Digital Archivist

Pull an old LaserDisc off the shelf, drop it in the player and for the first few minutes everything looks the way you remember....

Can you still buy a VCR? Not a new one. The last factory line closed in 2016, so every machine for sale today is...

The short answer to how long do SSDs last and hard drives with them, is that neither is built to be an archive. Both...

How long do cassette tapes last? A well-made compact cassette that has been kept cool, dry and stable can still play back after 30...

How long does film last? Stored cool and dry, a well-processed reel of home cine film can last a century or more, which makes...

If you are asking how long do DVDs last, the straight answer is that it depends almost entirely on one distinction: whether the disc...

The straight answer to "are cassette tapes worth anything?" is that almost all prerecorded cassettes are worth very little. The music on a common...

In the betamax vs vhs format war of the late 1970s and early 1980s, VHS won, but the popular line that "Betamax was better...

Whether vinyl sounds better than digital depends on what you mean by "better": in pure, measurable fidelity terms, digital wins, but in terms of...

The short version of how to store VHS tapes is this: stand them upright, never flat or stacked, resting on the long edge with...