To read client reviews connected with projects listed below click here: " See What Our Clients Are Saying " 2024 Besides the projects we’re still working on from 2023 which include: SUNY Brockport Writers Forum Archives, Livingston County Archives, The LaRouche Legacy Foundation, the Nechung Drayang Temple Archives, and Saint John Fisher University Rochester Radio History Archives, we also begin work on digitizing the archives for Variety – The Children’s Charity International and a collection of oral history interviews for the Kentucky Historical Society. Again In March, we hosted a tour of our facility and a day-long master class in audio and video digitization for master’s degree students attending the Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman Museum. This year’s class looked very promising and we love hosting this event to grow the knowledge and skills of the next generation of audiovisual media archivists as they continue the pursuit of their careers. As summer began, so did several new projects: Bank Street College has us digitizing an old PBS TV series on 1” master tape titled: “The Voyage of the Mimi”. This program was an educational show for teens and featured a very young Ben Affleck. The Louisville Free Public Library has us digitizing a collection of oral history interviews on cassette audiotape. We are also pleased to begin a new CLIR “Recordings At Risk” grant- funded project with City University of New York which should be very exciting. The collection consists of unique video and audio recordings from the Dominican bachata music collection donated by scholar Deborah Pacini Hernández. The collection includes first-hand fieldwork interviews with marginalized musicians, unique musical performances that document the rich underground music scene in the Dominican Republic’s urban slums from 1986 to 1994, as well as US-based bachata artists from 2003- 2011. 2023 Work continues on two CLIR grant-funded projects for both the University of Idaho and the Catawba Indian Nation, the New York State grant-funded project for Genesee Valley Council on the Arts, the Nechung Drayang Temple Archives, Dotdash Meredith, the University of South Carolina, the Nimitz Library Archives at the United States Naval Academy, and Wegmans Food Markets Archives. In March, we again hosted a tour of our facility and a day-long master class in audio and video digitization for master’s degree students attending the Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman Museum. We begin digitizing another portion of USC’s collection for videotape and Alfred University is back with another collection of class lectures on audiotape. We also begin digitizing a large collection of audio cutter discs from our long-time clients at Saint John Fisher University, covering unique Rochester Radio History broadcasts from the early 1930s to the late 1950s. New clients/projects include digitizing collections for two METRO (Metropolitan New York City) grant-funded projects, the first - digitizing audio and video for the Center of Dominican Studies Institute Archives at CUNY, the second - scanning over 3,000 pages of Art Exhibition Brochures and posters that cover the rich history of exhibitions held at the Museum of Hispanic Contemporary Art (MoCHA) through Hostos Community College. We also begin digitizing over 1,000 video and audiotapes covering a total of 20 different legacy formats for the Lyndon LaRouche Legacy Foundation archives, digitization of video oral history interviews and historical footage from the Donald Judd Foundation, digitization of oral history interviews and historical events recorded on videotapes and audiotapes for the Port Charlotte Florida County Library System and digitization of videotapes, audiotapes, motion picture film and large-format positive transparency aerial films for a grant-funded project for the Livingston County Archives. In September we started working again with the wonderful collection of video and audio recordings from the SUNY Brockport Writers Forum series. This time SUNY Brockport received a large grant to finish digitizing the entire collection of TV interview programs and class lectures, covering some of the most influential writers and poets of the last 70 years, on eight different video and audio formats. The project should be completed by mid- 2024. 2022 Besides finalizing work digitizing several thousand videotapes for Dotdash Meredith, America’s largest digital and print publisher, we started off the year completing a project for Cornell University’s Dairy Management Group, covering video lectures and classes given by Peter Van Soest, professor emeritus of animal science and one of the most influential scientists of his generation. The content will be used as an online resource for future students as well as researchers in the field. We also had the privilege of digitizing a small but very important collection of audiotape and videotape masters for composer and fiddler, Judy Hyman, daughter of jazz pianist and composer Dick Hyman. We also began a great project with Wegmans Food Markets. Wegmans is the largest family-owned food store in the US. Their collection of over 1,000 videotapes covers 50 years of audiovisual media history on 10 different video carrier formats. For