Re: arsclist CD-DA versus CD-Rom (.wav) for archiving (fwd)

["George Brock-Nannestad" <gbn.av@xxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

the Swedish record company BIS wanted to put separate mono 
programs out on the two channels of pressed audio CD's in the late 
1980s but were prevented because this contravenes the red book. 
However, using CD-R does not prevent this. I use it for 
demonstrating AB comparison of treated/non-treated signal.

I do not believe that a .wav type file will disappear in the long run - it 
will be just like ASCII or .txt files - the minimum information needed 
to characterise a signal. The only difference between that and more 
elaborate codings lies in the headers and/or block identifiers. 
However, if you get into meta-data, you really need to agree, and 
you need a standard which will last for many years. A simple mono 
file which is basically a table of instantaneous voltages from 
beginning to end will also be the simplest to perform blind decoding 
on in some future time if all standardisation fails. We must not 
forget that the first digital signal processing for audio was done on 
files encoded on magnetic tape (or even punched tape!). Obviously 
even a stereo signal will baffle if you have to interleave.

I know that this round of questions started in the ARSCLIST, but I 
am copied comments also from RESTORATION - and happy to. I 
do not know enough about the interaction of mailing lists, and I 
apologise if you get the above in duplicate.

Regards,


George Brock-Nannestad
Preservation Tactics