20 Oct
2003
20 Oct
'03
6:10 a.m.
I have a number of old DECUS U.S. Symposium audio tapes that I would
like to archive before they completely disintegrate. I have a way to
digitize these and store them in a variety of formats. I'm not sure
what format is best for archive and distribution, though I assume
something like WAV or AIFF for archive and MP3 for distribution. I
have no prior experience at this and would appreciate any suggestions
on the best approach.
Also suggestions on who to contact to make these archives legally
available on the web would be welcome.
Is anyone else archiving these?
As a teaser, here's what I have:
1987 Fall:
N008 Understanding Ethernet
N037 Cryptographic Security for Ethernet
DA054 Optimizing VMS device Drivers for Realtime I/O
V104 Tape 1 VAX Magic, War Stories, and Horror Tales
V104 Tape 2
1988 Fall:
PC031 Internal Enhancements to AppleTalk for VMS
NE050 An Introduction to the Digital's Distributed Name Service (DNS)
GR054 Renderman: A 3D Scene Description Interface for Computer
Graphics System
GR033F Computer Graphic and Visualization
Thanks,
John
20 Oct
20 Oct
6:37 a.m.
In message <a06002000bbb9ab6681bd(a)[131.215.48.186]>
"John A. Dundas III" <dundas(a)caltech.edu> wrote:
what format is best for archive and distribution,
though I assume
something like WAV or AIFF for archive and MP3 for distribution. I
have no prior experience at this and would appreciate any suggestions
on the best approach.
Get yourself a decent tape recorder - not one of those
elcheapo things, a
proper full-size tape deck. I've been using a JVC TD-X335 to archive various
old tapes. Make sure the heads are nice and clean, though. Don't waste time
with those cleaning tapes - I lost a tape deck to one of those things. I'd
use the cotton-wool-and-IPA method.
Next, you'll need cables. Get the Line output from the tape deck hooked up to
the Line input on your machine's sound card. With that done, load one of the
tapes and set it playing. When the VU meter starts registering output, fire
up some sound editing/capture software (I use Audacity on Linux) on your
computer and start recording. Adjust the recording level on the computer
until the line/bar/block on the computer's pseudo-VU meter is just touching
the red segment of the meter. Stop the recording and rewind the tape. Start
the computer recording - IME you should be using a sampling rate of 44100Hz,
16 bit, mono for a speech. I usually set the recorder to stereo and adjust
the settings later (Audacity lets you split the left/right tracks, merge
them, etc). Save in a lossless format - AIFF or WAV (raw PCM compression).
44100/16/Stereo is basically the format used by CDs - most CD recording
software should happily burn these to a CD-R.
For distribution, either make copies of the master CD-R (preferably from the
CD image) or distribute them as OGGs. 64kbit should be more than enough for
speech. Just FYI, an Ogg (more properly, Ogg Vorbis) file is a patent-free
lossy compression format that's comparable to MP3. I'd use Ogg, simply for
the reason that it's opensource and tends to be slightly better in terms of
output file size vs. quality.
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com | ViewFinder, Ethernet (Acorn AEH62),
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/ | 8xCD, framegrabber, Teletext
My other vehicle is a Galaxy Class Starship
8:07 p.m.
Quothe Philip Pemberton, from writings of Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at
04:37:05PM +0100:
Get yourself a decent tape recorder - not one of those
elcheapo things, a
proper full-size tape deck. I've been using a JVC TD-X335 to archive various
old tapes. Make sure the heads are nice and clean, though. Don't waste time
Or, if he wants to preserve them via the analog route, ensuring that
they stand a better chance of being readable at some point in the
future after various forms of digital media have become obsolete: :-)
First, get a good used analog half-inch, or one-inch, two track (this
means reel to reel, and yes, only two tracks) mastering tape deck
(make sure that the heads are good before proceeding/purchasing),
then:
2. clean the heads with 99% isopropyl alcohol using lint-free wipes
3. demagnetize the heads (know what you're doing before doing this, or
you could end up permanently magnetizing the heads... an expensive
mistake ...and make sure that the tape deck is turned off during the
demagnetization process
4. buy an MRL alignment tape and do what needs to be done with that,
an oscilloscope, signal generator, etc.
