For anybody who is into this this is a a good excuse to share a presentation from Vintage Computer Fest West 2020 re: magnetic tape restoration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKvwjYwvN2U
The presentation explores using software-defined signal processing analyze a digitized version of the analog signal generated from the flux transitions. It's basically moving the digital portion of the tape drive into software (a lot like software-defined radio). This is also very similar to efforts in floppy disk preservation. Floppies are amazingly like tape drives, just with tiny circular tapes.
OP here! Yes I'd highly recommend this video, I stumbled across it early on when trying to familiarize myself with what the options were-- and it's a good video!
The presentation explores using software-defined signal processing analyze a digitized version of the analog signal generated from the flux transitions. It's basically moving the digital portion of the tape drive into software (a lot like software-defined radio). This is also very similar to efforts in floppy disk preservation. Floppies are amazingly like tape drives, just with tiny circular tapes.