BRU LTO Tape Recovery Service by LightBenders
THE PROBLEM
The software is dead. The tapes are not.
BRU PE was the standard LTO archiving tool in film and television post production for over a decade. Its developer closed in 2020, and the company that acquired it ended development and support in 2022. Today there is no download, no license path, and no support line that can help. Every macOS update moves the software further out of reach, and it never ran natively on Apple Silicon at all.
Thousands of LTO tapes holding masters, camera negatives, and finished programs are written in BRU's proprietary format. The data on them is fine. The door to it has been closing for four years.
We built the way back in.
WHO WE ARE
We had this problem before you did.
LightBenders is a working color & finishing boutique on the Fox Studio Lot. Our own vault was written with BRU PE. When the software died, we faced the same wall you are looking at now: healthy tapes, irreplaceable masters, and no supported way to read over 50 TB of them.
So we built one. We engineered and validated a recovery pipeline on modern hardware, migrated our own library, and proved the results file by file. Now we run it as a service for everyone else still holding BRU tapes.
Because we are an active post facility, handling client media is our daily job. We know the care, the confidentiality, and the discipline that irreplaceable material demands, and we treat your vault the way we treat our clients' masters.
We are not a data recovery lab. We are a post facility that solved its
own archive problem and can solve yours.
WHAT WE DO
Three services, one standard: verified delivery.
01
Tape Survey and Catalog
Before anything is restored, we read your tape and produce a complete catalog: every archive on it, every label, file counts, byte counts. You see exactly what you have before you spend a dollar on recovery. The catalog is yours to keep, and the survey fee is credited toward that tape's restore.
02
Verified Restore
We extract your data to the destination you choose: your own drive or RAID, with integrity checks running during the read. Every restored file is then validated against the tape's own records. You receive your data plus a validation report showing that what came off the tape is what landed on your drive.
03
LTFS Modernization
Move off the dead format for good. We re-archive your recovered data to LTO-8 tape in open LTFS, readable by any modern LTFS system from any vendor.
No proprietary software in your future.
Includes new LTO-8 media
Works with or without catalogs. Multi-tape spanned archives, partial archives, and damaged catalogs are all part of the normal workflow.
PROOF, NOT PROMISES
Every file, checked against the tape itself.
Recovery without verification is just wishful thinking. Our pipeline rebuilds the catalog from the data on the tape, restores against it, and validates every file it delivers. Each job ships with:
✔ The full tape catalog produced at survey
✔ A per-archive validation report from the restore
✔ A delivery manifest of every file placed on your destination
The big recovery labs exist to fix physically broken tapes, and they price accordingly. That is not this problem. Your tapes are healthy; the software that wrote them is dead. We free healthy tapes from dead software, and we prove every file.
CHAIN OF CUSTODY
Your data never touches the internet.
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Work is performed in a secure post facility (MPAA and TPN Compliant) located in West Los Angeles.
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All shipped packages arrive through the studio's inspected delivery system. Local clients can drop off by appointment with a drive-on pass.
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Your media is logged and individually labeled at intake and tracked through completion and return. Access is limited to the personnel doing the work.
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Your data is stored exclusively on local systems at our facility. It is never uploaded to any cloud or third-party service, never transmitted over the internet, and never copied to any device we do not control.
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Data is unrecoverably purged 14 days after verified delivery, unless you extend retention. Purge confirmation provided in writing.
PRICING
Published prices. No mystery quotes.
SERVICE
PRICE
Tape survey and catalog
$49 per tape, credited toward that tape's restore
Restore, 1 to 9 tapes
$149 per tape
Bulk restore, 10 tapes or more
$40 per TB
LTFS modernization
+$199 per new tape, includes LTO-8 media, handling, and service.
Extended retention past 14 days
$5 per TB per week
Failed or degraded media
Survey fee only. No restore charge. Written diagnostic included.
Restoring to your own drive or RAID: no handling fee.
The estimate calculator is step 1 of intake. No commitment until you accept the agreement and pay the survey fee.
HOW IT WORKS
Six steps, no surprises.
1
Intake
Fill out the form, sign the intake agreement, pay the survey fee. Use our online calculator so you know exactly what you will spend before you commit. Ship your tapes or book a drop-off. If you are restoring to your own drive or RAID, send it along, empty of files and with enough capacity for the full restore.
2
Survey
We read each tape and send you its complete catalog.
3
Approve
You choose what to restore: everything, or a specific set of files.
(Our recommendation is to always restore the whole tape, but we understand sometimes a client might need to only restore one specific project)
4
Restore
Your data is extracted and validated file by file.
5
Review
You receive the validation report.
6
Return
Balance clears, your tapes and drive ship back, and your data is purged from our systems 14 days after verified delivery.
BRU, BRU PE, ArGest, and TOLIS are trademarks of their respective owners. LightBenders Tape Recovery is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by TOLIS Group or OWC. We recover data from tapes written in these formats.
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