Re: [ARSCLIST] electronic reading of physical media, was: Preservation policy question

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One place where this sort of thing would be very useful -- if it's not
already being done, is scanning old optical soundtrack films that have
shrunken or edge-decayed so they don't work reliably in a sprocket drive.
Perhaps there's some rubber-roler way to feed them through a scanner and
then "play" X number of sprocket holes per second or some other means of
playback. Like I said, know Hollywoods brains and deep pockets, this might
already be out there and in use.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Richter" <mrichter@xxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 5:30 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] electronic reading of physical media, was:
Preservation policy question


> Lou Judson wrote:
> > This is great food for future-thinking - does anyone think it will
> > eventually become possible to make an image scan of a disc and have the
> > computer read it, in the way a scanner and OCR can turn documents into
> > type or ASCII code? And eventually magnetic tape might be read, the way
> > we used to use chemicals to make magnetic patterns visible? I would
> > think it was easily possible given advanced anough computers and
> > software...
>
> Sure. The steps are straightforward for some media, unclear for others.
> Begin with an optical track on film, then a magnetic track on film or
> conventional tape. The leap to a lateral track on disc or cylinder using
> an optical detector is substantial but not out of the question
> (particularly given the existence of the laser turntable). Now, a
> vertical track or stereo would be a real challenge.
>
> Mike
> -- 
> mrichter@xxxxxxx
> http://www.mrichter.com/