Scientists Recover Oldest Playable American Recording • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists Recover Oldest Playable American Recording

#21

Post by cynwoody » Sat, Oct 27, 2012, 9:28 PM UTC

pronoiac wrote: post #14

For anyone wondering, the current oldest playable audio recordings were produced by the phonautograph (1857)[1], which was made for studying acoustics. They were write-only until 2008, when they became playable via computers. There's a sample on Youtube. [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonautograph [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0fhEpxrFvo

Some of the same people who worked on the Edison audio (Carl Haber) were also responsible for recovering the phonautograph audio.

The phonautograph was essentially a mechanical audio oscillograph. It graphed the sound waves on paper by conducting the acoustic vibrations to a stiff bristle up against lamp-black blackened paper wrapped around a slowly moving hand-cranked drum. The white traces left behind allowed properties such as frequency and amplitude to be estimated.

I wonder if its inventor, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, ever contemplated the problem of reproducing the graphed sound.

Re: Scientists Recover Oldest Playable American Recording

#22

Post by viraj_shah » Sat, Oct 27, 2012, 9:34 PM UTC

I had a chance to work with Carl Haber while at Berkeley. He is brilliant and recovering these recordings is not as trivial as one might think. Kudos to him and team for this achievement.

Re: Scientists Recover Oldest Playable American Recording

#23

Post by derleth » Sat, Oct 27, 2012, 9:50 PM UTC

e03179 wrote: post #13

One day, we'll recover sound from vibrations recorded in paint and mortar.

Where's the evidence we'll be able to do that?

Re: Scientists Recover Oldest Playable American Recording

#24

Post by nate_martin » Sat, Oct 27, 2012, 10:32 PM UTC

Did that image remind anyone else of Joy Division?

http://gothstore.piratemerch.com/images/joy-division.jpg

Re: Scientists Recover Oldest Playable American Recording

#25

Post by netcan » Sat, Oct 27, 2012, 11:40 PM UTC

dhughes wrote: post #17

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

The time between about 1860 and 1910 seems totally magical to me. For all of history, people lived, loved, and died. Aside from perhaps a few of them writing their thoughts down, they totally disappeared. With the invention of still photography, and much more audio and moving-picture recording technology, suddenly you could see and hear people who were long gone. These folks are not just dead. Their kids are dead, th…

I wonder if the late 1990s to roughly now will be seen as a audio, video, still picture dark ages of sorts. The average consumer was astounded by low quality mp3 audio over a record, cassette tape or later on compact disc. Sort of like fast food, convenience over quality. It's also the same for photography I remember the first digital cameras and they had horrible resolution and colour depth but it was amazing to hav…

I think dark ages is a bit strong. Especially since a lot of the pictures from the earlier part of that period using the then inferior technology are mostly surplus photos. IE photos that would have been taken using film were still mostly being taken using film. Digital photos were/are surplus photos.

I take a lot of pictures now on my phone. I took very few pictures before one year ago (when I got my first camera phone).

Re: Scientists Recover Oldest Playable American Recording

#26

Post by NPC82 » Sun, Oct 28, 2012, 1:46 AM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

The time between about 1860 and 1910 seems totally magical to me. For all of history, people lived, loved, and died. Aside from perhaps a few of them writing their thoughts down, they totally disappeared. With the invention of still photography, and much more audio and moving-picture recording technology, suddenly you could see and hear people who were long gone. These folks are not just dead. Their kids are dead, th…

>Their kids are dead, their grandkids are dead, their great-grandkids are probably also gone.

Well, my grandma was born in 1919. Close enough?