Dion Edwards, Author at DVD Conversions

DVC PRO Cassette repair and recovery

DVCPRO 25 Tape repair and digitisation project

Panasonic DVC PRO first introduced in the mid 90’s was a professional digital tape format used in electronic news gathering and other broadcast applications. Although a very robust format, being tape based, it faces the same issues that all tape formats face.

Temperature and humidity are the two most important factors in ensuring tape longevity. Tapes stored in cold, damp conditions are sure to develop mold and other issues related to incorrect storage.

Moisture causes mold to gather between the tape layers. Because of this, the layers of tape to stick together and if not treated properly will cause the tape to snap during playback.

Pictured is a typical example of a damaged section of tape.

Recently we had a case where a number of DVC PRO 25 tapes had been damaged by mold and moisture.

The customer had taken to the tapes to a reputable media transfer house in New Zealand, the tapes where not treated prior to being inserted into the VTR’s. This resulted in the tapes snapping and being damaged. The transfer house in question returned the tapes to the customer as being “unrecoverable”.

Tape recovery

It is critically important to treat and clean mold damaged tapes prior to them being loaded into VTR’s.

We have perfected various techniques to treat and recover magnetic tape. In the case of the damaged DVCPRO tapes, we opened the cassettes and baked the reels at a constant temperature and humidity level over a prolonged period of time. The baking process extracts residual moisture and helps to release the bonds created by the mold between the layers of tape. We then manually wound every inch of tape onto new take up reels and reassembled the casings.

The result – we managed to recover over 99% of the “unrecoverable” tapes.

Although some sections were lost, it was fortunate that these sections were of little significance. This meant no important material was lost.

Transfer to digital files

Using two different VTR’s and our digital video capture system, we were able to digitise the material and supply the customer with uncompressed MOV and compressed MP4 files.

Sony DSR1500AP DVCAM VTR

Panasonic AJD640 DVCPRO 25 VTR

Cassette repair and recovery

If you have magnetic tape that has suffered moisture damage, give us a call, there is a good chance we may be able to recover the content.

Visit this page to see some of the other tapes we’ve successfully recovered.

Digital file transfer – format list

We can transfer most tape-based formats both domestic and professional.

Our media transfer suite caters for the following formats.

Digital Betacam
Betacam SP
Betacam SX
Betacam
DVC PRO 25
DVCAM
XDCAM SD – Disc
Mini DV
HDV
Umatic SP
Umatic
SVHS
VHS
VHS C
Video 8
Hi8
Digital 8
Audio Cassette
Mini Disc
DAT – Digital Audio Tape
Audio reel 1/4 inch
LP 33, 45 and 78rpm.
35mm slides
35mm negatives
120mm negatives

Film transfer

Super 8 film reel close up with white acetate leader

We also offer 2K / HD film transfer for small gauge film with or without sound.

Super 16
Super 8
Regular 8
9.5mm Film
16mm Film

Film Cleaning

Film cleaning service for film we are converting.

Film leaders and splicing tape

8mm film leaders white acetate for Super 8 and Regular 8 film

We supply genuine Kodak film leaders and splicing tapes.

DVD Conversions Limited (NZ) also trades as Digital Mix and Kodak Express Botany

16mm film ex Spitfire MK V

Transfer of negative 16mm film from Spitfire camera

It’s not often we get to work on something as historically significant as this – 16mm film circa 1940’s shot from the wing of a Spitfire MK V during air-to-air training.

This job was a bit of a challenge as all the film clips were not wound on reels and in some cases the film strips were very short, only a few seconds worth of images.
We added new acetate leaders between the short lengths and spliced the various short pieces together to form a single length of film. To prevent unnecessary handling of the film we scanned as is, in a single pass through our scanner. Once scanned we used our AVID Media Composer software to get the film back to the way it should be. In some cases we had to invert the image (L to R and top to bottom), reverse the direction and invert from negative to positive.

Below is the information provided by our customer.

This film was shot using a ‘G45’ 16mm film camera shooting B&W film at 20 frames/sec mounted in a Spitfire Mk V. The Spitfire was taking part in in an air-to-air gunnery course, Course 66, at the Central Gunnery School, RAF Catfoss, East Yorkshire, UK, in June 1945, prior to the pilot being sent to fight in the aerial war against Japan.
Air-to-air targets during the course included ‘drogues’ (large windsocks towed behind an aircraft), bombers e.g. Wellingtons and other Spitfire Mk V aircraft.

