Preserved Media
Preserved Media: Artists and Craftsmen Anthology
Artists and Craftsmen Anthology BAVC Media has worked with Survival Arts Media and the Peoples Video Theater through several grant-funded preservation projects. Howard Gutstadt and Ben Levine provided the Camp Jened videos for the Oscar-nominated film Crip Camp as part of the People's Video Theater / Survival Arts Media Archive, and was preserved by BAVC Media! And there’s more where that came from. Between 1976 and 1978, Survival Arts Media produced the Artists and Craftsmen Anthology in cooperation with the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library system. These mini-documentaries were produced using early black and white ½" video portapaks, and U-matic color camera recorders. The New York State Council on the Arts provided funding for the [...]
Intro To Soldering and Troubleshooting for AV Archivists
Replacing electronic components can be a tricky task, but if you have the tools, training, and some practice it can be done by almost anyone! As usual, the best way to get good at something is to do it with some guidance. BAVC Media has created this video workshop to walk through the process of soldering a simple PCB kit. The kit we used is a "xr2206 function generator" that can be purchased for under $15 from various online vendors. During this workshop, you'll learn how to solder and remove electrical components, how to test electrical components, and the basics [...]
Announcing 2021’s Preservation Access Program Awardees!
BAVC Media is proud to announce the recipients of the 14th round of our Preservation Access Program, made possible by generous grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and California Humanities through which BAVC Media is able to subsidize the cost of preserving analog audio and video, allowing us to offer our expertise and services to individuals and artists that would otherwise not be able to afford them. In order to consider the applications that BAVC Media receives, a panel of local archivists, artists, media producers, and community members is assembled to select participants [...]
Polaroids (1984)
Polaroids is a short video created by Michael Mages, Linda Wargo, Jeff Hilgert and John Watkins. The video was created many years ago technology that was state-of-the-art at the time. Michael Mages is currently a member of BAVC Media's Board of Directors, and the final editing of credits was done in BAVC Media's Sony editing booth. The preservation of this little clip continues BAVC Media long-standing commitment to serving Bay Area creators and artists! We love it when things come full circle.Â
Time Base Correction – Before and After
This video shows the importance of Time Base Correctors in a video digitization signal chain. The content is being played off of a 1/2" Open Reel video tape using an Sony AV-3650 deck. The image on the right is straight off the deck and the image on the left is after the content has passed through a DPS-290 time base corrector. As you can see, while some artifacts are still visible after time base correction, (minor flagging at the top of the frame, and some dropouts), the stability of the image is vastly improved. This is why we always use [...]
Watch: U-matic Tape Deck Path
Get a upclose look at how a u-matic tape feeds through the deck. A look inside the BAVC Media Preservation studio.
People’s Video Theater – 15th St Squatters Clip
This clip from the People's Video Theater was digitized as part of BAVC Media's Preservation Access Program. It shows squatter's rights activists in New York City in the the 1970s. At the time that we posted this video on youtube the Alameda County Sheriff's department has deployed tanks and armored officers to forcibly evict the #Moms4Housing activists. Let's not let history continue to repeat itself! We stand in solidarity with #Moms4Housing.
Generational Loss THE MOVIE
The year is 1988. You've got a cool videotape. You let your friend make a copy of it. Then their friend makes a copy of that tape. Unlike digital content, analog audio and video loses quality with each generation. Rub-a-dub-dubbing tapes can eventually degrade the image quality to the point where it can barely be recognized! Nowadays we take for granted that digital technology allows us to make as many copies as we want without issue. However, in the analog realm, each new copy means loss of quality and a new set of errors. This is Generational Loss. Watch and [...]
What does BAVC Media Preservation Do?
 BAVC Media Bridges Fellows interview BAVC Media's Preservation team and highlight their daily archival work. As one of the nation’s longest-standing non-profit video and audio preservation organizations, BAVC Media remains a leader in the field, developing the highest quality preservation standards and practices while working with individuals and cultural, academic, and media organizations to meet a range of needs for preserving historically and artistically important video and audio materials.Â
DPS-575 Workshop: Understanding the device, how to use it, and creating audio terminal blocks
Are you interested in building a transfer station that can perform preservation-level digital transfers? If so, you may know that properly digitizing analog video tape requires a lot of specializes equipment. The Minimum Viable Transfer Station document maintained by Ashley Blewer (@ablwr) does a fantastic job of describing the types of equipment that you’ll need to do preservation-grade transfers. One of the more popular pieces of technology used in preservation transfers is the Leitch DPS-575. This piece of gear has tons of features that make it super super useful for preservation, and can often be found on eBay for under [...]