this project we are working with Adobe Cloud systems to upload the media content, along with metadata generated by MTS, to the client’s Adobe DAM system to provide searchable content with rich metadata information, so that employees can easily find and access content for training, educational and post production requirements. We also began a large mass-migration of over 3,000 audio CDs for the University of South Carolina’s music department. We secured the contract by being able to offer USC an extremely affordable rate using our recent investment in a large optical disc mass-migration robot. This robot is capable of migrating large collections of optical discs including: audio CD, video DVD and optical data discs. Ripping disc media by hand involves a lot of labor hours. Robotics dramatically reduce migration costs, allowing us to offer our clients a very affordable price-point with a much shorter turnaround time. In April we began a very interesting project with the Genesee Valley Council of the Arts, digitizing over 600 audiovisual media items covering the rich oral history of Upstate New York, in dozens of multi-media formats. We also began a twelve-month project digitizing over 700 standard audio cassettes for the Wood Valley Temple and Retreat Center in Pahala, Hawaii. Because of the region’s extremely high humidity and the temple’s limited resources, there was no way for the media to be stored in desirable conditions. The cassettes were exposed to 80% relative humidity for over 30 years and have both mold contamination and serious physical deterioration. Our skilled technicians are slowly cleaning and repairing the tapes, one at a time, prior to digitization. This project is a labor of love but will result in the preservation of classes and oral histories of some of the world’s most famous Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lamas and religious leaders that came through this temple over the last 40 years. We were also pleased to have held again this year, a master-class for the George Eastman Museum’s Selznick School of Film Preservation students in May. This day long class introduces master’s degree students to the fundamentals in video/audio preservation and digitization. In June we began a project digitizing over 1,000 videotapes in seven different legacy formats for the Larouche Legacy Foundation covering the life and political history of Lyndon H. Larouche. Work will continue through the end of 2022. In September we also began two new CLIR “Recordings at Risk” grant-funded projects. The first is digitizing multiple audio formats for the University of Idaho. This collection covers the oral history of minority groups that established and flourished in Idaho. The second is digitization of legacy video and audio formats covering the rich history of the Catawba Indian Nation in Rock Creek, South Carolina. Work on both CLIR Grant projects will carry over through the first quarter of 2023. 2021 Covid continues to blanket operations of many businesses during 2021 but we continue to be blessed with many great projects and clients. We had the pleasure to play a role in a recent Netflix exclusive documentary - “Son’s of Sam: A Decent Into Darkness”. The producers had us digitize the series of original 1970’s reel- to-reel audiotape interviews of David Berkowitz. This four part documentary was the #1 series on Netflix for the month of August. Beginning in July MTS was awarded another large scale multi-year project, this time with the Meredith Corportation. Meredith is an American media conglomerate that owns major media brands such as Time Inc, People, Entertainment Weekly, Instyle and Food & Wine to name a few. The collection consists of several thousand videotapes in 14 different analog and digital videotape formats as well as several digital disk formats. Digital derivatives will be produced for both preservation and the production department's current workflow formats. We also start more work re-mastering video for Carol Goss, President of IAI records and wife of famous free-form Jazz musician Paul Bley. We will re-master more of Carol's video work of her husband Paul performing. In May we were privileged to be asked by the George Eastman Museum's Selznick School of Film Preservation to hold a master class in video and audio digitization. The day-long seminar included proper client needs assessment prior to beginning any project, collection triage and organization and best practices for digitizing both analog and digital video and audio media formats. Through the first quarter of the year, we continued to focus on the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs Grant, to digitize audiovisual materials from the Bix Beiderbecke Museum through the Davenport Iowa Public Library. The project has been very rewarding, preserving lots of great original music, radio programs and personal interviews on videotape, reel-to-reel and cassette audiotape, disk recordings and motion picture films. We also digitized some wonderful interviews on reel to reel audiotape for the estate of classical/jazz pianist, jazz singer and actress, Hazel Scott. Mike Wallace did the interviews of Hazel. They had a special relationship that was quite unique and clearly evident in the interviews. We were also asked by the Genesee Brewery to make a site visit to review a large collection of video and motion picture films documenting the brewery’s history. Media Transfer Service helped to identify the different media types and advise the Genesee Brewery of an initial action plan to secure safe storage and to begin preservation of their collection. 