[ARSCLIST] Digital File Specs and StoryCorps

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My friend, Susan Kitchens, has done an excellent blog entry on her 
StoryCorps experience.
http://familyoralhistory.us/articles/view/my_our_storycorps_adventure

Geek that I am, I've been discussing the equipment in the comments section.

What is interesting, is this project is done with two CD recorders 
and a compact flash recorder.

The CD recorders are obviously 44.1/16 and the CF recorder they use, 
the Marantz PMD570 rack mount unit, appears to be able to record at 
44.1 or 48 ks/s, but appears to only record at 16 bits.
http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp?FolderID=3526&Tab=Overview
It can also record compressed files (MP2 and MP3).

We still don't know how the CF recorder is being used.

So here is a major "born digital" oral history project that is 
capturing at 48 ks/s 16 bits or less.

Please tell me again why some archives insist on digitizing oral 
history cassettes at 96 ks/s, 24 bit, when they were recorded in 
lower quality than this rig is capable of?

I'm glad to see some sanity here!

I know people say that storage is cheap, but managed, professional 
storage is not cheap when we're talking a few spare petabytes to 
record empty bits.

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.