RE: [AV Media Matters] Analogue vs digital tape stock

[dackerm@fas.harvard.edu]

Your experience is not at all out of the ordinary Jim.  We have been
embedding metadata in AIFF files in a custom APPL chunk.  I ended up
writing an application to embed and retrieve the metadata, which generates
a report with all the info, thus eliminating the need to open the files in
text editors.  Its not that hard to search and locate the specified chunk
and print it out with AIFF and I believe that .bwf are similar in overall
structure.

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|  David Ackerman               |  Telephone: 617-495-2794         |
|  Audio Preservation Engineer  |  Fax: 617-496-4636               |
|  Archive World Music          |  e-mail: dackerm@fas.harvard.edu |
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On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, Jim Lindner wrote:
>
>We have been experimenting with BWF files here - and have run into a bit
>of a problem on a practical basis. We are using a system that creates
>them (vendor shall remain nameless for now), and we have indeed been
>trying to open them to see the "plain text" - and that is not as easy at
>it sounds. Any "normal" text editor like Microsoft Word chokes at the
>size of the files - essentially they won't open the file (or we gave up
>waiting). We tried Wordpad and got the same result. We resorted to the
>most basic of editors - some of you will remember the vestigal DOS
>editor EDLIN - and that opened the file but it is really not the way one
>would choose to work with any file unless they had no other options
>(there was a time.....)- - --. We then looked at that header - and while
>it is indeed in ascii characters - there are MANY control characters
>that make up ASCII - so the file is pretty difficult to manage. While
>the file is ASCII it is certainly not human friendly. For example - we
>wanted to get to the header information that shows the creator - While I
>am sure that it is there - somewhere - it is very hard to figure out how
>you can do something with it. We are going to get a LINUX box in here
>after the holidays - throw it on the network, and then try to edit the
>file using some more powerful UNIX utilities - which probably will work.
>We figure we can GREP the file and pipe it to a filter of some sort and
>try to figure it all out - but again this is not what most people could
>or would want to do.
>
>Has anyone really tried to open a BWF file and looked inside? It it not
>as easy as it would seem.
>
>jim
>ian_gilmour@screensound.gov.au wrote:
>>
>> Don't despair Jeff, modern technology is at hand!
>> For mono or stereo, much of the world has standardised on broadcast wave
>> format or BWF files which are an extension of the original riff, aiff
>> and
>> wave formats. They're universally re-readable without any special
>> software
>> or hardware, and hence eminently migratable, which is the  secret to
>> digital preservation. Now that data storage media are less than US$1 per
>> GB
>> it's even worth converting some of the more problematic video formats.
>> Remember that the data is all that matters, your drives and media only
>> have
>> to last for 3-5 years before they're replaced. As far as preserving
>> hard-drives and PCs, this is not the easy way to a future - personally I
>> would prefer to archive dead rats. BWF will support 24-bit quantising
>> and
>> 96kHz sampling, but these won't play back in any old sound editor or
>> audio
>> driver. The current spec only supports 1 or 2 channel, although future
>> versions should cope with multitrack. I've had to salvage DASH and PD
>> which
>> have not had a happy childhood - not a pretty sight [or sound].
>> In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with a good 35mm mag or 2". A
>> certain European manufacturer makes tapes which last for 40+ years.
>> They've
>> also made a few tapes which don't last as long so beware - make sure of
>> the
>> QC.
>> Ian
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> jeffkreines@mindspring.com on 19/12/2000 05:45:11
>>
>> Please respond to AV-Media-Matters@topica.com
>>
>> To:   AV Media Matters <AV-Media-Matters@topica.com>
>> cc:
>> Subject:  RE: [AV Media Matters] Analogue vs digital tape stock
>>
>>
>>
>> russm@idirect.com wrote:
>>
>>>I would never use old tape for archiving either (then again, I wouldn't
>> use
>>>digital tape either...but now I'm starting an arguement).
>>
>> So what is the best format for archiving multitrack 35mm mag recordings,
>> like mixes?  Another generation of mag?  Digital multitrack?  Analog
>> multitrack?
>>
>> And what about mono or stereo mag?  DAT? CD-R? ;-)  1/4" Analog with
>> timecode or pilotone? Mag?  And if mag, who makes good mag stock these
>> days?
>>
>> I recently duped a bunch of 1972 Nagra tapes to both TC DAT and CD-R for
>> easy access (because I was losing the Nagra-T that I had).  But I know
>> that the Nagra tapes will likely long outlast the digital dupes.
>>
>> Larry Black, who writes about sound for MIX magazine, suggests archiving
>> the hard drives that contain the mix, as well as a computer with the
>> appropriate software to recover this information.  It can be cheaper
>> than
>> maintaining mag stems for everything.  You can get 80 gig harddrives for
>> under $300 these days. But it does seem a bit excessive.
>>
>> Jeff "wish I had an answer" Kreines
>>
>Jim Lindner - President
>VidiPax - The Magnetic Media and Information Migration Full Services
>Company
>Telephone 212-563-1999
>www.vidipax.com
>Moderator of A/V Media Matters@topica.com
>
>