Customer feedback.

Thanks. Very well done indeed managing to get all those scraps copied. I have just gone through and watched them all, and the quality of the conversion, especially with 80 yr-old film, is much better than I anticipated. Really good. Before I found you at, I rang around a number of organisations big and small who said they couldn’t convert the film, offering various excuses like not having double sprocket film handling. Maybe they didn’t want the responsibility of dealing with old film?

The images are taken from the 16mm film.

A challenging and rewarding job, history preserved and above all – a very happy customer!

Film transfer

DVD Conversions Specialize in film transfer to digital files. We can scan 8mm film, Super 8 film, 9.5mm film and 16mm film at 2k resolution of full HD.

Visit our film Conversion to Digital File page

Vinegar Syndrome

Acetate Leach

Acetate leach or “vinegar syndrome “as it’s often referred to, is the degradation of acetate film due in large part to being stored in hot and damp environments in sealed containers.

Acetate film stored incorrectly will release acetic acid (hence the vinegar smell) over time and this causes the base material of the film (cellulose acetate) to degrade. Once the process has started it is irreversible. The leaching process causes the film to curl, shrink and become brittle. This makes it impossible to run through a film scanner. The image above illustrates how the film edges are damaged.

Temperature and humidity play a crucial role in long term storage of film, generally less than 20 deg C and below 40% humidity is good, the lower the temperature the better. Low humidity (below 20%) could cause the film to dry. See the Wikipedia link below for more.

If you open your film collection and get the slightest smell of vinegar – get on the phone and book it in for digitization, the sooner the better!

Film that has started to leach can still be rescued but there may be frame shift as a result of the film shrinking.

More detailed information can be found on this Wikipedia page

DVD Conversions Specialize in film transfer to digital files in 2K or Full HD. We can transfer 8mm, Super 8, 9.5mm film and 16mm film with or without audio.

Video 8 tape cleaning and recovery

In most cases a tape like this would go straight to the bin.

Not with us – we successfully recovered every inch of this tape.

This tape was treated using various methods we’ve developed over many years of doing this work.
So how did we do it without giving too much away – we baked the tape for an extended period of time at a constant temperature and humidity level before embarking on the pain staking process of hand cleaning and winding through our custom cleaning jigs.
The result – 100% recovery of all video content from the tape, and yes it was recorded end to end 92 minutes long.
If you have tapes that look like this, chances are they are recoverable despite what you may have been told by others.

DVD Conversions Limited specialize in all video format transfers and offer a cassette clean and recovery service for tapes we are converting.

Mini DVD

A fairly popular format developed in between tape and solid state formats.

Some would say it was an awkward format as the DVD’s only have a 1.4GB capacity which only allowed for 30 minutes of recording in MPEG 2 format. Double sided DVD’s where available which in effect doubled the available recording time.

DVD compatibility was one of it’s main selling features in that the mini DVD’s could be played back on a standard DVD player, provided the mini DVD’s were finalized prior to removal from the camera. This is where things went wrong.

Many people did not finalize the discs and as such the recordings were never “closed” or finalized. This meant that the discs would not play in a standard DVD player, they will only play back in the camera. Now many years on the camcorders are no longer available and the discs are gathering dust on a shelf. When inserted into a computers DVD drive, the DVD shows as “blank”. This is generally not the case, the files are just hidden deep in the sectors of the mini DVD.

All is not lost! DVD Conversions Limited have commercial grade data recovery software which can retrieve these “lost’ recordings and can convert them to digital files such as MP4, AVI or QuickTime.

If you have mini DVD’s we can assess and advise accordingly, no recovery – no fee.

If you want to convert Mini DVD to Digital Files click here

DVD Conversions Limited t/a Kodak Express Botany

Quick Links

DVC PRO Cassette repair and recovery

DVCPRO 25 Tape repair and digitisation project

Tape recovery

Transfer to digital files

Cassette repair and recovery

Digital file transfer – format list

Film transfer

Film Cleaning

Film leaders and splicing tape

16mm film ex Spitfire MK V

Transfer of negative 16mm film from Spitfire camera

Film transfer

Vinegar Syndrome

Acetate Leach

Video 8 tape cleaning and recovery

Mini DVD

Format Identification

DVD Conversions LTD also trades as

More Information