Won the newer formats such as MiniDV last a lot longer than VHS tapes ?
Sadly, the answer is no. Although tape formulations have improved slightly, even the newest formulations are subject to the effects of hydrolysis and subsequent inevitable degradation. Tape was never meant to be an archival format. More importantly, the smaller formats such as 8mm, MiniDV and Digital8 are especially susceptible to the least amount of tape damage. There is a LOT of information crammed onto a tiny bit of tape “real estate”. The slightest amount of tape deformation due to stretching, creasing or common edge damage can spell disaster. In the case of digital formats, either the digital data stream read is valid, or it’s been corrupted – it’s often an “all or nothing” proposition. Digital format tapes, unlike their analog counterparts, do not degrade “gracefully”. We are however, able to recover many damaged MiniDV tapes that exhibit pixelization (pixelating) where the video appears to have either random or columns of mosaic pattern blocks.
