What is the best way to track / organize LTO Tapes?

What is the best way to track / organize LTO Tapes?
On our film I will be charged with backing up each mag to LTO Tape and sending the tapes to our colorist. I need to track this in a Filemaker Database. I anticipate at most 10 tapes a day for 30 weeks….so about 1500 tapes total. Is it recommended to get a barcode scanner? And do I need to generate a barcode or will the LTO tape already have its own barcode? Was considering getting a WASP USB scanner and a DYMO Print Label Maker to generate the barcode. Thanks!

Best answer:

If you mean Linear Tape-Open as described in the Wikipedia article below, they have a form of RFID built into the cartridge and a reader in the drive, and you can get standalone readers (not cheap).

If it were me, I’d date code the tapes with a lable writer as a backup to the “RFID” in the cartridge.

I would at least get a PC based label printer to print bar code labels. Bar code readers are relatively inexpensive.

Tags: best, organize, Tapes, track

Under Forum