DC Video was tasked with the recovery of five very rare Mike Douglas Show programs with guest hosts John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Each program was recorded on two-inch Quad videotape but there were several catches:
1) Each of the five programs was recorded on used and ancient 3M 379 non-back coated videotape stock.
2) These tapes were heavily worn, each having been played many times over the course of 50 years due to the unique content.
3) The normal two-inch Quad record speed of 15 I.P.S. (inches per second) had been discarded in favor of the 7.5 I.P.S. speed (resulting in more record time per tape but with less audio and video quality).
4) These were dubs of the original recording tape, thus further reducing the possible quality.
Using a dedicated Ampex AVR-1 with a specially-built MK XX 5 mil head (for 7.5 I.P.S. playback), each delicate tape was carefully recovered for max. quality. The AVR-1 design has unique demodulation and filtering circuitry along with the “buffer” (TBC) to be able to handle non-standard 7.5 I.P.S. recovery without unwanted artifacts.
Apple Quicktime files were made for delivery to Shout!.
In consideration of the physical and electronic challenges, the recovery of these five shows was well received.
Here is a short video on this Mike Douglas series:
Pictured here is one of the reels of two-inch Quad tape containing this program.
This is an example of a dilapidated container which housed two-inch videotape for shipping.
A closeup inspection of one of the reels in this series exhibits step winds from the non-back coated stock slipping and possibly cinching the pack. This issue was one of the reasons why this older brown tape stock had been replaced by back-coated product but not in this case with these dubbed and archived programs.