Transferring audiotaped speech to CDs

[Barbara Johnstone]

My understanding is that CD's are not "permanent," in fact that they don't
last as long as magnetic tape does.  I think I've heard that CD's can be
expected to last 25 years or so.  I read this in the context of a discussion
of how to store written material, where the clear answer for professional
archivists is paper, not any digital storage system.  Digitally-recorded
material deteriorates more spectacularly than does analog material, because
a bit of information is either present or absent when it is digital, not
anywhere in between.  This all being the case, I don't know either what the
best solution is and would be curious to hear others' ideas.

Barbara

-On Friday, September 01, 2000, 10:06 AM -0700 "Richard J. Senghas"
<Richard.Senghas at sonoma.edu> wrote:

>>I would like to copy a very large data set of audio taped speech onto CDs
>>for permanent archival storage, so that the data can be used by others
>>(naturally occurring conversations among one social network of Mexican
>>families in Chicago and their rancho in Mexico over about an 8 year
>>period). I understand that magnetic tapes, even if unused, can deteriorate

>>over time, so it's best to get the data onto CDs. I have a computer that
>>can record onto CDs, but I have no idea how to get what's on the
audiotapes
>>onto the computer or the CD. Can anyone advise me on this? Thanks.
>>
>
> I have a similar concern with transferring many many hours of videotape
data
> (VHS, 8mm Hi8, and now MiniDV formats) to CD-ROM, DV-ROM, or true DVD
discs.
> Anyone got a streamlined operation for this? I hesitate to ask, but has
> anyone seen pricing on archival services to do this?
>
> Responding directly to Marcia's audio issues (which I share, but with a
> smaller corpus, I'd guess): I know that most computers now have (at least
> optional) audio-input that could be used to capture analog sound to a
> digital file using any number of software packages. Most solutions I've
seen
> so far have been extremely time consuming, require a lot of monitoring,
and
> are really just kludges based on one-off models of copying or original
> recording. What I think we'd each really appreciate are solutions
involving
> batch processing that could easily be done as a background task while we
> attend to our oh-so many other tasks.
>
> -Richard
>
> ======================================================================
> Richard J Senghas, Asst. Professor       | Sonoma State University
> Department of Anthropology/Linguistics   | 1801 East Cotati Avenue
> Coordinator, Linguistics & TESL Programs | Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609
> Richard.Senghas at sonoma.edu               | 707-664-3920 (fax)



____________________________

Barbara Johnstone
Professor of Rhetoric and Linguistics
Department of English
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA  15213-3890
bj4 at andrew.cmu.edu
+1 412 268 6447