Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about the fact that all of our analog video recordings on mag tape were gradually disappearing. I got a lot of replies telling me that it had reminded some people to preserve those recordings by transferring them to digital storage, and unfortunately quite a number from people that had been reminded too late.

In fact, it’s a lot more than our video recordings that are vanishing. My rAVe column this month mentioned some of the effects of the move from film to digital technologies, and that prompted a couple of readers to remind me of something equally important – that our film-based records are vanishing, too. And they are right.

Film, whether for motion pictures or slides, decays as well, and given that most of these recordings would be older than those on mag tape are probably in a worse state if you haven’t looked at them in a while.

Black and white film and prints have lots of issues. Much of them were based on organic compounds that are a feast for mold and mildew. Color film has not only these problems, but it also contains dyes that decay and fade, causing first color shifts and then total loss of the image. And, with prints, the paper they are printed on yellows and decays.

The answers: first, check where these records are being stored. Attics and basements are where you send them to die. Both are environments that will vastly increase image decay. Get them into a cool, dry place with a fairly constant humidity, like a closet in the air-conditioned portion of your home. Then, begin transferring them to digital storage. High-quality scanners are cheap now. Scanning prints, which uses UV light, will not only preserve them digitally, it will help kill bacteria on your prints that is causing decay, and will help them live on a little longer in their original form.

And, while we are talking about it, get any motion pictures you have converted SOON. Not only does motion picture film decay quickly, becoming too brittle to run through a film chain, but the equipment to play them back for recording is becoming scarcer and scarcer.

Do it now.

JRR