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[Brian Levy]

From: Joseph J. Wrobel

Mr. Levy,
I consider myself technically savvy (I've been involved in the technology
of optical recording since the mid-seventies), but I am not an archivist,
nor am I an audio expert. I have heard many opinions expressed by
archivists and have formed an opinion of my own. Here it is.
By all means, store your data digitally. No matter what format or media
you choose for storage today, at some time in the future someone will be
required to migrate your content to some next generation system. Having
the data in digital format will make this future migration so much easier
and cost effective.
Your choice of CD-R as the storage medium makes a lot of sense. The format
is stable. It is defined by international standard. There is an installed
(and growing) base of over 400 million data drives (and 600 million audio
drives) that will keep the format alive for many years to come. DVD-ROM
drives, which now represent about 9% of the installed base of CD/DVD ROM
drives, are all backward compatible with CD-ROM and CD-R. Market forces
will demand that this backward compatibility be maintained. (After all,
over 3 billion CD-R discs will be sold in 2000, and over 4.5 billion are
expected to be sold in 2001.) The drives and media are inexpensive and
available from multiple sources. The low media cost (and increasingly
higher recording data rate) allows the redundant recording that you have
wisely implemented.
Audio experts may have varying opinions about whether the CD audio format
(44.1 kHz sampling, 16 bits/channel) is of sufficient quality for your
needs. I frankly don't know. But regardless of your choice of audio
digitization format, using CD-R for your "bit bucket:" is the way to go.
But that's just my opinion.
Joe Wrobel
Eastman Kodak Company







------------------------------------------
Brian Levy
Cultural Activist
Kiwat Hasinay Foundation:
Preserving Caddo Heritage
211 W. Colorado Ave.
Anadarko, OK  73005  USA
(1) 405-247-5840
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