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How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

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Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#31

Post by whanamura »

mikece wrote: post #3

I thought there was something in the early 2000s that used a laser (an array of them, actually) to map the grooves on a vinyl (or wax) record with perfect precision that allowed for the virtual audio processing of the record in higher quality than any physical stylus or pre-amp system could deliver. (There was also the side-benefit that the reading process didn't involve physical wear on the record or cylinder to opt…

Here's what our digitization expert, George Blood, has to say: LPs are soft and played with a very small diamond. 78s are made from shellac which is hard and abrasive. Originally they were played with steel needles at 10x the tracking weight used by our modern equipment. They also use a much larger diamond with 5-10x the surface area. The tracking force is spread over a larger area than vinyl playback. The contact pressure is less than 10% of vinyl playback.

Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#32

Post by whanamura »

marcodiego wrote: post #26

4 styluses... Why not a laser reader[0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_turntable

I work with the Internet Archive, and asked George Blood about the wear and tear using a stylus. Here's what he had to say: "LPs are soft and played with a very small diamond. 78s are made from shellac which is hard and abrasive. Originally they were played with steel needles at 10x the tracking weight used by our modern equipment. They also use a much larger diamond with 5-10x the surface area. The tracking force is spread over a larger area than vinyl playback. The contact pressure is less than 10% of vinyl playback. "

Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#33

Post by whanamura »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

I'm a little surprised to learn that they use normal styluses instead of reading the grooves optically.

Here's what George Blood, the IA digitization expert, said: "LPs are soft and played with a very small diamond. 78s are made from shellac which is hard and abrasive. Originally they were played with steel needles at 10x the tracking weight used by our modern equipment. They also use a much larger diamond with 5-10x the surface area. The tracking force is spread over a larger area than vinyl playback. The contact pressure is less than 10% of vinyl playback. "

Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#34

Post by aidenn0 »

jandrese wrote: post #20
aidenn0 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the opposite side; I think it's an amazing example of private actin for a public service.

I'm annoyed that it is necessary though, as the official institution who is tasked with preserving recorded works is failing to do their job.

I'm not. I think the LoC is a single point of failure for curation. No single institution is going to preserve everything, so having multiple institutions, public and private, is far better than relying on a single public institution to get things right.

Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#36

Post by whanamura »

marcodiego wrote: post #26

4 styluses... Why not a laser reader[0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_turntable

Ok, I turned to the expert himself, George Blood, who responded: "laser turntables are designed to play 33rpm discs. Most will not spin at 78rpm. There is broad agreement they do not sound as good as stylus playback. I.R.E.N.E. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRENE_(technology)) captures the disc as an image, then transforms that into sound. It is not way slower than real time, and while it is arguable that the resolution of the image is superior to stylus playback, the software is not yet able to produce results as good as stylus playback. And it introduces it’s own, idiomatic noise spectrum. On the other hand it is far and away the best system for ‘playing’ damaged or compromised discs, such as lacquers that are beginning to delaminate."

Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#37

Post by whanamura »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

I'm a little surprised to learn that they use normal styluses instead of reading the grooves optically.

Here's what George Blood, the digitizer, reports: "laser turntables are designed to play 33rpm discs. Most will not spin at 78rpm. There is broad agreement they do not sound as good as stylus playback. I.R.E.N.E. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRENE_(technology)) captures the disc as an image, then transforms that into sound. It is not way slower than real time, and while it is arguable that the resolution of the image is superior to stylus playback, the software is not yet able to produce results as good as stylus playback. And it introduces it’s own, idiomatic noise spectrum. On the other hand it is far and away the best system for ‘playing’ damaged or compromised discs, such as lacquers that are beginning to delaminate."

Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#38

Post by MrDOS »

syoc wrote: post #22
johnklos wrote: post #15

It's amazing to see how much care and work is put in to efforts like these by people who clearly care about what they're doing. If corporate America had their way, those records would have had DRM, there'd have been half a dozen different formats, and they'd have stopped working after twenty years. A silly example, but looking at how records are preserved today, then imagining how media of today might be preserved fo…

This made me remember what happened with what.cd. Never had an account myself, but I feel like we truly have failed to a common, lasting, platform for storing arbitrary data. bittorrent was ahead of it's time, the tech is IMO really cool. It is just too bad that it does not really make anyone rich and thus cannot be accepted.

https://archive.org/details/whatcdcrawl

Although I doubt there's anything in there that isn't also in the Goodbye Release:

https://twitter.com/whatcd/status/923941782253121539

> I feel like we truly have failed to a common, lasting, platform for storing arbitrary data.

As wonderful as What.CD was, and as much of a void as it left, it wasn't that. I'm increasingly convinced that any general purpose metadata store is going to be insufficiently granular for true specialists, while conversely, most specialist metadata stores are going to be overwhelming for a casual user. For example, What.CD's most successful successor has not one, not two, not seven, but forty-two different releases of Wish You Were Here. And even that is a small portion of the 768 versions listed on Discogs[0].

But does a casual user even care? Hell no. They'll keep listening to the CD they got at Wal-Mart some time in the mid-'90s, happily, and none the wiser. This only becomes a problem when, eventually, there is something that casual user does care deeply about – model trains, or Funko Pop! figures – but they're turned off (or banned) from contributing the site because they got in a flame war with a moderator over the omission of one particular re-release of Star Wars: Episode V. Über-metadata sites are either insufficiently granular (see: Wikipedia), insufficiently well-curated (see: Internet Archive), or inaccessible (in both meanings of the word; see: the hypothetical combination of all specialist, private filesharing sites).

[0]: https://www.discogs.com/Pink-Floyd-Wish-You-Were-Here/master...

Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#39

Post by phoe-krk »

textfiles wrote: post #21
textfiles wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, Jason Scott at Internet Archive. Let's talk. Jason@textfiles.com

Update: We're talkiing

This is the kind of updates that I really enjoy seeing. :D Thank you for your work, and thanks to prometheus76 for offering his collection!

Re: How the Internet Archive digitizes 78rpm records

#40

Post by kingsuper20 »

Very cool. It's the kind of volunteer gig I could see being involved in.

Thinking back on the records I remember looking at in record stores back in the day, and how few of them made it to CD or streaming services, hopefully the 33 1/3 world has a big back-up effort. One huge problem I can see is the collision between archiving/access and copyright.

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