Documenting Using Video

Deposit Photos. Used with permission.

DOCUMENTING VIDEO/FILM

Documenting video is an intensive, technical, and exhaustive process from the perspective of a professional archivist. I stand in awe of the extent of preservation revealed due to enormous technological advances. Please know our efforts, in this course, do not compare in any way to those.

Rather, we are going to discuss ways to secure our current digital data easily, and then provide insight on how we might preserve video footage from various tape formats of the 80s and 90s like VHS and H-8 formats.

PRESERVING YOUR CURRENT DIGITAL VIDEO PROJECTS

Revisit the booklet, “Protecting Your Scribal Projects.” With your existing projects, implement the following: (1) Set aside folders for digital video storage on your devices, (2) Identify all of your video files place them in those folders, (3) title and date each file based on its content if possible, and (4) burn the videos as DVDs for viewing if possible or use the DVDs as archives, transferring your file folders to them. As a side note, keep video collections together as you organize and group them.

You may use a DVD to backup and/or archive multiple video files OR you can make playable movies with a single DVD. Earnestly, both may be great options as it relates to creating and preserving artifacts from where you are. Then, you can simply print DVD labels identifying the content of each disc, and store them in a DVD case, slip covers or DVD albums. The point is to place them in a format that is easily accessible. The downside about digital storage, however, is that every few years your footage should be copied on new media to preserve them.

The United States Library of Congress, the federal agency that oversees copyright in the United States, provides some practical information that is pretty easy to follow: Click here. Also, I strongly urge you to check out these downloadable guides for preservation from the American Library Association. You may use them as a supplement to the book, “Protecting Your Scribal Projects,” that I have already provided. While the resources are useful, they are not comprehensive. If you are curious concerning how complicated digital video preservation can get, check out this article and related articles at the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

PRESERVING VIDEO CONTENT FROM THE 80s & 90s

I still have video from the 80s and 90s on VHS tape. Most of it is from the archives of my father before he died. Outside of a few family reunion videos, most of them have yet to be archived. When I began the archival process some years ago, the expense was overwhelming because I did not know how to transfer the media from the VHS tapes to my computer. I have since learned a simple process for this. However, I have decided to personally leave this project to the family historian.

If you would like to know how to do this, however, I am providing you resources on how to get it done with minimal effort. Just because no one talks about old-school video content, does not mean they do not have access to it. The last VHS movie was made in 2006! Wow! That was just 14 years ago.

So, it is highly likely that a significant part of your documentation process could revolve around preserving all kinds of tape media – from various video tape formats (and there are several) to audio cassette tapes (which I will provide info on that as well). Here’s a list of the type of video tape formats you could run into in your documentation process.

BONUS: Many of you will probably uncover a treasure trove of audio cassette tapes as well while documenting your scribal project – especially if you are in ministry. One day I walked into my mentor’s office to discover HUNDREDS of audio teachings on cassette on healing from sexual abuse that spanned at least 40 years! Seriously. If you are not quite sure what those are follow this link. (I didn’t want to dedicate a whole page to cassette tapes, so I stuck it in here with the video.) Audio cassettes phased out when I was a teen/young adult and moved to CDs. Then, the iPod hit the streets… and now streaming services like Spotify. Whew!

Archivists around the world are desperately trying to save the data on VHS tapes in this hour. So much of of history, globally, are captured in this era. Hopefully, this knowledge will help you see how VALUABLE your documentation is in this area.

Below are some practical links and guides that show you how to preserve this kind of data. Again, it makes more sense to share the links with you than to re-invent the wheel and write it out. I have provided the best and simplest resources I could locate. Also, keep in mind that the “tapes themselves” are artifacts. So, you might want to save them as vintage evidence, but to use them digitizing should be an option.

Comprehensive Guide to Storing VHS Tapes (Excellent/Detailed)

Converting VHS Tapes to DVD How to Convert Film & VHS Converting Cassette Tapes to MP3 Types of Cassette Tape Converters (Current as of May 2020)

VHS Tapes Are Back in Vogue (Article on how people use them today)