Can you bring videotapes on airplanes?

[foxfiregrrl]

This is a stupid question, but I’ve heard rumors that youcan’t. Can you bring videotapes and DVDs in carryon baggage or the baggage you check when you fly? Are there percations that should be taken so they don’t get damaged?

Thanks for your help.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Found this.

http://www.popphoto.com/HowTo/PrintArticle.asp?ArticleID=154

…The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) concluded that magnetic memory devices, including videotapes and floppy disks, could take 1,000-million passes through the X-ray machines before they would show damage.

http://aic.stanford.edu/treasure/video.html

Videotapes, especially modern ones, are recorded with high levels of magnetic energy that make them relatively immune to problems from common household magnetic fields. Weak magnetic fields are produced around electrical appliances, power tools, and television sets. However it is good practice to avoid exposing tapes to any magnetic fields. A few feet separation from a magnetic source will usually provide sufficient protection. Airport walk-through metal detectors and x-ray machines are probably safe, but hand inspection by airport security personnel will ensure an extra level of protection.

Me, I’d give the video or DVD to the security people and let them do it by hand, just to be sure.

[scr4]

There is no risk from the X-ray radiation. There is a tiny risk that the magnetic field from the X-ray machine’s conveyer belt can damage magnetic tapes - or so I hear. Maybe that was true one time but it shouldn’t happen now - they would warn you if there was a risk, wouldn’t they? I’ve never worried about it, and send my laptop through the X-ray machine all the time. (Hard drives are magnetic too.)

DVDs are perfectly safe. They aren’t affected by magnetic fields. I can’t think of anything that can damage them. (Well, besides physical contact, excessive heat and chemical reactions.) Rewritable optical media like DVD-R and CD-R are more easily damaged (namely by heat and excessive light), but not by X-rays.

[CurtC]

From what I’ve heard, you might not want to take a videotape on an airplane that’s headed for Singapore.