Digitise Your Lost Media Goldmine Before It's Too Late...
| Reuben Howe
In a world of instant access to digital, streamed content, the humble VHS is reaching the end of its life. Many of us have VHS collections, but fewer have the players, and fewer still ever actually use them.
If you combine the average life of a VHS with the date the last VHS release was, it reveals that 100% of VHS tapes on the planet will have suffered some form of degradation in the next few years.
We have an article exploring that time limit, but today I wanted to highlight a side of the story I didn't before: Lost Media.
What is Lost Media?
Lost Media is a term used to describe footage, photos, recordings and even sometimes documentation about specific media.
For example, if a TV program was broadcast once, never recorded, and the original tape is destroyed or altered, then that original broadcast becomes Lost Media.
This can happen due to lack of awareness of cultural and historical significance of a piece of media, it can happen because a random worker took it home and it sat in an attic for 5 decades, or it can be deliberate.
Some shows were deliberately altered, whether having scenes removed or episodes entirely scrapped between the first broadcast and the VHS, DVD, re-broadcast etc. This creates even more Lost Media, which can be even harder to uncover.
How Can Digitisation Save Lost Media?
Sometimes, specific versions of a VHS hold missing footage. This can happen when either all the other versions of that VHS are degraded, or missing specific scenes due to degradation. While you might think that the VHS existing is enough to stop the footage being "Lost Media", this isn't always the case.
Therefore, by digitising any and all VHS tapes as soon as possible, you can increase the chance of preserving something that someone else's VHS did not have in good condition.
Now, before we get too excited, of course many VHS tapes were copied over and over, remastered, re-broadcast as-is and there's nothing left to uncover. But, you never know, and digitising now rather than later is always going to be worth it on the off-chance!
Lost Media Wiki
There's a dedicated site for Lost Media accounts, with lists of episodes or footage that is missing. In the vast majority of cases, all information that can be filled in has been, with the gaps now due to private collectors owning the original tapes and not giving anyone else access.
In the cases where media is truly lost, the only way to recover it will be tracking the original film, and even recovering data from deleted drives and systems from the original production!
If you have a favourite old series like VHS Doctor Who then jump into the Lost Media rabbit hole! It's fun!
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