Audiovisual Conversion

The History Center of Olmsted County (HCOC) is home to a large collection of analog audiovisual material from KTTC, a television station servicing southeastern Minnesota. The collection includes 534 U-matic tapes as well as 605 16mm film reel. The content of the tapes and films is exclusively news outtakes dating from 1976 to 1991. 

While the media in this collection are relatively stable, small parts of the collection had been damaged by water and there was evidence of vinegar syndrome, both of which threaten the continued stability of the media. While they are housed in archival quality containers, they are still exhibiting signs of deterioration, which will only increase with time and result in an irreversible loss of information if reformatting was not completed. 

All 534 U-matic tapes and 605 16mm film reels were digitized when physically possible. Five of the items could not be digitized because their condition was too poor, and one was not digitized because it was a duplicate of another reel. The digitizing vendor supplied the HCOC with a master copy and an access copy of each digital file once the material was digitized. These were inspected for quality control and then copied onto a set of master hard drives. Checksums were performed to ensure the copies were not corrupted or damaged. Then the files were copied to a second set of hard drives and checksums were performed for that set. 

By taking steps to ensure the long-term viability of the material, we will ensure people have access to it for generations to come. The HCOC itself will likely use the footage in any number of future exhibits it creates. People and organizations outside of the HCOC will also be able to use it for their own research and presentation purposes well into the future, just as people now use photos and other archival material from generations long past.