Mass Productions Audio, Video, and Film Transfer News

Mass Productions recently completed digitizing over 800 videotapes for the Brookwood School in Manchester, MA.   We archived videos to hard drive of school events recorded on VHS, Digital 8mm,  Mini DV, and HDV videotapes. Our client was very happy with the results of our efforts!

“Brookwood School selected Mass Productions to help us with a major video archive project because we were impressed by their level of expertise to handle our project in a timely fashion. We needed to convert about 15 years worth of video tape to digital files. This included at least 5 different kinds of tape used over the years, and some of it required a lot of TLC! Mass Productions did a fantastic job!”-Douglas Fodeman-Director of Technology.

Mass Productions recently completed digitizing over 100 VHS, Mini DV, and audio cassette tapes to digital files for the Charles River Conservancy.

These important videos contain the history of the Conservancy.     The videos will be used for research purposes, as well as online access.

“Mass Productions was extremely reliable and professional throughout every stage of the process. They were responsive to all calls and emails, and came on site for pick-ups and deliveries on a timeline that worked with my schedule. The final product was well-organized and high quality.

We are very excited to now have access to so many videos and audio files that we worried were lost to time!”

-Kelsey Kerle-O’Brien, Special Assistant to the President

Charles River Conservancy

Mass Productions recently completed digitizing 100 audio reels for Harvard University for research purposes.    The tapes dated back to the 1950’s, and contained a lot of hum and hiss.     We digitized the Audio Reels to NARA standards of 96Khz, 24 bit archival audio files, and then spent many hours restoring them to remove the noise.     The cleaned up audio was then saved to separate restoration files.     Harvard was very happy with our timely work and excellent results.

Mass Productions has restored a documentary 16mm film for the Harvard School Of Public Health. The reels of this 1971 film have been all around the world, therefore they are pretty beat up.

The film has severe sprocket hole damage, and the color has turned pink! We repaired the sprockets, and color corrected the image. The film has optical audio, which tends to have lots of pops and ticks, but we removed them!

The result is clean High Definition video files with restored color and audio.     Harvard was very pleased with our results.

Mass Productions is digitizing videotapes for Framingham State University. Over 100 3/4″ Umatic videotapes, VHS, Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, and some 16mm films from 1935!

Many of the Umatic videotapes are sticky and require baking before one final playback to recover the video to QuickTime Digital video files for archiving.

The films are very delicate, and we are scanning them to High Definition video files.

The videos and films contain graduation ceremonies,  sports games, plays, and other important events that have taken place at Framingham State University over the decades.

Mass Productions is busy restoring one inch type A video tapes for Cape Cod Community College.    This rare video format came onto the market in 1965 and was replaced a few years later by 1 inch type C video tape.     The videos we are restoring are a graduation Ceremony from 1971.   We first had to clean and bake the tapes before we could play them back one more time to digitize the videos.

Mass Productions recently scanned this rare 16mm film to High Definition video for the JFK library.

This film is from his inauguration parade in Washington DC, 1961.

During the film, you can see the Boston Latin School marching band go by, as well as a mock float looking like the PT109.

JFK is clearly very pleased by the float, and he gives a big thumbs up as it goes by.

We restored and digitized the “Saturday Evening Girls” archive for Umass Boston.   Which featured interviews recorded in the 1970’s of the talented ladies in Boston’s north end who made “Paul Revere Pottery”.     The archive consisted of 1/2″ black and white EIAJ video reels, Umatic and VHS videotapes.    Due to their age, all the videotapes were sticky and required baking before transfer.     We also digitized DAT tapes, audio reels, cassettes, and Micro Cassettes.    Umass was very pleased with our archive digitization services.  “My thanks and appreciation for the fantastic job you did for us in digitizing the SEG materials!  Right before the holiday break, our entire staff went through the set, checking the spreadsheet, listening to and watching the footage.  We had a great time, and I was delighted with the overall quality of the digital audio and video.  I was also impressed throughout the process with your professionalism and careful attention to detail in getting the best from tapes.   I look forward to working with you in the future.”–Joanne Riley, University Archivist and Curator, University of Massachusetts Boston.

Mass Productions will start 2015 with digitizing over 700 VHS tapes for the Boston Ballet.    These videotapes are a critical visual reference of past performances.

Using VHS decks with digital time base corrector,  drop out compensator, and video noise reduction,  we will digitize the tapes to QuickTime files.

These files will be used to create Mp4 files optimized to stream on Apple TV boxes at the Boston Ballet Studio.       This will completely eliminate any further wear and tear on the videotapes.

It will also make it much easier for instructors and students to quickly access the performances.

Mass Productions begins an archive project for Bridgewater State College. We are digitizing thousands of feet of 16 mm film, as well as audio reels and VHS tapes. This tape is a one of a kind recording of Robert Frost reading his own poetry at the college in 1959!