transferring audio data to CDs

[Keith Murphy]

well a couple of years ago i dragged out some video that had been recorded
in 1974 (or '76: regardless, it was before i was born). it was helical
scan tape, one of the first commercially available videotape formats which
actually looked more like film. it hadn't been stored very well, but not
under awful conditions either: in an office in a climate contolled
building at the university of chicago. once we found a machine that could
actually play the stuff it turned out that it was in relatively fair
condition. the picture quality wasn't great, but that could have been the
fault of the medium itself. the sound was great, except for the bass-ey
voice of one of the participants, which was at points almost
unintelligible without transcripts.

the moral: it's definitely a good idea to transfer audio and video tape to
a more durable medium, but the need may not be as urgent as we think. then
again, my situation may not have been very typical.

keith mta murphy
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Los Angeles

> One thing puzzles me. I was told  by someone at my university (perhaps
> incorrectly) that magnetic tapes can deteriorate within 10-15 years. This
> is why I wanted to record them onto CDs ASAP. My tapes date from 1988, so
> some of them are already 12 years old. Is this not true?