Why didn't Toei backup the OG audio to another form of media?

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

I have seen Ajay's video about why Dragon Ball's audio sounds so bad. I understand how Toei wouldn't want to use the space to save a reel of master audio and one for the film itself. However, even in the late 80's, media formats such as cassette tapes were available. Compact discs were made in the early 80's and may have been an option as well, although possibly less likely and more costly. But why didn't Toei pursue some sort of option for backing up the audio? Even if it wasn't backed up in the sense that it could be disassembled (keep voices, replace score, which would've helped with Kai), a good quality, clean recording would have been made. Were those nazis truly too cheap or lazy to do it? Or are there other issues I haven't considered?

I'm glad we have broadcast audio available and all, but I feel even putting this on a damned cassette tape would've saved all of the people involved with it being put out on the internet a major headache.

[kei17]

1) Consumer-level media like compact cassette were not considered reliable enough to be stored as audio masters.
2) They were very conservative and still regarded optical soundtrack as the final complete form (in other words, to them, optical audio was the "original" one and magnetic tapes were nothing but intermediate products.)
3) Optical soundtrack was still common on Japanese TV and considered good enough for broadcasting.

[Matches Malone]

When DB aired back int he day, no one took into account the possibility of being able to sell it in the future. Once a show aired, everyone pretty much moved on from it completely.

[dougo13]

Magnetic media presents a lot of problems. Chief among them seems to be deterioration of the tape's magnetic material from the backing. This is known as sticky shed. I had heard they had problems with PCM audio recordings of some episodes of GT which required the tapes to be restored through baking them. This sometimes works wonders and the tapes will be restored to a point that will allow you to get the material off them and onto a more robust medium. But it doesn't always work (looking at a stack of tapes with "unwatchable" scribbled on them). I'm still experimenting with methods to restore some of these old tapes but none have worked as of yet. Sometimes this stuff is just so much hit or miss...

[GhostEmperorX]

Once a show aired, everyone pretty much moved on from it completely.

Not sure if that’s entirely the case considering the numerous Blu-ray releases and remasters of old shows even as far back as the 70’s with excellent audio as well as visuals.

[Matches Malone]

Once a show aired, everyone pretty much moved on from it completely.

Not sure if that’s entirely the case considering the numerous Blu-ray releases and remasters of old shows even as far back as the 70’s with excellent audio as well as visuals.

I'm sure there were studios that thought ahead, but I read Toei mostly didn't when it came to DB.