Re: [AV Media Matters] Difference of opinion

[smolians@erols.com]

Problems experienced with DAT:

They work, they don't work, they work again- maybe.  They don't work.

My feeling:   They are far too dependent on the error correction chips and
not enough on inherent data integrity.

There have been enormous compatibility problems.  I've been told a well
known mastering engineer has a bank of various brands and models
and has to
trial-end-error his way to find one that works with each tape.  Another
engineer, or possibly the same one, wrote in an article about mastering,
"never turn your back on DAT."  In his experience, it was highly unstable.

A note about shipping DAT (or any other layered medium).  Unless
you send it
parcel post last class, it flies in an unheated cargo bay and experiences
temperature shock every take-off and landing.  Summer delivery truck
temperatures in hot climates go up to 160 f near their roofs.  At
what laser
temperature are CD-Rs made? The boxes are delivered to air conditioned
environments, suddenly cooling them down.  Anyone looking into this?

If the past is any guide, we'll know all about all these media immediately
after they are about to be supplanted by a new one.

Steve Smolian

----- Original Message -----
From: <m.biel@morehead-st.edu>
To: <AV-Media-Matters@topica.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2000 1:51 AM
Subject: [AV Media Matters] Difference of opinion

>The question of which media is archivally approved came up on the 78-L
>and I thought it was important to get a report from Jim Lindner who was
>at the JTS and the comments from those on this list.
>
>
>> Michael May <mmay519@yahoo.com>  wrote:
>>> Why my interest in open reel?  Aside from actual 78s,
>>> it (open reel) seems to be the only true archival
>>> format. The current digital formats have problems
>>> (minidisc with its data reduction, DAT tapes
>>> apparently are not archival (is this true?  I've had
>>> too many people tell me this!), and CDR is too
>>> difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to use),
>>> which is why I'm considering analog tape.
>
>alan.bunting@cara.almac.co.uk wrote:
>> Oh dear!  What a lot of misinformation someone has been
>> disseminating!
>>
>> The only true statement is that DAT is not a suitable archive
>> medium.  Apart from other considerations, any system that uses
>> micron thin tape which is dragged out of its case into a whirring
>> mass of belts, pulleys and drums and is then dragged back into
>> the case after playing has to be suspect! <snip>
>
>> If we are more concerned with archiving audio I should point out
>> that CD-R is currently the only medium to have the 100% approval
>> of The British Sound Archive.  <snip>  Alan Bunting
>
>I wasn't going to post this info until I spoke to someone else
>who was there.  But since the topic has come up, here goes.
>Last week I got a big shock when the quarterly Information
>Bulletin (#33, May 2000) of the International Association of
>Sound and Audiuovisual Archives (IASA) arrived.  In it my friend
>Alan Ward, Manager of the Archive Services of the British
>Library National Sound Archive reported on the Joint Technical
>Symposium (JTS) that was held in Paris in January.  I really
>should have gone.  Unless his notes are wrong, his report seems
>to say the exact opposite of what everybody believes and knows
>to be true.
>
>Citing papers 1.5 to 1.9 he reports "In tests, R-DAT stands up
>rather better than CD-R in the long term.  For this reason among
>others, many European broadcast archives use it in preference
>to CD-R.
>
>"The main drawback of R-DAT is seen not so much as its fragility
>and reliance on an unstable metal-particle emulsion (the usual
>UK worries), but on its exclusively professioanal status.  There
>is no consumer market and hence no product development.
>Manufacturers may soon abandon it. This does not of course apply
>to CD-R.
>
>"Clearly CD-R is a delicate medium and even the best of them can
>be badly affected by poor storage conditions.  Monitoring
>condition and recording integrity is essential, and appears to
>be widely practised in many countries already.
>
>"Of the CD-R makes and types tested by several people, a
>consensus generally rated Kodak as the best."
>
>I am absolutely dumbfounded.  Alan mentions that Jim Lindner was
>there, and I think that I will cross-post this to the AV Media
>Matters list that he moderates to see whether Alan's report
>matches his recollection and see what the other esteemed members
>of that list also have to say.  For the 78-ellers not on the
>other list, I'll give a synopsis later on.
>
>Mike Biel  m.biel@morehead-st.edu
>
>Moderators Comment:
>I was indeed there, and there were many others as well! I
unfortunately do
>not have time at the moment to comment much, other then to say that the
>results on research on CD-R's were not that big a surprise (at least to
>me)... there have been many issues with CD-R media and
longevity from day
1,
>and of course there are major questions about bit depth and
sampling rate
as
>well with CD-R. I am no fan of DAT either. I think that the big news
really
>was that some research is finally being done in the field, real research
>that appears to be more useful then the marketing department literature
from
>the vendors. Ultimately real research will help the field AND the
marketers
>by providing support for more  internal research by the vendors
as well as
>for better product. IMHO the field has to be willing to pay more for
better
>product - vendors now compete in a commodity marketplace and it is going
to
>be hard to get them to listen to our desire for better products
unless we
>are willing to buy them at a premium. JTS was a good conference - I
strongly
>recommend getting the proceedings which I believe are coming
out on CD and
>hardcopy.
>
>jim