Sorry for using Lemmy for this, but it's the best place for doing a longform post with better formatting. I'm using it as a handy dandy reference tool when people have questions and stuff about the UndustFixation channels.
Most of these info are collated from the answers I gave someone for his thesis early this year as well as from a reply I posted at Reddit.
I will continue to edit and update this thread with more thoughts and will mark the dates accordingly.
I've been recording since the 90s, so I don't think anyone inspired me to do what would later be defined as "archiving". The idea of digitizing and posting on the internet however, I credit to a guy named "fiscaplyder". He would share old commercials as early as 2003 in PinoyExchange, and you can clearly see a lot of his uploads being reposted as well as a bevy of impersonators. This inspired me start my own channels like this one from 2006 and then another called Marikinadono in 2007 which has since been shut down after I got busy and forgot about it entirely.
Then more than a decade later during the pandemic, I decided to open UndustFixation intending to do commentary on batang 90s antiques and old clips. The channel name is a play on the term "unjust vexation" with "Undust" obviously about uncovering and dusting anything old and dirty while "Fixation" comes from being "fixated" about something.
Those plans fell on the side for a couple of years until I revisited it in late 2023 after a project ending led to me getting a ton of free time. This time around it was as a full-on channel dedicated to showing my own recordings and some that I found.
I'm not in this for personal glory. I don't even use my real name! When people say thanks, they say UndustFixation or Undust and not the person/pseudonym behind it. Those who personally know me are well aware of my anxiety with attention and getting praise. When I make donations, I do it anonymously. When I helped ship a week supply of food to former coworkers during the height of the lockdowns, I did it without making any social media posts or informing anyone (not even the wife at least a year later) about those efforts. Of course, I kind of went against what I'm saying by posting here — but it had to be said just to underscore my point. Because this idea that I'm some famewhore that demands credit is just patently false.
I'm also not in the hobby out of some phony platitude about saving the industry or anything like that. Most probably are (and kudos to them for that), but not me. I'm into archiving because I want to be able to enjoy what I used to see (or missed) at my own pace. That's it, plain and simple.
Uploading it is optional and secondary, as I want others to chime in on what they think or know about the clips. I am not obligated to provide the community with non-watermarked videos and no one is forcing them to watch. I don't care if your viewing experience is ruined. If it's too bothersome, no one is stopping you from going out there and doing your own archiving. In fact, you'd be doing the community a huge service by dipping your toes in instead of whinging.
Maybe "archivist" or "preservationist" is not the right label for me, and you probably should stop referring to me as one to avoid setting the wrong expectations.
The bulk of my content come from VHS. They are surprisingly robust and last many years as long as you store them properly. If you lose your digitized copies, you can just go back to the tapes and re-convert. Due to the age of the technology, you're also almost always guaranteed that the content is going to be old.
I use a Panasonic AG-1980p S-VHS player to get the best possible quality out of the tapes. I also have a backup Sharp S-VHS player hooked up to a Panasonic DMR-ES18 to serve as a line TBC passthrough. I recently acquired a working Sony betamax too, but I don't use it as much due to fear of breaking it. All tapes are captured losslessly through Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle so I can upscale it a bit using Virtualdub to 960x720 and retain the 4:3 aspect ratio. All videos are then compressed for storage using Handbrake.
Around 2006 or 2007, I stopped using VCRs and transitioned to TV tuners. It was the worst decision of my life, but had no choice as my VCR broke down and it has fallen out of favor with the rise of DVDs. On one hand, this was the peak of my recording years as I recorded all kinds of channels from the usuals to something like early boring QTV, TV5Monde or RAI International, lmao. On the other, hard drive space was expensive so I had to capture at 240p and burn them on DVDs. Little did I know that discs had a astoundingly bad lifespan, leading to several recordings being lost.
I stopped recording anything after 2008. Therefore, you won't see me post anything beyond that date. It would be inauthentic and clearly not from my collection. I did have one short clip from Balls in 2011 as I was still watching volleyball during those years, but that's it.
Implying that watermarks mean I'm claiming ownership of the videos is such a dumb malicious takeaway. The owners are the networks and the copyright holders — an imbecile could see that, and it goes without saying. I don't even use the term "my videos" to describe anything I post, but rather "my uploads". I also stopped using 'thieves' and opted for "reposters" so my displeasure is more plain and less open to interpretation. Retorts like "NiNaKaW mO rIn NaMan YaN" won't apply because no one is accusing anyone a thief but rather for reposting — I'm the direct source of what you posted, not the channel even though they created it.
So, with semantics out of the way: the reason for watermarks is to track sources. Did ABS-CBN create the 1982 City 2 station ID? Absolutely. But they weren't the ones who made it possible for you to see it again after 40+ years, and it actually remains to be seen if they had a copy at all. It's kinda like Halley's Comet — Edmond Halley wasn't the first to discover it, but it was named after him for reintroducing it to the world. Besides, if I'm doing my thesis or a media person working on a piece about archiving, I want to be able to talk to the person who found it and how, not some kid with no meaningful knowledge or contributions just snipping on a cellphone using Clideo. It's also preferable that all discussions about the discovery happen in one place and not spread across a dozen copies.
But I hear you. I understand the frustration with the watermarks. I said it before last year that I hate them for precisely the reasons mentioned by some viewers, and then some. In fact, my first few months of uploads didn't have watermarks.
