Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 5/16/2012 10:07 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
>> Mike Rivers wrote:
>>> I can't imagine that the
>>> documentation
>>> for the WAV format, or a data reduction algorithm, will be
>>> around for a
>>> thousand years.
>> Why not? Unless it just goes completely obsolete, it'll be
>> used.
> And that's exactly my point. I believe that it will be
> completely obsolete in a thousand years. Don't ask me to
> justify that but I've seen a lot of things become obsolete
> in my lifetime.
Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 5/16/2012 3:00 PM, Mxsmanic wrote:
>> A WAV file is essentially just a string of digital samples, so it
>> will be readable even after the specs are gone, for anyone who cares
>> to write a small program to read it.
> But suppose you had no idea what it was. And even if you
> managed to decode it into a string of values, would you know
> how to build a D/A converter?
> I pose a similar question about analog magnetic tape. The
> difference there is that if you know what it is, it's very
> easy to convert what might be left of the magnetic domains
> into audio.
Nobody will b e left anyway. 2012, CME and EMP apparently .....
>> Really? We are currently in the midst of a tremendous shift from
>> physical mechanisms to software that could not have been imagined in
>> say, 1930.
> Software had already been imagined 100 years before 1930. Babbage
> incorporated the concept into his Analytical Engine. Vannevar Bush
> even foresaw the Web in a 1945 paper. There's really nothing new
> under the sun.
>> That was 80 years ago. 200 years from now, can we even imagine what
>> the ongoing shift will be from/to?
> Yes. The main problem with predicting the future, though, is that we
> tend to assume that past trends always reflect future trends, so that
> we predict change in the wrong places.
> However, a technical nerd transported to the present day from 1930
> would grasp practically all modern technology very quickly indeed.
> It's not magic.
The ayatolla will have banned all technology (and music) by around 2027.
> The format is so simple that I should think it wouldn't be hard to
> figure out what it is, especially when the file extension is WAV.
>> And even if you managed to decode it into a string of values, would
>> you know how to build a D/A converter?
> Sure. It's very basic stuff.
>> I pose a similar question about analog magnetic tape. The
>> difference there is that if you know what it is, it's very
>> easy to convert what might be left of the magnetic domains
>> into audio.
> One of the advantages of analog. But in the future, converting from
> digital to analog won't be significantly harder.
Randy Yates wrote:
> Mxsmanic <mxsma...@gmail.com> writes:
>> Mike Rivers writes:
>>> There's a common example of this in the DAW world. Questions
>>> about why a WAV file recorded in one program (or on one
>>> recorder) won't import into this or that DAW? The usual
>>> answer is "open it in Audacity and export it as a WAV" with
>>> no understanding of why this works (though, it often does).
>>> You may think you're archiving a file, but you may have
>>> inadvertently done it in a format that will become
>>> unsupported sooner than others. Professional archivists have
>>> their club and secret handshake and try to limit the chaos.
>> You can write something in half an hour that will read PCM audio
>> from a WAV file. It's just not that hard.
> If it's linear PCM, that's true. As I posted earlier today, .wav can
> contain a lot more formats than linear PCM, however.
>>>> There's a common example of this in the DAW world. Questions
>>>> about why a WAV file recorded in one program (or on one
>>>> recorder) won't import into this or that DAW? The usual
>>>> answer is "open it in Audacity and export it as a WAV" with
>>>> no understanding of why this works (though, it often does).
>>>> You may think you're archiving a file, but you may have
>>>> inadvertently done it in a format that will become
>>>> unsupported sooner than others. Professional archivists have
>>>> their club and secret handshake and try to limit the chaos.
>>> You can write something in half an hour that will read PCM audio
>>> from a WAV file. It's just not that hard.
>> If it's linear PCM, that's true. As I posted earlier today, .wav can
>> contain a lot more formats than linear PCM, however.
> But 99.99% don't.
You're changing the premise. The premise is that it is easy to read a
.wav file. That premise is false. The premise that it is easy to read a
.wav file which contains linear PCM is true, however, that was not your
original premise.
-- Randy Yates
Digital Signal Labs
http://www.digitalsignallabs.com
geoff wrote:
> Mike Rivers wrote:
>> On 5/16/2012 10:07 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
>>> Mike Rivers wrote:
>>>> I can't imagine that the
>>>> documentation
>>>> for the WAV format, or a data reduction algorithm, will be
>>>> around for a
>>>> thousand years.
>>> Why not? Unless it just goes completely obsolete, it'll be
>>> used.
>> And that's exactly my point. I believe that it will be
>> completely obsolete in a thousand years. Don't ask me to
>> justify that but I've seen a lot of things become obsolete
>> in my lifetime.
On Thu, 17 May 2012 03:23:32 -0700, Mike Rivers wrote
(in article <jp2jj6$ec...@dont-email.me>):
> "Impossible" is a strong word, and I'm not saying that > nobody will ever figure out a CD 1000 years from now, but > there indeed may not be anyone who cares enough and is well > enough funded.
