Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Side project - restoration of Sony VP-5000 U-Matic tape deck for Space Force Museum

BOUGHT USB VIDEO CAPTURE DEVICE AND VERIFIED THAT IT WORKS

Connecting the video and the stereo audio output from the deck to a PC or Mac using USB, this captures the recordings and produces MP4 format files that can be further processed and archived. I will donate this to the archives and we will install the open source OBS software that does the actual capture and encoding using the USB device. 

MAY NEED TO BAKE TAPES BEFORE PLAYBACK

The sample tape I used to restore the deck didn't shed much oxide nor did it have layers sticking together, but that is a common problem with old tapes which may impact other titles in the archives. The solution is to bake these for a couple of days in an oven at low heat. We will need to look over the tapes to decide which need this treatment.

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