probably Obsolete VHS Boxing Archive. Parent comment

Re:For Sale: A Massive, Obsessive and Probably Obsolete VHS ... by jdietrich on Saturday March 23, 2019 @10:46PM (#19473867)
A RAID array full of unlabelled .MP4s of borderline-unwatchable VHS transfers isn't much use to anyone. Good VCRs and timebase correctors aren't cheap; keeping those VCRs running well is a major challenge due to age and the lack of spare parts. Getting a good transfer from an old tape is a lot more complicated than just pressing record. Anyone who works with video will tell you that metadata is both essential and enormously time-consuming.

There's a world of difference between getting some sort of video off the tape and producing a useful archive.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:For Sale: A Massive, Obsessive and Probably Obsolete VHS ... by skookumchuck on Sunday March 24, 2019 @12:43AM (#19474376)
> unlabelled

I said: "scan or photograph her index card for it"

> There's a world of difference between getting some sort of video off the tape and producing a useful archive.

With 8000 tapes (and for most people), the choice isn't a consumer grade copy or a professional grade copy. It's a consumer grade copy or no copy.

[ Parent | on HN ]