Reply-to: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx>
At 10:13 AM 9/2/2006, Mike Csontos Mwcpc6@xxxxxxx wrote:
To me, the long term archiving by digitization of books is just as
questionable as it is for images and audio.
Mike,
What would you propose as the alternative?
I think you'll agree that regular cloning of analog tapes will degrade quality.
I would like to suggest that the effective life of an analog tape is,
with luck, on average 50 years, although it seems the _design_ life
(of at least some brands) might have been less.
Digital is the best shot we have to capture recordings before they
deteriorate (further) and then be able to rejuvenate them over time
to keep them safe.
I don't see shellac, vinyl, nor analog tape being a viable method of
maintaining the high quality of original recordings made from c. 1954
until the present.
Cheers,
Richard
Richard L. Hess email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.