2020 In the middle of March, the Covid 19 pandemic began to spread. MTS was very fortunate to have plenty of work in-house, along with some wonderful new opportunities, which has kept us very busy throughout this year. Below is a brief of our activities throughout this year. We are very grateful to our clients and the opportunities we have had to keep our business strong and stable throughout this challenging period, while having the privilege of working on some wonderful preservation projects. In the first quarter we finished up the digitization of over 1200 hours of media content for both CLIR/Mellon Foundation “Recordings At Risk” grant funded projects with the State University at Geneseo and the Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center within the grant deadlines and within budget. We also finished digitizing 2300 videotapes from the largest bank in the Caribbean Islands well ahead of deadline. We’ve also digitized a rare short film for preservation, featuring actress Karen Allen (Raiders/Animal House) at the start of her career for “Movies On A Shoestring” and we have started the restoration on several mix master original ¼” audiotapes featuring the famous Jazz Singer, Blossom Dearie. The tapes were stored in less than desirable conditions and had fallen off their cored reels into large clumps of tangled and creased balls of tape. The painstaking process of slowly untangling the tapes, removing the creases and re-spooling them onto proper NAB hubs, then baking them has begun. We’re looking forward to the time where we can use our custom Mike Spitz-built ATR-100 deck to digitize these unique tapes for digital re-mastering and commercial release. At the beginning of March we also began digitizing a collection of audio and videotapes for a new client, the Scholes Library at Alfred University. The project is a South Central Regional Library Council grant-funded project. It includes audio cassettes, reel to reel audiotape, ¾” U-Matic and VHS videotapes digitized to both preservation master and access files. In the summer months along with all our other work, we digitized a one-of-a-kind collection of ¾” U-Matic videotape recordings of Paul Bley, who was instrumental in the free jazz movement of the 1960’s. We were commissioned by Carol Goss, his wife, to digitize the videotapes to uncompressed master digital video files so that her production company, Improvising Arts International, could do post work on the content and re- release the content. In September we began a new project digitizing a unique collection of audio and video from the Davenport Iowa Public Library. We worked with them to apply for an Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs Grant, to digitize audiovisual materials from the Bix Beiderbecke Museum. Bix was an internationally known Jazz horn player in the 1920’s and early 1030’s. The collection includes music recordings of Bix and many unique interviews with other musicians of the time including Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, who discussed Bix, the type of person he was and his musical accomplishments during his short life. The collection includes videotape, cassette and reel-to-reel audiotapes, disk recordings and motion picture films. Content is being digitized to preservation master files and files for streaming online. The project will continue through the end of this year. 2019 In late November, projects with a tight turnaround came in from both the Rochester Institute of Technology and the National Technical Institute for The Deaf. Even with all the work in house, we were able to digitize over 150 hours of content on audio cassette and video formats for these clients, before the end of the year. In June, we began a 12 month project digitizing 2,300 videotapes in eight different formats from the largest bank in the Caribbean Islands. The recordings cover 30 years of the bank’s history, on nine different videotape formats. Tapes document the bank’s growth, advertising commercials and corporate meetings, to training videos and community sponsored events. Preservation files will be produced for all video formats. Back in May of 2019, two of the clients we have been working with in 2018 for grant applications received “Recordings at Risk” grants from the Council of Library and Information Resources, sponsored by the Mellon Foundation. One is the Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center in Buffalo, NY. Since June, Squeaky Wheel has been working with Media Transfer Service to digitize a large collection of ¾” U-Matic videotapes comprising the Axlegrease collection, curated selections of video art and documentary films created by local and national artists that were broadcast on a weekly basis in Western New York between 1987-1999. The other CLIR grant was awarded to the State University at Geneseo. Their collection consists of recordings made by Professor and