[ARSCLIST] 2GB limit for audio file formats

[Alec McLane <amclane@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We are recording (mostly) analog tapes to disk at a sampling rate of
88.2KHz and 24-bit resolution, using Peak 4.0 on a G5 running OS 10.3.5.
While the files are for archival purposes, to make listening copies of
these recordings we bump them down to 44.1KHz to burn to CD. For the
archival files, however, we are encountering the 2GB limit for 32-bit audio
file formats, which at that resolution only allows around 65-70 min. of
music. I'm told this is a limit built into the standards for most audio
files - WAV, AIFF, Sound Designer, etc., established by Microsoft, Apple,
and Digidesign, respectively.

While this is enough to record, say, one side of a cassette tape, it may
not be enough for a 10" reel at 3 3/4 ips, nor is it enough for those few
occasions when we record from 95- or 125-min DATs. The virtue of Peak 4.0
is that it allows burning a "playlist" to CD from regions defined within a
single file, and doesn't require the saving of smaller files in order to
make a CD from the recording. But it has the disadvantage of just stopping
the recording at the 2GB limit, without at least opening up a new file to
continue, so many recordings get truncated and we have to figure out where
it stopped and begin a new file manually.

In addition to the recording problem, the idea of storing a complete tape,
or at least a side of a tape, as a single file in archival-quality format
on a server is appealing, just for its simplicity. So even recording
separate files and then merging them within Peak just to burn a CD is still
not an ideal solution, although for the time being it seems the only one.

Has anyone else found solutions to this problem with other software?

Alec McLane


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alec McLane
Scores & Recordings/
 World Music Archives       Phone: (860) 685-3899
Olin Library                       Fax: (860) 685-2661
Wesleyan University          mailto:amclane@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Middletown, CT  06459       http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/srhome/srdir.htm