In this workshop, XFR Collective members will give participants an opportunity to build a basic AV rack to digitize analog tape. In this session, we’ll work with VHS tape, following the signal path and using a wiring diagram to connect equipment for converting the magnetic tape material to a digital file. We will use the open source software Vrecord for capturing the signal. Participants will get hands-on experience and a chance to ask questions about the ins and outs of the digitization process.

Attendees can expect to:

-Learn how to build a basic AV digitization rack

-Using cables, learn how to connect VHS deck, capture card, monitor, computer to follow a signal path

-Be able to differentiate component and composite

What we offer is a little technical and fills in the gaps between people who work with physical media collections and people who don't know what a Hi8mm tape is.

Fees for this workshop are $20 for METRO members and $40 for non-members. Registration is capped at 10 people.

This workshop will be led by Kelly Haydon, Marie Lascu, and Chris Nicols.

About Our Instructors:

Kelly Haydon (she/her) is the media archivist at Human Rights Watch. She has managed video and audio archival projects for CUNY-TV, NYU Special Collections, and Bay Area Video Coalition (now BAVC Media). She holds degrees from NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program and School of Visual Arts.

Marie Lascu is the Audiovisual Archivist for Crowing Rooster Arts, a non-profit that has spent over twenty years documenting the arts and political struggles of Haiti, and Digital Archivist for Ballet Tech, a NYC public school for dance. She is also an independent archival consultant with organizations such as Third World Newsreel and the Community Archiving Workshop group. She is a graduate of NYU’s M.A. in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program (2012), and is the 2016 recipient of the Society of American Archivists Spotlight Award.

Chris Nicols is a multimedia archivist who currently works as a Film Archivist at the New York City Municipal Archives. He holds a Masters degree from NYU, and previously worked at Storycorps, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Miami-Dade College Wolfson Archive. He specializes in digitizing and managing collections of historical and documentary analog moving image material.

Building a Digitization Rack, Part I: Minimum Viable Digitization Station