Preserving VHS Recordings For Another 20 Years?

efedora asks: "I have about 650 hours of VHS tape going back about 20 years (no, not my porn collection) and the tape is starting to deteriorate. What are the best options for preserving the contents? Quality is important but not critical, so long as it's close to the original. Very low labor cost/time and simple operation. are important. Is there an easy way to do this?"

"Some of the ideas I've had so far are:

• VHS to VHS tape with an analog 'clean up' box between the VHS machines. This would give me the same number of tapes but should last another 20 years. Quality will degrade.
• Burn DVD's direct from VHS tape. I have software that will do this. Expensive and the DVD's won't even hold a VHS tape if it's 2 hours long. Good quality with no degradation.
• Burn VCD's. I don't know of any simple direct-to-VCD software that will do this so there would be a large labor overhead. Good quality with some degradation. Cheap.
• VHS direct to cheap IDE drives. Good quality with no degradation. Relatively cheap. Probably could use the same technique as burn-to-dvd."

So you admit it...

[Realistic_Dragon]

You do have a porn collection then, just not on 20 year old VHS? Presumably you had the good sense to write that to something durable, like microfiche, or laminated paper.

Old axiom

[Bendebecker]

If it ain't porn, it ain't worth it.

Try

[Timesprout]

Not to keep rewinding on the money shot... I mean the good parts

VHS may last only 20 years...

[Capt'n Hector]

Your best option is flash media or a bunch of IBM minidisks. I've had mine for over 50, and they still work like new.

But seriously, nothing digital lasts long. Your (seriously now) best option is to engrave all your data into granite. I hear you can buy the stuff in bulk now.

Long term solution

[skinfitz]

Encode them to DiVX / Quicktime / etc and give them the name "Last Flight of The Osirisxxxx.divx" Where xxxx relates to your program contents.

Leave them on a P2P file sharing network and watch them fly - they will still be around in 20 or so years doing the rounds- whenever you need them again just download them using any P2P client...

Re:ATI All In Wonder

[dirkdidit]

This is crazy but it'd work. Print every frame out one by one. This comes out to something like 70,200,000 pieces of paper, which as long as kept away from open flame, sunlight, moisture, wind, etc will essentially last forever. Plus the bragging rights for having a huge pile of paper is cool. (23,400 feet high to be exact given that paper is 0.004 inches thick, of course quality of paper will affect this.;-)

Re:For that much, send it out.

[nomadic]

Consider the amount of time I spend on pursuits like nethack, I've discovered my time really isn't worth much...

Flip Book!

[The Turd Report]

Oooh... Giant Flip-book!

Re:ATI All In Wonder

[jspoon]

Modern paper is too acidic, it will just eat itself up given enough time. I'd opt for inscribing it in tablets of lead, myself. That would sacrifice color, but you could make three tablets for every frame...

Re:For that much, send it out.

[JW Troll]

...your time is worth something ..

Excuse me, but you've accidentally stumbled onto slashdot, where everybody claims to run Linux and posts compulsively 22 hours a day espousing Free Software, which nobody actually uses. Time here is worthless. Please take your posting elsewhere if you want to make inflammatory statements.

your data is doomed!

[Sebastopol]

seriously, no matter what you do, it will eventually turn to dust...

the only way to keep data safe would be to constantly keep massive RAID-4+ disk drives constantly checking and correcting mistakes as the disks degrade over time. only through active monitoring of the integrity of the data could you correct errors before they appear. and then spread redundant copies of this all over the known universe so that no planetary activity interferes.

what am i smoking...

oh... right...

Really wanna preserve it?

[NanoGator]

Capture it to MPEG and then change the name to "N_Portman.MPG". It'll never disappear off of Kazaa.

Re:ATI All In Wonder

[Binestar]

OTOH, my phono record collection dates back to 1949.

[lame humour attempt]
If you bought everything in your phono collection new maybe you should start worrying about preserving yourself for another 20 years instead of your music...
[/lame humour attempt]

easy

[circletimessquare]

1. watch all of your porn... er, vhs collection

2. create an oral narrative that captures the heroic and essential nature of your vhs collection

3. create a religion based upon this oral narrative that centers upon wise men who have committed your narrative to memory from father to son for generations

4. enjoy your porn collection in the afterlife as a demigod

Re:So you admit it...

[The Kryptonian]

That would be really unique, though - pr0n on microfiche. Wow.

I recommend...

[Anonymous Coward]

punchcards!

Re:even better

[Tuqui]

Hammurabi's law has been around for 7,000 years. This is a backup solution that will survive fire, flood, even a nuclear war.

But could not survive to Bush Diplomacy.

Re:So you admit it...

[orthogonal]

That would be really unique, though - pr0n on microfiche. Wow.

You must remember these are /.'ers we're talking about.

And microfiche is very small.

Some of these geeks will go to great, uh, lengths, to make themselves appear larger.

Even if it's just in comparision to their porn.

Re:So you admit it...

[sbaker]

If you are going to archive your pornography - you'd better make sure you archive a pornograph or you'll have nothing to play them on.

Re:ATI All In Wonder

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

This is why true geeks store their porn collections by inducing resonances in quantum folds... guaranteed to survive the coming big crunch.

Do as NASA does

[nfotxn]

Etch them into gold platters. They'll last really long that way.

Re:So you admit it...

[duck 'o death]

alright, this is OT but I have to reply ...

I used to work in the Microforms dept. of my university library. We had a whole bunch of newspaper and journal collections on microfilm and fiche, including the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and ... Playboy on microfilm.

Somewhere before my time, apparently, some of the Playboy films kept on being stolen from the shelves. I don't know what kind of person it takes to actually steal *MICROfilm* of porn ... and I don't think I want to know. I did have to wonder, though, if they had a microfilm reader at home. I hope they have it in acid-free boxes, at least.

Best burning option

[lingorob]

Set the whole lot on fire and forget about it.

Re:ATI All In Wonder

[Tablizer]

Modern paper is too acidic, it will just eat itself up given enough time. I'd opt for inscribing it in tablets of lead, myself.

How about hire 30,000 slaves to carve them on the internal walls of a 4000-foot pyramid. That otta last 3000 years or so, as long as you can find a way to keep the snooping future National Geographic crews out.