The rate at which recording formats become out of date can be frustrating for any archive dealing with audio visual assets. In both the audio and the video field, the latter half of the twentieth century saw an almost constant stream of new media formats in both the consumer and the professional realms. Although most formats were physically robust, access to content stored on any given format could become problematic within a couple of decades, and in the worst cases within a few years. The advent of digital media types accelerated this problem in some cases, and even formats in use today, such as CDs(g), DigiBeta(g) video tapes and DVD(g)s, all have limited lifecycles ahead of them.

To see details on the lifecycles of particular media, select a link from the list below to take you to the glossary entry for that format: