Archiving video data

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Peter and Info-CHILDES,

   Good point. I've heard this about potential CD-R meltdown, but the time
frame I have heard quoted for this is about 12 years.  My guess is that
people actually don't know, but want to make sure they err on the
conservative side.  I remember being told that reel-to-reel tapes would
suffer from print through, but we have received many at CHILDES that are 30
to 40 years old and still in perfect condition.  In fact, we have never
received any that have the dreaded print-through we were told to worry about
in the 1960s.
  Saving videotapes is fine, but lots of people are now recording directly
to digital, so saving the original medium means saving the mini-DV tape, not
the VHS cassette.  I wonder what the shelf-life of the mini-DV tape is
supposed to be.  It is a film, like these other film-based media, so I am
guessing it is pretty good.

--Brian