June 2, 2020 Armando Moraes
How TV broadcasters located videos in the middle of an infinity of tapes
When the distribution form of audiovisual media was limited to television broadcasting, programs were either performed live or through the reproduction of pre-recorded content on magnetic tapes (video tapes).
The large number of videos that were henceforth produced by large companies (mostly TV stations) generated the necessity for departments exclusively dedicated to the management of content created and recorded on video tapes. Included in their daily work was the production of hours of recordings to tapes, which was mainly comprised of programs and news content. Oftentimes, this specialized workforce was referred to as “The Tapes Traffic department”, and they controlled the use and storage of video tapes, control of environment for safekeeping of materials (humidity and temperature control), cataloging, and record keeping of its stored location.
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