DPI

[Laszloimage 0]

Doug,
Thank you for the compliment about my posting.
It's really good to hear from someone who actually writes books about stuff like this...

I should have mentioned the TIFF files too. So if anyone interested to make more research on the subject here are the keywords: 8-bit and 16-bit per color channel uncompressed image files. Further more printing with ICC color profile....
Good luck and studying to everybody who interested!
-Laszlo-

[DSE 5]

Yes, reusing/viewing/previewing a tape often enough has the same effect. Metal oxide particles are bonded to a thin plastic ribbon, and bending that at moderately high speed over and over, will cause particles to flake or distort.
That said, as long as the tapes are kept in a cool, dry area, they'll shelf for many, many years, and playing them on occasion isn't a bad thing.
On our side of the fence, we archive everything to HDD, as HDD's are cheap these days. Every project gets its own HDD, and for general skydiving, I've got a 500GB drive used only for skydiving stuff. Tapes are shelved, but I can call up the BlueSkies drive on the SAN at any time, thus saving wear/tear on tape, and having to sort through lots of skydiving tape.
Plus, my NLE has a fabulous Media Manager in it, so I can sort/recall all my skydiving clips in the snap of a finger based on dates, keywords, length, location, whatever...

[erikph 0]

Quote

That said, as long as the tapes are kept in a cool, dry area, they'll shelf for many, many years,

If you‘re going to shelve tapes for a long period, it is a good idea to rewind them completely before putting them away. Also, every now and then ff and rewind them, to keep the plastic ribbon supple, and prevent the tape from getting sticky (once a year or every two years will do). And if you need an old tape, don’t put it immediately from the basement in your camera or vtr, give it an hour or so to take on the environment temperature.

blue skies,

http://myjumps.blogspot.com/

[DSE 5]

Quote

Quote

That said, as long as the tapes are kept in a cool, dry area, they'll shelf for many, many years,

If you‘re going to shelve tapes for a long period, it is a good idea to rewind them completely before putting them away. Also, every now and then ff and rewind them, to keep the plastic ribbon supple, and prevent the tape from getting sticky (once a year or every two years will do). And if you need an old tape, don’t put it immediately from the basement in your camera or vtr, give it an hour or so to take on the environment temperature.

yup, all good advice. How I miss the days of baking old analog tape... not.

[howardwhite 6]

Quote

...would never use anything but the best quality, newly opened and depacked tape for critical projects.

I Googled "depacked + video tape," but still don't know what you mean by this.
Enlightenment?
HW

[DSE 5]

A brand new tape, video or otherwise, is a "packed" tape. Tape is wound on the spools so fast and with so much tension that sometimes it sticks, so most broadcast houses, recording shops, etc, fast-forward/rewind brand new tape so that it becomes "unstuck" prior to use. Some tape manufacturers use a dry lube to help avoid this issue, but you don't want to mix lubed and non-lubed tape in your recording/playback device.
Anyway, "de-packing" simply means fastforwarding and rewinding before use. There are lots of other terms for the practice. This used to be managed by *blacking" the tape, or writing timecode to a fresh tape before use. With today's technology, no one blacks tape anymore, but the forward/rewind is still pretty important for important shoots.

HTH?

[jtval 0]

That brings a good question.

how can I tell if the tape is lubed or non-lubed?
I guess it it screams its NOT lubed

My photos

My Videos

[DSE 5]

Today, it's not an issue. If it's old tape, perhaps 2 years old or older, it's difficult to know unless you've got original packaging.

[jtval 0]

Cool.

does that mean now-adays the tapes are NOT lubed?

My photos

My Videos

[DSE 5]

There are still (AFAIK) smaller companies manufacturing lubed tape. But, the big "names" don't. Sony, TDK, BASF (manufacturer of most tape) etc don't use lube. Best bet is still to buy one brand and stick with it unless you have reason to change.

[howardwhite 6]

Yup, that helps. I sort of knew that writing black timecode was no longer done much, but hadn't thought about the other reason for a quick fast forward and rewind.
Thanks.

[Faber 0]

try out Picassa2 just google it,its a free google based product,it has a nice edit tool inside aswell

Stay safe
Stefan Faber