Re: [ARSCLIST] Format conundrum

[John Spencer <js@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This discussion reminded me of some math that I did back in 2002 to try and
explain the storage issues regarding born-digital material.

This refers ONLY to average numbers of multitrack audio files ("tracks")
based on RIAA US commercial release data.  Even though all of these releases
most certainly weren't digitally recorded, times have clearly changed now.

* Total Domestic (US) Releases 1992 ­ 1999 = 241,400
* 241,400 Masters x 600 files per release = 144,840,000 files
* 144,840,000 files x 15MB per file (conservative average) = 2,172,600,000MB
of storage (2.1 petabytes) of files in only 8 years!
* 2 Petabytes is the equivalent of 40 million 4-drawer file cabinets full of
text 

That might get us in a little bind for paper and ink.

John
-- 
John Spencer
http://www.bridgemediasolutions.com/



> From: "Richard L. Hess" <ArcLists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx>
> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 16:02:18 -0500
> To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Format conundrum
> 
> Hi, Steven,
> 
> Are you suggesting that we then OCR it back into the computer?
> 
> Let's see. 88,200 samples per second, 24 bits.
> 
> Lets, for the sake of argument print it as binary since we can't seem to
> all agree on the ASCII/Windows/ANSI/etc representations of some of the codes.
> 
> So, we have a page of 1s and 0s. We would have 2.2 million 1s and 0s per
> second.
> Even if we developed a true 8-bit glyph, we'd have 265,000 of them per
> second. Let's figure dense printing: 120 characters per line and 80 lines
> per page, or 9,600 glyphs per page. We'd need almost 28 pages per second
> per channel. A stereo 40 minute recording would require over 132,000 pages.
> 
> Now, granted, that's at higher definition than an audio CD.
> 
> Doing the same numbers for a CD using the 8-bit glyph gives you 44,100
> pages for the same 40 minute recording. (I didn't plan it to work out that
> way <smile>.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Richard