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Re: [ARSCLIST] Podcasting--explained a bit...



I dunno about this. I hear where you're coming from, but I'm not sure a junky rendition of something is what's best to leave for posterity. On the other hand, you have situations like the one recently described -- where a university won't let heirs have access to a recordist's work. So it's a thin line. But, I come down on the side where the best possible quality should be the goal and the widest availability of the best possible quality is the ideal. Junk formats have been with us forever (ceramic cartridges, home-market disk recorders, most wire recorders, slow-speed reel formats, one could argue quarter-track reel is a junk format, 8-track tapes, microcassette, MP3, etc) and all too many priceless recordings have been made using these formats. I think the goal in the world of archiving and preservation should be to discourage and try to eliminate these formats -- and to strongly condemn future creation of junk (in the digital realm, that would be lossy compression) formats. Let me put it this way -- who would really prefer to hear Sousa's band on an Edison recording vs. a high fidelity format? OK, since the late 40's, we've crossed the threshold and high-fidelity formats are readily available and widely useable. So there is all the less excuse for using junk formats!

-- Tom Fine

PS -- "just getting everything out there" is the dissemination equiv of accumulating. It's bound to lead to a pile of garbage. Much better to be careful and get the real treasures out there in an excellent sounding format, in my opinion.

PPS -- consider the case of the UC Santa Barbara Edison cylinder project. Most tunes are available in high-rez WAV. And many tunes are online. I think this is the way to go. Sure, it's hard and expensive, but aren't all good things?

PPPS -- consider the case of archive.org, which seems to be a hodge-podge of volunteer transfers. Most of the films were done terribly, not even using telecine projectors, so when you go to the lengthy hassle of FTP'ing the MPEG2 files to make a DVD, the result usually looks and sounds terrible. Plus, no effort is made at QC of the prints, so even if the framerate were right and the picture wasn't jumping around, the color quality is lousy and the prints are full of streaks and noise. Yeah, yeah, beggars can't be choosers, but this site is held up as a great example of "putting stuff out there," and like most unsupervised Internet efforts, it's mostly amateur hour in Siberia. Yes, this stuff looks OK in a postage-stamp-sized RealVideo stream (if you can put up with the constant stops and starts due to underpowered servers), but some of us don't want to blow out our eyes looking at 2" by 2" moving pictures. Bottom line, if I were in charge of this (which I'm not sure anyone is, which might be the biggest problem), I'd go for less quantity and more quality.


----- Original Message ----- From: <Mwcpc6@xxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Podcasting--explained a bit...



In a message dated 8/24/2006 6:33:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Sub-minimum methods being described by Steven are just inflicting
more junk-sound on the world. Blech!

-- Tom Fine
*********************

The world is a big place. Is there really such a need to eliminate all junk?
As with the preservers of obscure species, I feel a need to preserve the some
of the unique but obscure examples of the cultural heritage.

While money is not such a problem, I am old enough so that there is no way I
could find the time to research the availability, clear the rights, and apply
professional techniques to the thousands of hours of film, disc, wire, tape,
cassette and cartridge material I've accumulated. The idea of dumping it onto
the Internet, with minimal processing, for one of millions of possible browsers
to find, is very attractive. They can then contact me if they want to do
something with the original.

While I have some problems with the technology, it is the rights issue that
is most inhibiting to me. There needs to be some way this material can be made
accessible to the Internet world, as if it were a museum or library display,
without the unlimited liability the present law provides.

Mike Csontos


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