I need to store for long term more than 300 tapes (DV, VHS, DVCAM, etc).
I was thinking of sealed and vacuum plastic bag (bunch of 20 tapes) then put in Rubbermaid cases. Any potential problems?

The only issue that I can think of is humidity. You might want to throw in a desiccant product in the bag to make sure the tapes stay dry.

Keep the tapes in a cool but dry environment and you probably don't need to seal them in a bag, the Rubbermaid cases should be enough but if you wanted the extra security then by all means go ahead.

I have the same issue, I have about 500 to 800 various VHS, miniDV, and DVCAM tapes that I have in storage cases with no known problems.

I'm a pretty organized guy, so I figured I'd come up with my own brilliant system for keeping track of the piles of DV tapes I've accumulated.

Well, after multiple attempts over a rather long period of time, I have to admit I'm not much further along with an effective tape organization/storage strategy than I was when I started.

Interested to hear what others are doing. I normally don't reuse tapes, but if I start a tape and run off 5 minutes or so, I might eventually rewind it and start over w/ a newer/longer project. But between all the plastic cases, the various stickers & labels, the multiple drawers & shelves & ... too many times I simply lose track of what's what. Or else I write some scrawl on one of the labels that appears as Greek text weeks or months later.

When I am able to set aside time to go over all the tapes and come up with yet another fool-proof organization plan, within a couple of weeks-- yep, it's a mess again. Please lead me toward the light...

Title changed from "What a MESS!" to "Tape Storage" (please avoid ambiguous thread titles. Moved from Open DV to our Tape forum.

Title changed from "What a MESS!" to "Tape Storage" (please avoid ambiguous thread titles. Moved from Open DV to our Tape forum.


Hi Chris,

Well, ok. No problem with the title change, but I don't agree with the move. IMO it's more about overall organization strategies in general than about the tape itself.

But hey, you're the mod and as this is perhaps the best run forum I visit regularly, I'll cut you some slack... [g]

And I'll cut you some slack when you send me an email and tell me which user account you'd like to keep (only one is allowed, since we're strictly real-names-only around here). Until then, you're locked out.

Thanks the desiccant is a good idea.

One other storage notion. I know that with larger tapes like VHS and Betacam, it is important to store the tapes vertically. If the tapes are stored on their side, the tape distorts from its own weight over time. this may not ever be an issue with smaller tapes but it couldn't hurt to store them vertically, also.

Don't bother. Hire someone (like your teenage kid, if you have one) to copy the tapes over to your NLE and archive by hard drive or blu-ray. Chances are you won't be able to find a player for your tapes in 15-20 years.

I simply label my tapes with a serial number. Then use an Excel database to keep track of them, with fields for date, location, subject, actors, project name, etc. Use pretty much whatever you want. Then just store them in numerical order on your shelf by the serial number and grab the one you need when you need to get at it. Just make sure to keep multiple copies of your Excel spreadsheet in different places in case one gets deleted!

But actually, I'd start getting away from tape--start archiving your tape to hard drive or blu-ray and junk your tapes. They won't be much longer for this world anyway.

Don't bother. Hire someone (like your teenage kid, if you have one) to copy the tapes over to your NLE and archive by hard drive or blu-ray. Chances are you won't be able to find a player for your tapes in 15-20 years.

Which of course would lead to the discussion of whether one could mount current issue hard drives or Blu-Ray media in 15 - 20 years...

Pretty much my scheme of things too. Date and main location on tape label, stored in boxes of 50 in date order. Cross reference on excell spreadsheet - includes in and out times of specific clips that I might want to use again later. Those clips are also stored on an external hard drive, and referenced back to the original tape in their title.

Which would then naturally lead to the discussion of what you'd be able to mount them on.

Of course, you can still buy 3.5 inch floppy drives today. The Japanese company I consult for still manufactures them in volume.

And about two years ago we were asked by a major Japanese customer to build a couple of open reel 9 track tape drives so they could continue to read media from the 1970's. We built them. But I hate to think what we charged for them!

I know that the petroleum exploation companies have tapes in the archive that are over 40 years old and they keep old hardware around just to read them.

