Re: [ARSCLIST] Digital Audio Preservation Question

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

At 12:56 PM 2008-04-14, Don Cox wrote:

> I suspect the biggest audio problem in the future will be DAT.

There is good and bad news in this regard.

Good: We are finding that by and large DAT tapes are lasting longer 
than expected and, with care, so are the head drums.

Bad: Machines are more-or-less out of production.

Bad: It is an officially dead format as far as I can tell -- or if a 
machine is available it's an $8,000 one.

Coupled with this are the DTRS tapes (8 mm video tapes with typically 
eight audio channels on them--Tascam DA88, etc.) and ADAT tapes (SVHS 
tapes with typically eight audio channels on them--Alesis, Studer, etc.)

In addition are some Akai 12-track analog cassette tapes and perhaps 
some other vendor specific analog and digital "porta-studio" tapes.

Also, I would suggest that MiniDisc is also going to be there soon 
and DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) is there already.

The Elcaset is not a huge risk as we can fairly easily pull the tape 
out of the cassette and play it on a reel-to-reel machine as I do 
with 8-tracks, RCA Sound Tape cartridges, and other formats.

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.