Post by MediaMonster on Oct 1, 2023 20:32:49 GMT
Hello, silly question. Is a work being found period, even in the worst quality, better than not found at all? I am saying this because I have some old recordings of TLC's Ready Set Learn block, Playhouse Disney, and PBS Kids Go that have some interesting, crossing-my-fingers lost bumpers, coming-up-nexts, and promos on them, but with few exceptions (including, fortunately, the cream of the crop - multiple Ooh and Aah bumpers), many of them have an extremely weird audio issue with chipmunk vocals(?) and rock music(?) loudly playing over everything in an extremely cacophonic manner. Some are also very degraded, to the point that they have turned black and white. Do these promo finds still matter? (For reference, nothing lost with the actual shows, as far as I can tell - in regards to Ready Set Learn, the Paz segments don't seem to be the three that are still lost, and I don't know the complete story in regards to the preservation status of the Mercury Filmworks puppet show Wilbur).
Also, while I've been on the wiki a little bit, new to the forums. Hi. If you want to know anything about lost logos (there are several searches going on back on AVID that I don't think the wider lost media community knows of yet), or want a link to my old Reddit search for the script of the cancelled Fraggle Rock movie that concluded with "script survives and we have a detailed summary, but it cannot be shown publicly for legal purposes", let me know.
Interesting, I've never heard of that kind of audio issue before. I think the chipmunk vocals could be fixed if you pitched down the audio in editing, though I'm unsure how the other audio issues like the rock music could be fixed. This does sound like it's an issues with the tapes, but just to be sure I would definitely check that the issue isn't the settings of your capture device/the VCR itself.
To answer your question: In these types of cases, I believe that something is always better than nothing, especially with lost media. I've uploaded VHS tapes with condition issues onto the Internet Archive, and I preface the titles with (POOR QUALITY) at the beginning so users will know what they're about to watch. I would also add a flashing lights/epilepsy warning if there's any severe distortion. (I've had to do this if there's static that flickers really fast)