For example in the past, how would movies or TV shows get copied on to millions of VHS tapes for people to watch at home? Do they all get copied from the very Original tape and how did they make sure that the original wasn’t damaged or something…?
In: Technology
You got it right, there is a MASTER copy out there somewhere and they would set it up in machines that would copy the master to thousands of other tapes at the same time. Technically they would use the Master-master to create Master-copies and then make the mass copies from the Master-copy, all to protect the original Master-Master.
They protected the heck out of that master because if they lost it, there could be problems. In a few famous cases the masters of various albums, TV shows, movies, have been lost or destroyed and those are simply.. gone. An entire season of Dr. Who from back in the day is lost because the studio recorded over the master with a soccer match I believe, although I think they’ve found a few random bits.
Interesting fact, in some cases the master is a higher quality than duplicates they produced at the time. For example old movies filmed with actual film. When they make 4k HD versions of these films now they can go back to the original master and get the increased definition straight from the source.
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