FORMAT
PROJECT
THE VIDEOCASSETTE
HANDLING CONSIDERATIONS
- Avoid any contaminants that can clog both the
tape and the playback machine.
- Avoid smoking, food, and drink while handling the videocassettes or the magnetic tape, as well as exposing it to any other sticky agents.
- Proper cleaning and maintenance of machines is imperative to preservation of videocassettes. Most damage occurs during playback.
- Tape should never be touched with bare hands due to oils in the skin or dirt on the fingertips, and it should only be manipulated by trained experts. Amateur modification (splicing, etc) generally results in ruined tape.
- Always wind a videocassette to one end before ejecting it from a playback machine.
- Don’t spool tape that is wet or potentially contaminated.
- Never handle a videocassette by the moveable door that covers the magnetic tape.
Videocassettes require specific care and handling during the preservation process in
order to ensure that the recorded information is not corrupted or rendered useless.
Videocassette equipment is unstable and arguably close to obsolescence, and
therefore, periodic transcription to new media will be neccessary.