The audiovisual materials series dates from 1984 to 20003 and chronicles Howard Hughes and various aspects of Hughes Electronics. In addition to the documentary “Howard Hughes the Aviator,” the series contains historical footage of Howard Hughes. There are also interviews with top executives of the company and footage relating to significant events in the company’s history such as mergers, Chinese President Jiang’s visit to Hughes’ headquarters in 1997, and the 1996 shooting at the Hughes facility in El Segundo, California. Promotional materials relating to the accomplishments of various divisions of the company also feature prominently, as do presentations highlighting company products particularly in relation to communication satellites and DirecTV.

The information in this series resides on number of different media types. The most common media type is the VHS cassette (primarily in the NTSC format, with some in the PAL format). There are also a sizeable number of Umatic (3/4 inch NTSC format), Betacam, and Betacam SP cassettes. Other media included in the series are reels of different sized magnetic tape, a Zip 100 diskette, and two 650 MB CD-R recordable CDs.