5. do the recording at 30 ips if possible... if you must do it at 15
ips or less, you might want to use DBX-I (noise reduction). but also
make a second copy without DBX for archival purposes.
6. ascertain that the source tapes don't have a problem with sticking
binder... if they do, you'll need to pop them into a constant 150
degree oven for a while (not a toaster oven... temp. varies too much)
7. clean and demagnetize the heads on a good 3-head cassette deck
8. keep an eye on the VU meters... remember, there's a difference in
reading analog and digital VU meters
etc...
and... have fun! :-)
--
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
6:53 a.m.
44khz 16bit is the closest to CD quality I know of.
I'll always use that for anything of importance.
I have a Sony pro machine here, it really improved
on the process. Level selection and noise reduction
is much easier.
I will master your tapes to CD for you free if you want.
John A.
8:27 a.m.
On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, John Allain wrote:
44khz 16bit is the closest to CD quality I know of.
<Yoda_voice = ON>
44.1KHtz at 16 bits it is - there is no 'closest'.
</Yoda>
Some machines have a 48K setting; this is for 'professional' DATs and
things that need to sync to SMPTE/Video/etc without all the gearbox
whickey - as I'm sure you're (painfully...?) aware of. ;}
Ghod knows I've got enough of them bites on *my* ass ...
And I also offered to master the tapes - I do a large amount of audio
restoration (Edison cylinders on up), so it looks like the Symposium tapes
will certainly be re-incarnated quite soon. Thanks John!
Cheers
John
21 Oct
21 Oct
4:48 a.m.
On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, John Lawson wrote:
Some machines have a 48K setting; this is for
'professional' DATs and
things that need to sync to SMPTE/Video/etc without all the gearbox
whickey - as I'm sure you're (painfully...?) aware of. ;}
What about HDCD @ 44.1K x 20-bit?
Peace... Sridhar
4:54 a.m.
On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 vance(a)neurotica.com wrote:
On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, John Lawson wrote:
Smarty-pants!
Chs
J
Some machines have a 48K setting; this is for
'professional' DATs and
things that need to sync to SMPTE/Video/etc without all the gearbox
whickey - as I'm sure you're (painfully...?) aware of. ;}
What about HDCD @ 44.1K x 20-bit?
20 Oct
20 Oct
7:25 a.m.
You could store them in FLAC or WavPack, both open source and free lossless
audio codecs for archival purposes. If you do a good job on cleaning up the
noise/hiss from the tapes, they can get you 2:1 compression. Not a whole
lot, but half as big is better than nothing.
MP3 has become the defacto standard for transmission, although RealAudio and
ogg/vorbis tend to do better at very low (Re: smaller) bitrates.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John A. Dundas III" <dundas(a)caltech.edu>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 11:10 AM
Subject: Recommendations for archiving audio tapes
I have a number of old DECUS U.S. Symposium audio
tapes that I would
like to archive before they completely disintegrate. I have a way to
digitize these and store them in a variety of formats. I'm not sure
what format is best for archive and distribution, though I assume
something like WAV or AIFF for archive and MP3 for distribution. I
have no prior experience at this and would appreciate any suggestions
on the best approach.
Also suggestions on who to contact to make these archives legally
available on the web would be welcome.
Is anyone else archiving these?
As a teaser, here's what I have:
1987 Fall:
N008 Understanding Ethernet
N037 Cryptographic Security for Ethernet
DA054 Optimizing VMS device Drivers for Realtime I/O
V104 Tape 1 VAX Magic, War Stories, and Horror Tales
V104 Tape 2
1988 Fall:
PC031 Internal Enhancements to AppleTalk for VMS
NE050 An Introduction to the Digital's Distributed Name Service (DNS)
GR054 Renderman: A 3D Scene Description Interface for Computer
Graphics System
GR033F Computer Graphic and Visualization
Thanks,
John
7614
days inactive
7615
days old
8 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
allain＠panix.com -
dundas＠caltech.edu -
jbmcb＠hotmail.com -
jpl15＠panix.com -
philpem＠dsl.pipex.com -
rdd＠rddavis.org -
vance＠neurotica.com