Then the inaccessible media becomes the proverbial "1000 pound Gorilla" (with due apologies to our sister species), that the children or grandchildren have to deal with. My parents took 1000s of slides that haven't been looked at in 40+ years, plus there are tons of orphaned negatives for which there are no prints.
I won't be researching my family lineage in my retirement, I'll be scanning media.
RA Friedman Historical Society of PA Rights and Repro.
-----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List on behalf of Tom Fine
Sent: Thu 4/5/2007 6:59 AM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc:
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Slides and inconvenient media (was spin it again)
This is an interesting statement. Slides might point out some of the pitfalls of preservation media.
As I said, all those Kodachromes my parents and even a few from my grandparents (they weren't into
photography as much) have been stored under good conditions in boxes and projector carousels all
these years. The color is still vivid and almost 3D it's so sharp. Meanwhile, the albums of color
prints have faded considerably, just sitting on the shelf. And most of the framed color pictures are
severely faded. But, to this day, it's the albums my brothers and I -- or my brother's kids -- will
pick up and enjoy. Why? Who has time to dig out the slide projector and set up the screen and sit
around and go thru carousel after carousel. Hence the desire to digitized everything and have it
randomly-accessible on DVDR or CDR or hard drives or all three or some combo.
The lesson regarding preservation media is that transferring something and then having it in a semi-
or fully-inaccessible media is not a good goal, in my opinion. Part of any transfer project should
be some sort of accessibility system. In the case of audio, that usually means a copy of everything
on some sort of server, be the copy a direct high-resolution clone or in a compromised format like
MP3. Same goes for video and for imagery. I've often wondered why the software makers don't see this
and make a feature where you have a SAVE-AS option to simultaneously save full-rez and lower-rez
copies. This would be great in any audio editing software, and Photoshop and video software. Would
be one less thing for operator to remember to do.
How an organization is going to make transferred material accessible should be mandatory part of any
grant application. I think it would also help with another of my pet issues -- selectivity (ie
transfer the best stuff on the most threatened media first and then prioritize down from there,
check what other insitutions are doing so you don't work in a vaccuum and consider sharing similar
material so as not to duplicate each others' efforts).
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Palmer" <vdalhart@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 1:19 AM Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Anyone familiar with "Spin It Again" Software to convert Lps a...
> Good luck Tom,
> I've been retired 20 years and haven't touched my slides yet. Not enough time. Jack
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 6:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Anyone familiar with "Spin It Again" Software to convert Lps a...
>
>
>> Hi Steve:
>>
>> Most if not all standalone recorders let you set a "make-a-new-track here" threshold. It's not
>> perfect but it's another solution. In Soundforge, all you do is put mark (the M key) between
>> tracks then "convert marker to regions" and "save each region as a separate file". Only takes >> as
>> long as to scroll thru the waveform and make the marks and then how long the computer grinds.
>>
>> As for slides, you are very right that there is expensive outsourcing or time-consuming DIY but
>> nothing in between. My parents took thousands of Kodachrome slides and they all are still vivid
>> color but I have not had the time to tackle that job yet. That will be one of MY retirement
>> projects.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Steve Ramm" <Stevramm@xxxxxxx>
>> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 10:29 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Anyone familiar with "Spin It Again" Software to convert Lps a...
>>
>>
>>> Thanks guys! Somehow I thought I;d get answers like that knowing this a
>>> highly "technical" group. I know I didn't want to transfer my Lps using one of
>>> those cheap combo jobs.
>>>
>>> Actually at this point in my life - 62 - I'm spending so much time listening
>>> to new releases of old material (for my monthly column in In The Groove)
>>> that I'm not about to build up a big library. Basically I want music on the go.
>>> And, I don't want to be a "sound archive" as my materials isn't THAT rare!
>>> Look, doesn't everyone have hours of old radio comedy shows? And after those of
>>> us over 50 (60?) go no one will want them anyway.
>>>
>>> My problem with cassettes and reels is that I don't have time to figure out
>>> where in the tape there is a song I want to hear. Looking at the demo on Spin
>>> It Again, I fugured I could set up a portable tape player next to my PC, run
>>> the tape through the software to the PC and it would pretty much separate the
>>> tracks between silence. Then I could index it and burn to CDs if I want. My
>>> PC probably has a decent sound card. Heck, I'm happy with the radio shows I
>>> record with Total Recorder - which at less than $20.00 is something I love and
>>> it's easy for a dummy like me to use.
>>>
>>> Tom, you pointed out value of time. I agree and that's why I wanted
>>> something that would work quickly and easily and I'm not planning on doing it for
>>> anyone's ears but mine. I have mid range speakers on my stereo and my MP3
>>> player. I'm into the content not whether the frequency is high or low. Spin it
>>> again offers declickers in the software. It's low end I realize.
>>>
>>> I tried to use Audacity to cut up a long program once and got, not only
>>> stumped, but it took time. It's way too technical for me. And my Dell PC cost
>>> less than $500. without a monitor so I'm not looking to even put $75.00 more
>>> into a sound card. I just thought this might serve my purpose.
>>>
>>> If you guys want, maybe someone can go to their site and look at demo and
>>> give me thoughts on the downside of using it ASSUMING you want dubbing for
>>> dummies of mostly speech, voices and some live concert recordings - that will
>>> eventually be discarded.. and not spend over $50.
>>>
>>> Though it's somewhat different, I've been reading a lot of articles lately
>>> to transfer slides (Photo slides) to digital. I was one of those who only took
>>> slides cause they were cheaper than prints. I have thousands. Well, the
>>> consensus of all is that there is NO INEXPENSIVE way to do it. If you have done
>>> by services it comes to about 50 cents per slide scanned. If you do it yourself
>>> it will take at least 3 minutes per slide to scan and save PLUS the cost of
>>> a $100. scanner. Multiply this by time value and a few thousand slides and
>>> you can see it won't work. I have no heirs who will care anyway. But these
>>> technological changes have really moved fast in our lifetime.
>>>
>>> So thanks for the replies. I won't do anything right away but I might use
>>> their free trial (which lets you record indefinitely but only burn three CDs or
>>> or save 3 digital files.
>>>
>>> Steve
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
>>>
>>
>>
>