Why Home Movie Videotapes Don?t Last Forever
of a layer of tiny magnetic particles applied to Mylar as part of the manufacturing process. These particles act like tiny bar magnets, so that when the tape passes over an electromagnet, information is recorded and played back. These particles carry the video signal and are changed into patterns during the recording process. When the tape is played back, the patterns are picked up by a playback head and become the video image. (For more information, visit www.answers.com). By virtue of its physical nature, therefore, videotape can suffer any number of mishaps that aren’t present in the digital world, such as stretching, breaking, and loss of magnetic quality.
Solution
Analog videotape was popularized in the 1970s and 1980s, and fortunately helped introduce a new generation of families to the benefits of home movie making. These
