[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [ARSCLIST] IRENE article
From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad
I tried to find out which programme in National Public Radio might have
described the problems of the Library of Congress in 2000:
> > While listening to National Public Radio in 2000, Carl Haber learned
> that
> > the Library of Congress had a big problem.
----- but I could not find any relevant programme by searching the NPR
website. 2002 and 2003, yes, but not 2000. How is that?
Kind regards,
George
Marcus Suerio wrote:
> Unfortunately, the sound samples in the article are not doing IRENE a
> great favour: Sure, there is much less crackle, but the level of the
> IRENE sample is significantly lower (rendering the S/N ratio probably
> about the same), and it has much higher wow.
>
> Neat idea, nevertheless, and one with great potential.
>
> Marcos
>
> Farris Wahbeh wrote:
> > Here's a nice article on IRENE published in UC Berkeley's "Science
> Matters"
> > journal.
> >
> > The link to the article has neat sound scan pictures and links to sound
> > samples:
> > http://sciencematters.berkeley.edu/archives/volume4/issue30/story1.php
> >
> > More info on IRENE is here: http://irene.lbl.gov.
> >
> >
> > Rescuing Recorded Sound from Silence
> >
> > by Kathleen M. Wong
> >
> > Researchers Carl Haber and Vitaliy Fedayev of Lawrence Berkeley National
> > Laboratories working on IRENE. credit: LBNL
> >
> > While listening to National Public Radio in 2000, Carl Haber learned
> that
> > the Library of Congress had a big problem. The Library's audio
> collection,
> > which spans the 130-year history of recorded sound, includes the soaring
> > tenor of Enrico Caruso, the speeches of Teddy Roosevelt, and the voices
> of
> > Native Americans from now-vanished tribes. These echoes of a bygone era
> were
> > recorded on media such as wax cylinders and shellac and lacquer discs.
> But
> > many are now too fragile to play in their original format; the pressure of
> a
> > stylus or phonograph needle could cause irreversible damage. Others are
> too
> > broken, worn or scratched to yield high-quality sound. The archivists
> needed
> > a means to preserve the recordings without injuring them further.
> >
> > A physicist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Haber was
> > developing subatomic particle detectors to be used at CERN in Geneva,
> > Switzerland. This involved using digital cameras and robots to place
> each
> > delicate detector in precisely the right place. In a flash of insight,
> Haber
> > realized that an optical scanning system could solve the Library's
> quandary.
> >
> > Millions of historical sound recordings such as this wax cylinder are in
> > need of preservation in the United States alone. credit: courtesy Carl
> Haber
> >
> > "I had phonograph records as a kid, so I knew sound was stored in a
> > mechanical profile. I realized that we could use images to figure out in
> > detail what the groove actually looked like, and use a computer to
> calculate
> > the sound. I thought that might be a way to get around the problem of
> things
> > being delicate and damaged; you wouldn't have to touch them," Haber
> says.
> >
> > Haber already had access to a machine that could make high-resolution
> > digital scans. Postdoctoral fellow Vitaliy Fadeyev wrote a computer
> program
> > to control the turntable and translate the images into sound.
> >
> > Haber used a narrow beam of light to illuminate the record's surface.
> The
> > flat bottoms of the grooves and the spaces between tracks appeared
> white;
> > the sloped sides of the grooves, scratches and dirt looked black. The
> image
> > was then analyzed by computer. The program found the edges of each groove
> by
> > focusing on areas of high contrast. It could correct areas where
> scratches,
> > breaks or wear made the groove wider or narrower than normal.
> >
> > A digital scan of phonograph grooves taken by IRENE. The side-to-side
> > wiggles of the groove contain the audio information. credit: Carl Haber
> >
> > That first test was agonizingly slow. Forty minutes of scanning was
> required
> > to obtain just one second of audio. But it provided what the scientists
> > needed-proof of principle. And the scan played far more cleanly and
> clearly
> > than the worn original disc.
> >
> > Haber and Fadeyev wrote a paper describing the device and sent it,
> > unsolicited, to the Library of Congress. The next thing Haber knew, he
> had
> > an invitation to visit the Library to talk about the technique. By 2004,
> > Haber and Fadeyev were developing ways to scan discs and cylinders more
> > efficiently.
> >
> > The two types of media presented very different problems. On antique
> > monaural discs, sound is recorded in horizontal wiggles of the record
> > groove. On cylinders, sound is recorded in the vertical plane-the depth
> of
> > the groove.
> >
> > Millions of historical sound recordings such as this wax cylinder are in
> > need of preservation in the United States alone. credit: courtesy Carl
> Haber
> >
> > "With discs, we used a camera to image them at high resolution in two
> > dimensions. Once we understood how cylinders were recorded, we realized
> we
> > had to measure the third dimension (3D) as well," Haber says.
> >
> > In 2005, LBNL engineers Earl Cornell and Robert Nordmeyer joined the
> > project. With the Library's urging, the team concentrated on producing a
> > dedicated disc scanner. Dubbed IRENE (after the Weavers' "Good Night,
> > Irene," the first disc the team scanned), the device was installed at
> the
> > Library last summer for evaluation and needs just four seconds to scan
> one
> > second of audio.
> >
> > The group is now refining a device that scans in 3D. The device is based
> > upon a type of confocal microscope. White light directed at the surface of
> a
> > cylinder or disc passes through a lens. But the lens is imperfect by
> design;
> > though it splits the light into its component colors, each color comes
> into
> > focus at a different depth. The color of the reflected light reveals the
> > height of the scanned point. The computer assembles these points into
> > profiles for each groove and translates the data into sound.
> >
> > A digital scan of phonograph grooves taken by IRENE. The side-to-side
> > wiggles of the groove contain the audio information. credit: Carl Haber
> >
> > The current 3D scanning process takes 20 hours to record one minute of
> > sound. But a new version of the confocal scanner, developed for the
> dental
> > industry, should reduce that to about 10 minutes.
> >
> > A half-dozen physics and engineering undergraduates from UC Berkeley
> have
> > been instrumental in speeding the project along. "Students can apply the
> > kinds of techniques they learn in classes about statistics, mathematical
> > analysis and signal processing to a project they can really get their
> arms
> > around," Haber says. A Berkeley graduate student in linguistics is poised
> to
> > join the project later this summer.
> >
> > UC Berkeley's Phoebe Hearst Museum and Native Americans are among those
> who
> > could benefit the most from IRENE and its sister 3D scanner. In the
> early
> > 1900s, UC Berkeley anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and colleagues recorded
> the
> > legends, songs, customs and voices of dozens of California Indians on
> some
> > 3,000 one-of-a-kind wax cylinders. Many of these tribes and languages
> have
> > since died out or are on the verge of extinction. The LBNL group is now
> > collaborating with linguist Andrew Garrett and Victoria Bradshaw of the
> > museum to digitize the Kroeber recordings. Remastering these cylinders
> could
> > help new generations of native peoples study their ancestral customs and
> > tongues-and help carry the sounds of the past into the future.
> > Sound Samples
>
> --
> Marcos Sueiro Bal
> Audio/Moving Image Project Archivist
> Preservation Division
> Columbia University Libraries