Taking Care CDs, DVDs, and Cassette Tapes

For most people these days, music that they listen to is usually downloaded from the internet and played back on their Smart phones, tablets or MP3 players. Only a small percentage of people still actually use CDs, DVDs, Vinyl records and even cassette tapes. I personally still like to listen to my music on CD but, I do still have a box cassette tapes in my collection. I have even gone to the extent of transferring some of my cassette tapes to my computer allowing me to make a CD copy to play in the car, etc.

Today, I came across an article on Prosoundweb.com that discussed how to maintain magnetic and optical media (ie: CDs, DVDs, and Cassettes). The article tells you how to solve problems with your media. Like a scratched CD or a crinkled and snapped cassette tape.

Click here for the article: 

http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/maintaining_optical_media_recovering_data_damaged_storage_devices/

So, if you still have recordings on these older formats, take a few minutes to read this article and learn how to keep your collection in good shape. For all the younger people out there who have never seen or used a cassette tape, see the diagram below:

.....And Here is a picture of a typical dual cassette deck that will playback and record onto the above shown cassette tape:

With a dual cassette deck, one deck is playback only while the other is playback and record. This allows you to playback a pre-recorded cassette on the playback only deck and record a copy onto a blank cassette using the record deck. Blank cassettes available with various time capacities. Standard formats are C-60 and C-90 which meant 60 mins total recording time and 90 mins total recording time respectively. Recording is available both "sides" of the cassette tape. A C-60 tape will be 30 mins per side and a C-90 tape will be 45 mins per side.

Some samples of 60 min. and 90 min blank cassette tapes (new):