I never thought about it this way, but David Kender from Camcorderinfo.com is right. He wrote up an article chock full of good information for preserving tape and DVDs. First things first, media should be stored in a cool dry place (like wine). MiniDV tapes and DVDs are made from materials that break down overtime and storing them near stereo speakers or CRT monitors (not LCD or Plasma) accelerate the degradation of those materials (unlike wine). The best materials for long term storage are (from best to worst) gold, silver, composite or alloy materials. Probably the best thing you can do to preserve your memories is to migrate from format-to-format every 5-15 years. Once you lose a tape or DVD, you can never get it back, so make multiple backup copies and store in different locations (if only you could do this with wine). Storing tapes and DVDs is like storing fine wine
I never thought about it this way, but David Kender from Camcorderinfo.com is right. He wrote up an article chock full of good information for preserving tape and DVDs. First things first, media should be stored in a cool dry place (like wine). MiniDV tapes and DVDs are made from materials that break down overtime and storing them near stereo speakers or CRT monitors (not LCD or Plasma) accelerate the degradation of those materials (unlike wine). The best materials for long term storage are (from best to worst) gold, silver, composite or alloy materials. Probably the best thing you can do to preserve your memories is to migrate from format-to-format every 5-15 years. Once you lose a tape or DVD, you can never get it back, so make multiple backup copies and store in different locations (if only you could do this with wine). Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Ouch. Another reason to worry about the fact that all my VHS videos are in a bin in the basement without sleeves. And miniDVDs are in every drawer of my house. Thank goodness the digitized stuff is backed up. On 3 different external hard drives that aren't labeled and are all sitting in the same place.
1. Oh, thanks for telling me that! I keep a whole stack of MiniDV tapes right next to one of my stereo speakers!
Posted at 11:59PM on Sep 21st 2006 by Henry