At 7/8/2007 03:31 PM, Doug Pomeroy wrote:Well, SACD may yet have a life as a high-resolution capture format. Korg (yes, Virginia, Korg!) has just announced their new, very portable 1-bit recorders: the MR-1 which records at 2.8 MHz ("260 minutes in stereo"), and the M-1000 which records at 5.6 MHz ("520 minutes"). Prices are roughly $700 and $1200, respectively. This is quite remarkable. Archival transfers anyone?
Let's hope not. The Korg or any other system that uses a proprietary file format is a poor choice for long-term archival transfers and storage. All of the standards and best practices documents recommend linear PCM over the various 1 bit alternatives for long-term preservation. More importantly, any archival format must be based on commonly-accepted standard that do not depend upon a single supplier's technology.
Quoting IASA TC-04: "non-standard formats, resolutions and versions may not include
preservation pathways that will enable long term access and future format migration." At this point, the Korg uses a non-standard format as its only native storage option.
The Library of Congress has published an analysis on the sustainability of digital formats at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/ Here are a few critical questions from this document:
Are the inner workings of the format disclosed publicly?
Has the format been widely adopted?
Is it transparent and open to analysis with basic tools?
Are there a range of tools available?
Can it facilitate self-documenting objects?
Does it depend on particular hardware or software or a limited number of manufacturers?
Is it protected by a patent?
At this point in time the Korg format fails in all of these areas.
None of this is to argue that the Korg system does not produce very high-quality recordings. It definitely does that. But for archival transfers, the best quality possible is still the wrong choice if it depends on a single vendor and a proprietary format.
John Ross