>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
These are troubling topics. The Motion Picture Academy has published two documents on what they call THE DIGITAL DILEMMA, all about what's going to happen to digitized sound and picture files over a long period of time. It's available free on the web:
In the year 2525, who the F knows? But at least for the next couple of hundred years, I think there's a good chance that if humans are left on earth, and if we still have electricity and technology, a lot of what's being digitally archived now will survived. Films and analog tapes... I dunno.
The oldest analog master magnetic recording I ever handled was from 1954 (a Bernard Herrmann 4-track 35mm mag from Fox), and it was just on the edge of falling apart. That was back in 1995, which was more than 15 years ago. I would be very surprised if it could still play today.
As long as the data gets migrated over to new drives, and conversion tools exist, I think the material will survive. Whether people will want it... it's hard to say. Certainly scholars and historians will. There's every hope that somebody will read about The Beatles and want to hear them, even "many years from now."
On Thu, 17 May 2012 05:36:52 -0700, Mxsmanic wrote
(in article <b5s9r7574diar45iitqf97dilpsl2e9...@4ax.com>):
> WAV file format is trivially simple. It will be very easy to figure > out in the future, even for someone with no documentation.
>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
I think the FILE format is not going to be the problem. The problem is going to be the STORAGE format. What do you store it on?
I've seen even LTO's and DTF's fail, in as little as 6-7 years. The cruel reality is, no digital formats are guaranteed for super-long-term survival.
And even if the backup tapes survive, what if the drives don't survive?
There are a lot of uncertainties out there. Read the Academy papers for which I posted links elsewhere. Believe me, record label execs, studio execs, network execs, and other media conglomerate owners are worried about the long-term future of their libraries.
> The oldest analog master magnetic recording I ever handled
> was from 1954 (a Bernard Herrmann 4-track 35mm mag from
> Fox), and it was just on the edge of falling apart. That was
> back in 1995, which was more than 15 years ago. I would be
> very surprised if it could still play today.
"The Egyptian", right?
I had an idea some years back -- print the digital data on Tyvek paper, then
store it in a controlled environment.
You could probably get 1Mb on an 8x10 sheet. 700 sheets could hold the
contents of a single audio CD.
geoff writes:
> How do you get music from a pile of dust ?
You don't. But both analog and digital recordings end up as dust, because they
are both recorded on the same physical media. Digital is no more or less
vulnerable than analog.
Marc Wielage writes:
> I've seen even LTO's and DTF's fail, in as little as 6-7 years. The cruel > reality is, no digital formats are guaranteed for super-long-term survival.
> And even if the backup tapes survive, what if the drives don't survive?
Use the same media used for analog recordings, and you'll have the same life
expectancy. You can record music digitally on clay tablets if you want,
although it's a bit awkward.
>> Actually the way things are going these days is that nearly all human
>> knowledge is stored on current servers somewhere, which are regularly
>> replaced and backed up as necessary.
> But some of them aren't. rec.music.makers.synth has been around longer > than Google. Can you find my posts about the first NAMM show I attended, > 1988, I believe. I can't. I Nobody archived that, unless it's in someone's > private collection. I didn't archive it myself because I figured that the > newsgroups and their content would be around for a very long time. And if > I did save the text files, they'd probably be on an ST506 disk drive, > backed up on a 5-1/4" floppy. I still have a working computer with 5-1/4" > and 3-1/2" floppy drives, at least I think it still works. But I'm not > planning to preserve it forever.
I did say "these days", obviously transferring old data like books etc. is labor intensive, and that may or may not ever happen. Current on-line stored information is a different issue, however I'm not talking about your personal files.
>> There is no reason short of nuclear
>> holocost that such knowledge will simply be erased. Especially given the
>> continual reduction in data storage costs.
> While data storage cost for media may have dropped, we're putting more > data in smaller containers, which means that the risk of greater loss with > smaller mishaps is greater. So refreshing the archive must be done more > frequently. Even though this can be automated, it still involves labor, > and that's getting more expensive.
Yep, but that's the main focus of much of human activity these days, and with 7Billion people and growing, it seems data storage will be safe for the time being.
> And what makes you think there won't be a nuclear holocaust?
It think there possibly will, that's why I mentioned it. And IF it happens, saving old music files or formats may not be the number one priority!
> There are a lot of uncertainties out there. Read the Academy papers for
> which I posted links elsewhere. Believe me, record label execs, studio
> execs, network execs, and other media conglomerate owners are worried > about
> the long-term future of their libraries.
As I've said before, pressed CD's should last centuries, they don't even need to have a refective layer added until you want to play them, but the refective layer can be replaced at any time. It's simply a matter of cost Vs value of the data.
And building something to read them from scratch, is FAR easier than building a new 24track Studer from scratch :-)
> Both analog and digital recordings end up as dust, because
> they are both recorded on the same physical media. Digital
> is no more or less vulnerable than analog.
True. But digital can be copied "perfectly", indefinitely. (Well, at least
until it deteriorates to where it can't be recovered error-free.) Periodic
copying should assure this.