The old rule for storing larger tapes, like 3/4 and Betacam, was to always rewind them all the way to the very head, store them in their boxes, store them upright like books, and do it in a place with fairly constant temperature, ie., home, office, etc., that's heated and air conditioned.

Back in the 3/4" tape days, edge curl was a notorious problem. Actually, with 3/4, everything was a problem. If a tape was stored laying down for a few months it could develop edge curl and the result would be audio dropouts because audio tracks ran down the edge. That's also why the good audio went to channel 2, the inside track a little farther from the edge. I don't know if any of that, including storage, did any good, but that's what everybody recommended. Couldn't hurt anything for DV either.

Thank you. We are indeed converting everything in Digital files (QTime) so the point was to find the best way to store away the tapes, hoping never to have to play them back again.

Im swamped in them... They're all over my edit suite.... I cant get away from them!

Help!

What do you guys to store your tapes in?

Im tempted to just buy a small filing type cabinet and chuck them all in there. Is there anything more suited to the size, without breaking the bank?

Cheers

Hi Tim,
I use some of this racks on the wall Datrax / Bryco | MDV-50 MiniDV Plastic Rack | MDV50 | B&H Photo (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=workaround.jsp&A=details&Q=&sku=246770&is=REG), when projects are finished I store the tapes in small paper boxes in a closet. I bought the paper boxes (very cheap) at IKEA, don´t know if you have this kind of store at your place

Given that we are not likely to have to access the tapes again, you might as well wrap them in a plastic zip-seal bag, label it, and store in a shoe box. The plastic bag ensures you can group all your tapes together easily.

Andrew

If you're going to toss them into a plastic bag, I'd suggest tossing a desiccant in there with them to draw off any moisture or else you might as well toss the tapes in the garbage instead.

FTR, my shot tapes live strewn over my desk and bookshelf while in use (not a great plan...) but end up filed away back in the original 5 tape cardboard boxes that I bought them in once I'm done with them (reels ALWAYS stored at a 90 degree angle to the shelf to help minimize settling of the tape edge, causing crinkling)

I use the "really useful box" 4 litre size designed to hold a ream of A4 paper. Depending on how you arrange the tapes, you can get about 50-60 in a box. Also I put in a few sheets of paper with a brief listing of what is on each tape - date and place if nothing else.

Adding a few sachets of dessicant is something that I ought to do too.

Thanks guys, thats really helpful.

The really useful boxes look good - and perfect size - thanks Annie! Shame shipping is £11 for 3 of the boxes though!!

Cheers

Try these Sterlite drawers from Walmart or Target. See pic below

Thanks guys, thats really helpful.

The really useful boxes look good - and perfect size - thanks Annie! Shame shipping is £11 for 3 of the boxes though!!

Cheers

I picked mine up from PC World, and I'm sure there are other outlets. All my other really useful boxes came as a set of five of various sizes - four sets in all from Viking Direct - and they enable me to keep most of my photo and video stuff in some sort of order! Particularly useful for keeping remote cameras, cables and chargers together without getting the chargers mixed up, or leaving miles of cables strung all over the place.

I could have a mini "Spring-Watch" going on here - even the badger has taken to coming in regularly after 10:30 when I'm thinking of going to bed. I wanted to experiment with the infra-red lights this evening, so I had to stay awake.

I use the inexpensive generic plastic boxes (as Chris B. above) and the Bryco racks...

I've seen lots of different MiniDV storage solutions, but most of them either 1) kludgey or 2) unnecessarily expensive for a sufficient number of tapes.

We found something really useful at the Container Store. Stockholm Paper Drawers:

The Container Store > Stockholm Paper Drawers (http://www.containerstore.com/shop?productId=10017278&N=&Ntt=bigso)

2" deep, holds 14x4 tapes per drawer, x 2 drawers per unit = 112 tapes per unit, for about $25. You can stack them, too, but I wouldn't recommend stacking more than two high--they're made of a heavy cardboard and seem to be sturdy enough though. We used the shipping inserts to divide the columns of tapes, and we're really happy with them.