Tape Stretch

Synonyms:
See also:	Video Tape Recorder
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Over time (and with repeated viewing), VHS tape degrades. One result of this is tape stretch, which is exactly what it sounds like. This means that the timing of clips in old vids has often been altered, making them difficult to remaster even when high-quality DVD footage becomes available.

"When I offered to remaster Data's Dream for Gayle F in the early 2000s, we found that it was impossible to match the clips to audio with precision. Even with frame by frame scrubbing, we were 2 - sometimes 5 - frames off and over time, as the vid progressed, it became more and more noticeable. While this was frustrating (as we no longer had a watchable VHS copy of the original vid), it freed us to update the vid with footage from newer fantasy and sci-fi movies. We identified the 'core' sections of the vid that we felt were essential to the narrative and focused on replacing the sections that had the most stretch. In the end, we were both very pleased with the result. I doubt this method would have worked for vids that have a tighter and more specific narrative, but for a free-flowing vid like Data's Dream it was a great work-round to the tape stretch problem." (Morgan Dawn, Jan. 27, 2011).