Featured Apollo 11 video tapes from 1969

About a year ago I acquired three 1" open reel video tapes, labelled Apollo 11 Landing & EVA.


I bought these tapes with the hopes of possibly finding a lost piece of American television history- unfortunately not all news broadcasters kept their Apollo 11 coverage, the NBC has barely any at all!
I am expecting these to be off-the-air recordings of news channel coverage.



The tapes shipped to me in the Netherlands from the USA.
But what is the format, what is really on them, do the labels hold true? Unfortunately the seller was not able to confirm any of those questions, and forgot where he got them, beyond having acquired them somewhere in the 90s.

Thankfully upon having received the tapes I can say they are in good condition. There is no smell, no oxide shedding, no stickiness or spoking. Very nice wind.


Time to figure out the format with a magnetic viewing solution, then:



Tracks appear to match up to an Ampex Type A VR-7000 series tape recorder, which were around in the mid to late 60's.
This also confirms there is some kind of signal on them, at least they have not been bulk-erased- good!

So these are in all probability Ampex type A NTSC tapes recorded on a VR-7000 series machine.


Now to figure out whether the labels are lying or not... time for playback! I found someone locally that has a Type C machine.
According to DCVideo a type C machine can play back type A, although the picture won't be proper and the audio track is alinged with track3/cue on the C machine.

But even with a bad picture I should be able to identify content - Apollo 11, I Love Lucy, American Football? and the source of the contents - ABC, CBS, NBC etcetera.


I visited this awesome person yesterday, and all I want to say now is- The tapes played perfectly! which did exceed my expectations. I was quite afraid the tapes would shed oxide or suffer from sticky shed syndrome.



More later!

 

Sounds like original Star Trek special effects. It's great that they're in playable shape.

 

Hope we will get to see see great footage ! Now wouldn't it be amazing if you had purchased Apollo 11 missing tapes - Wikipedia. There are certain things you remember forever , where you were , what you were doing ... remember watching this so intently. I remember the Olympic hostage plane storming , the shuttle explosion , 9-11 : every generation has had something really significant , for my Dad , pearl Harbor, VJ and VE day , My Grandmother always talked about Hailey's comet when she was a little girl.... it caused quite a stir then . Imagine if Earth is ever visited by beings from another world ( other than Michael Jackson....lol) .

Now that would certainly be unforgettable .

 

If these are those tapes, I'm not sure who owns them legally, but if they can be sold ....wheeeeee! College is paid for!

 

What a wonderful find! I grew up in Central FL — the street next to our house aimed directly at Cape Canaveral so we had a clear view of every launch. Our parents took us to the Cape to watch Apollo 11’s launch, which we recorded on our little cassette player. I recently found that tape & plan to have it played/downloaded—just hope it holds up through the process!

 

I got a reply from the video transfer business, they may not want to actually do the transfers because of copyright concerns. The tapes may not only contain the raw NASA feeds, but also network footage and commentary. If the latter is the case they are concerned with the end-goal of the transfers, because technically I would not have rights to any network content.

I need to know whether they will still send the files even if they ID the content to be from broadcasters after transfers.

I'm not going to pay 200-300 dollars per tape only for them not to send the files back.

 

That's too bad .... Hopefully you can find a private party willing to do it ...... I hate legalities in the way of history ...

 

Consider a partnership with a university. Even a fraction of the actual value would be considerable, I would imagine. A person I knew (now deceased, or I would ask for contact info and particulars) bought a storage unit that turned out to have belonged to someone who worked at NASA. It would have cost a fortune to have everything dealt with, but he partnered with a local university and brokered a deal where he got copies or pictures of everything, a VIP tour of NASA with gift bag, his name on a plaque on the display, kept a few thing he truly wanted, and a not insignificant amount of money.