DAT tapes aging vs analog tapes ?

[david winter]

Hi,

I recently got a few hundreds of DAT tapes containing classical recordings and radio broadcasts. Some play great, some "skip" more or less with a blank lasting about half a second.

I wanted to know:
- if these tapes are reliable and can be kept without digital duplication to another more reliable medium
- if there are known problems such as drop outs, bit rots, sticky sheds
- what is the best method of transferring them without loss
- if there is any specific way to recover the "skips" with a drive which can detect them and try several methods to retrieve the weakened data (if not lost).


Thanks !

 

[Lt. Bob]

I too wanna know that ................... experts .... waitin' on ya'.

 

[Farview]

I wanted to know:
- if these tapes are reliable and can be kept without digital duplication to another more reliable medium

No. Most of the time the tape itself doesn't go bad, but the cartridges get all jammed up. Of course I have had a few tapes from the early 90's just turn into solid bricks.

- if there are known problems such as drop outs, bit rots, sticky sheds

The biggest problems these thing have tend to be mechanical. Either the tape cartridge goes screwy or the mechanism in the machine goes south on you. Both the tape cartridge and the playback mechanism are very small and fiddly. That's not a good combination for reliability over a long period of time.

- what is the best method of transferring them without loss

Just a digital transfer, as long as the thing plays back right.

- if there is any specific way to recover the "skips" with a drive which can detect them and try several methods to retrieve the weakened data (if not lost).

there is no practical method for doing this. (I'm sure the FBI could pull info off a bad tape if they had to) The data DAT machines could do something like that, but the data was put on the tape with check sums to check data integrity. Audio DAT's didn't do that.

If a tape is giving you a problem, it's time to throw it out. Anything that won't play back is just lost. There is really no good reason to use one anymore, other than playing back stuff that was recorded to DAT 15 years ago. The converters in that machine are a few generations out of date, the machine will eventually eat itself and it will be harder and harder to replace as time goes on.

A cheap M-Audio computer interface has better converters than a DAT machine and blank CDs are less than 2 cents each. That would be the better way to go.


Thanks ![/QUOTE]

 

[Massive Master]

ONE THING IS -- OOPS - CAPSLOCK ON...

There we go.

One thing is for sure -- Before even trying to listen to an old DAT tape, FFWD it to the end and rewind it to "open it up" (for lack of a better term - and this is why analog tape is generally stored tails-out).

 

[Bobbsy]

If you have the skills, the other thing you can try to recover the missing bits on your DAT tapes is to adjust the tracking on your playback machine. DAT uses a rotating helical scan head (a bit like a VHS) and mis-alignment of the playback head compared to the recording machine can cause the drop outs you mention.