The Archiving Process

1. Tape Evaluation

-Tapes are inspected for dried leader joints and splices, adhesive leaching from splices, mold, sticky shed syndrome,and various other issues that can affect playability. If any of these conditions are present, tape restoration is performed using the appropriate measures (tape baking, mold remediation, adhesive removal, etc.).

-After the tapes are made playable, they are checked for format, speed, and noise reduction encoding. If there is documentation with the reels, that information will be verified during the tape evaluation.

2. Scanning

-All tape boxes, track sheets, recall notes, console tape, and any other provided content is scanned at 300dpi and is included in the Archive Documentation folder. The scans are also added into the Archive Log pdf.

3. Machine Alignment

-Analog tapes require the tape machine to be calibrated to a specific alignment. This is usually done with the provided project tones (sometimes found on a separate reel). If project tones are not available, then we try to get as close as possible by using our house MRL calibration tape for alignment.

-If the reel is encoded with noise reduction (Dolby, DBX, Telcom, etc), we will calibrate the appropriate unit to the provided project tones. If no project tone is provided, we will include two separate passes of the audio...one without encoding and one with a "best guess" alignment for encoding. This is done due to the exactness in alignment that some noise reduction require. Without the proper calibration tones, it's difficult to get a perfect decoding.

4. The Transfer

-All analog tapes are transferred at an archival quality 192kHz/24 bit wav files, unless the client specifies another sample rate and bit depth or file format.

-All digital tapes are captured as a 1:1 digital transfer (the sample rate and bit depth are exactly the same as the original tape). This is done to keep the integrity of the original source material.

-All tapes striped with SMPTE time code will be synchronized with Pro Tools. This ensures that Master and Slave reels and audio for video will sync up perfectly.

5. Documentation

-Every archive comes with complete documentation about the source material and the audio transfer. This comes in the form of a pdf "Archive Log", and includes notes from the transfer and a copy of all scans.

6. Delivery

-The completed archive will be delivered on a client provided external hard drive, flash drive, or electronically via Dropbox.

-We will hold onto the files for a minimum of 30 days as a backup, incase there is a problem with the delivered media. This amount of time can be shortened or extended per the client's request.