About SPECS BROS.

SPECS BROS. is a magnetic tape decontamination and restoration facility that specializes in disaster recovery and the rejuvenation of archival tapes suffering from material breakdown. We have been restoring magnetic materials since 1983. The services we offer include: Fire Restoration; Flood Reclamation; Archival Rejuvenation; Incubation for Binder Hydrolysis; chemical decontamination; fungus removal; reel/hub/shell repair and duplication.

Among the clients we have helped are ABC, MTV, NBC, Showtime, Sony and the Department of the Navy. Over the past twenty years we have restored thousands of audio, video and data tapes with significant financial value: broadcast and cable network materials; commercial camera originals; data tapes of government weapons research; surveillance and forensic records; industrial data tapes, and tapes from public and private archives. We also restore tapes of great emotional value such as home videos of important family events.

Peter C. Brothers, the founder of SPECS BROS., is a member of the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and the SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) Technical Subcommittees on Magnetic Tape Storage and Magnetic Tape Handling. He was one of the technical experts asked to testify at the Library of Congress public hearings, "The Current State of American Television and Video Preservation" and a member of their "Preservation Task Force" set up to review the results of the hearings and identify major recommendations for a national plan.

Take a moment and just imagine What If...

• Tape retrieved from a robot camera recording volcanic activity on the ocean floor is chemically altered by exposure to moisture and extreme changes in pressure.
• Fire breaks out in a network facility. Thousands of tapes, both active and archival, are covered with oily smoke film, ash and fire suppressant chemicals. Tape cases and shells are deformed by the intense heat.

• A hurricane strikes a coastal area, causing the municipal waste management system to back up. Archived audio masters are submerged in sewage.

• Torrential rains cause a river to overflow its banks and inundate a town. When the flood waters recede, six months worth of camera originals
  are found to be soaking wet and full of mud.

• Police officials are holding a child molester, but the only hard evidence is on videotape he has ripped out of cassettes, mangled and stuffed in
  a bottle of cola. Forensics must get an image off the tape within twelve hours, or the police will be forced to release the perpetrator.

• Unique tapes are discovered in a damp basement. After 20 years, mineral salts have crystallized on the tape surface and 1/4" thick fungus is growing on the tape.