Ethnomusicologist, James Kimball. In his 40+ year career at SUNY Geneseo, Professor Kimball has documented master traditional musicians of New York State, specializing in the Eastern square dance tradition. These include unique interviews and community performances of notable fiddlers, square dance callers, dance musicians and community members whose knowledge bridges 19th century repertory to contemporary practice of tradition. Original media formats in this large collection include reel to reel audiotape, cassette audiotape and video. Both collections combined total over 1200 hours of content and are being digitized for preservation and shared access. We’re proud to have assisted in helping both these clients receive these grants, of which only 20 in this round were awarded out of hundreds of applicants across the country. Beginning 2019, we started with another round of DVD recovery and migration for Niagara County Community College. We also begin digitizing rare 16mm motion picture films from the archives at Saint John Fisher College. The films center around the past NBA team - the Rochester Royals, covering games and highlights from the 1950's. We also began digitizing videotapes from the Thomas Golisano collection at the Wallace Memorial Library at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Mr. Golisano was founder/CEO of Paychex and a philanthropic billionaire. The videotapes range in format from D2 to Digibeta and cover news and media events featuring Mr. Golisano outside of Paychex. We also digitized video, audio, motion picture film and slides from a private collection to be housed at Cornell University and another private audio collection which included cassette tapes, reel to reel audiotapes and numerous formats of disk recordings including Gray Audograph disk recordings from the 1940's. Digitizing Gray Audograph disks require special equipment and software. They play from the center out and vary in pitch from the start of the recording to the end. Custom turntables allow us to slow the playback speed down to 20RPM - a middle ground for the speed of these recordings. After transferring the Gray Audograph disks, professional audio processing software enables us to change the pitch throughout the recording so that the final WAV files result is a steady pitch throughout. We also digitized more videotapes from the Brockport State University Writers Forum collection, for preservation and reference. We’d also like to congratulate both Kirk McDowell and Lindsay Kurano, two second-year students with the Selznick School at the George Eastman Museum, who interned with us over the past year. Both have accepted positions at the Library of Congress - Culpeper Facility, where they begin their full-time careers preserving the nation’s audiovisual heritage. 2018 finds us digitizing more videotapes from the Brockport State University Writers Forum collection, for preservation and reference. They include early interviews of famous Pulitzer-Prize winning authors. As qualified vendors for the University of Rochester, a wide variety of various projects have been coming in from different departments. We've worked on several high-profile cases for local law enforcement agencies and law firms. We have also migrated two rounds of content from Niagara County Community College. The College has a large collection of DVD video disks from the Department of Performing Arts library. Because the disks are checked out by students and teachers, a good portion of the collection has contaminates and scratches on the data side and a percentage of the disks are also starting to have data layer fading. Our job is to pull the data off the disks as a file based format for preservation. First, we resurface the disks so the data can be properly read, then we rip the data off the disks with a special data recovery program. To date we have had a 100% recovery rate. Saint John Fisher College has us digitizing another round of reel to reel audiotape media from their Rochester Radio History Collection. These tapes are human interest broadcasts that were produced for public radio, many of which went national. The tapes suffered from a myriad of issues: flaking, soft binder, sticky shed, decaying tape slices and a wide variance of azimuth settings between each broadcast - 15-20 broadcasts per reel of tape. We were able to successfully digitize all of the content without any loss. We also have a major influx of larger consumer collections coming in including: slide collections, video collections and motion picture film collections. One of the consumer projects includes digitization of a wonderful collection of 16mm motion picture films covering the construction, heyday and end of the Rochester subway and trolley system from the 1920's, through 1960's. This content will be shared with the local library system, local transportation museums and local cable access stations for broadcast. We’d also like to congratulate both Katherine Pratt and Conner Simon, two second-year students with the Selznick School at the George Eastman Museum, who interned with us over the past year. Katherine accepted a position at the National Archives and Connor is producing content for local cable access as well as working with Janice Allen at Cinema Arts, Inc.