Unfortunately they ended up being reposted and the wrong sources were being credited. Celebrities like Giselle Sanchez, Heidi Hocson, Jay Manalo, Ryan Eigenmann, and others would end up thanking the wrong person. Heck, even Radyo 630 (who technically own TV Patrol by virtue of being an ABS-CBN subsidiary) credited the guy who reposted my first iPhone upload.
The double whammy here is that these pages are eligible for monetization and been making money from the traffic it brought. I'm not earning from this, never will be, and haven't made a cent. The stars from FB given to me in kind (roughly equivalent to about P23) remain in stasis. I'm fine with that as this was never intended to be a cash cow anyway — but at the same time, I don't think it's fair that I'm doing the hard work of finding/buying/cleaning tapes and digitizing them while others profit or reap praise from it.
As for the "obnoxious" watermarks, that's a recent development and is typically used only with select uploads. Some pages have been using AI erasers to "remove" the logo which necessitated using moving watermarks. I thought that was a decent compromise than the big permanent text in the center that others use. Reposters were upset with this and astroturf the comments section, which is why I laugh at them. Most of the followers sympathize with the move while there are some legit gripes from those unfamiliar with why I do it.
I'm not selfish. 99.9% of those who ask for permission to repost, I almost always say yes. I give copies of my rare anime to a local team that does remasters of lost tagalog dubs. I even promote pages or — at one point when I temporarily retired my YouTube channel — allowed them to post my uploads on theirs and I didn't bother to reupload it when I eventually reopened the channel.
The only requests I turn down are those who want to repost as is — mostly because I don't see the point of it. If they're going to watch the same thing, why not just do it on my page? But those types of requests are rare, since they just go ahead and repost it without notifying me. Often the requests I get are:
- For use with recreations
- Only certain parts are needed from the long clip
- The actors/artists/relatives of those that are featured asking to either repost it or an unblemished copy
- Attempts at remastering at a higher quality (AI upscaler megalulz)
- Listicle compilations
- Making reels (like this one although they didn't bother to seek or give credit but its alright, the watermark is there anyway)
I have no problem with any of the above and it's gleefully encouraged!
Let me make one thing perfectly clear:
WE DON'T HAVE EVERY SINGLE VIDEO IN EXISTENCE!
It would be foolish to assume that we do. So many shows and events are happening during the "free time" we're recording and there's only one VCR and TV. Although there is evidence of people (usually rich) that have several VCRs recording on different TVs at the same time, that's an outlier — and even then, they're still bound to miss a large chunk of what's out there.
What archivists personally have is typically dependent on what interests them. I don't want to speak for Jojo Bailon, but I could surmise from his uploads that he's into musicals, variety shows, and PBA games — and, not surprisingly, his uploads are commercials, bumpers, idents, before, around, and during any of those programs. Dann Garcia is a 24 Oras/GMA superfan and the bulk of his content are of that show and its surrounding commercials.
I wouldn't expect VOTIII to have, say, Dragon Ball or Yaiba, as anime don't appear to be in his purview. Nor would I pester Dann Garcia to release Epiderm A or Fake Doomsday ad as it predates the year he began capturing.
That said, the issue with requests isn't so much that we have or don't have — it's more like requests are annoying and offensive in general. It shows a lack of appreciation (whether existing or imagined) of what the archivist is doing for free and out of their own schedule and convenience. Imagine uploading an ultra-rare clip that the internets spent years finding and you finally put an end to the quest by putting it out there and the comments you get are "BoSs SaNa StAiNeD gLAsS NaMaN". Yes, we could always hide and ignore it, but it's done. We've seen it. And there's like 200 more comments and messages like that. And then some would handwave your reactions as being sensitive or childish and it just compounds things even further.
Almost everything I upload come from my personal collection or something I've recorded in the past but discarded during the "Great Tape Purge of 2007" (in which I threw out over 70% of my tapes during the home renovation) but have since rediscovered.
The type of shows we record run the gamut of tagalized anime, pro wrestling, cartoons, musical performances (usually of the rock genre), sports, lifestyle programs, local sitcoms and dramas, technology, news, and travel. Incidental commercials and IDs are also part of those recordings. You rarely would see me upload anything that I (or someone in the family) wasn't watching.
I do procure tapes from numerous sources, but 80% of the time there's nothing meaningful in it. I've wasted so much money gambling on mysterious tapes that I usually ignore any leads that require payment these days, mostly to boycott archivist tax.
100% of my lost media discoveries are entirely by accident. I play tapes without knowing what's inside, let it run in the background, and capture anything interesting I hear. It's not like "oh I want to see Caritas Gutom!" and all of a sudden I have it. It takes a lot of luck, often times money, and more luck.
I'm not really into what many consider as the lost media iceberg. To me, everything old is of equal importance. I do have my own personal "white whales", and have stricken off a large chunk from the list like Buddy 'En Sol, i Channel, Early Myx, and Karne Ka Lang sa Hazing, this year alone.
So far, only six videos remain on my list:
- ABC 5's "Don't Let This Happen To Your Children" PSA (1992)
- Big Bobs TVCs - Whammos, Fat Fingers, Zingies (1994)
- MTV Asia 1998-era with Donita Rose
- Channel [V] Philippines 2000s era
- ABC 5's Beatles documentaries (1991?)
- Uncle Bob's Lucky 7 Club
