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Tag Archives: digitization
VHS digitisation: Theory before practice
Ripping a bunch of VHS tapes is a most peculiar undertaking. It’s a project I’ve been waiting to start for several years. It’s a task that’s as simple or as complicated as you make it. I chose the less simple route because I wanted to understand a few things first. Continue reading
2014: A look ahead
Last year we moved house. While packing you tend to discover a shitload of forgotten items that you didn’t know you (still) had, and then you’re faced with the decision, “do I box it, or do I bin it?” Continue reading
Inactivity Blog?
There has been activity. A change in personal circumstances meant that certain external profiles and approaches were refreshed. I’m cleaning out some trash. Even this blog and its launchpad were revised and optimised. Continue reading
The Archivist’s Dilemma
I am a collector because I collect a particular kind of cassette. I am an archivist because I disseminate and publish facts and data which future generations might find useful. The (meta)data ends up in a database called Discogs. Scans end up in my personal stash, and the cassettes end up in the trash. Nobody wants those, they’re just plastic matter. But what of the audio on those tapes, the gist of it all? Let corporate greed ensure that the majority of “European” recordings will survive for future generations to gush over. Continue reading
Music Browser Wars
Like most connected people in the 21st century, I’ve accumulated a plentitude of MP3 audio/music files. Digital media has arrived, and I suppose it’s here to stay for a while. But how does one effectively maintain a growing collection of MP3 files, one that, as the owner’s tastes and interests change, becomes increasingly unclear and unwieldy? How does one keep track of everything? Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged collections, digitization, media player, MP3, music, software
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Project Tape2MP3: Completed!
This, dear readers, is all that remains of my tape collection. Twenty years of collecting and nurturing an audio cassette collection have been reduced to nothing more than one 16GB USB flash drive’s worth of bits. Continue reading
The death of printed media
In a previous post I lamented the death of physical music carriers as our music purchasing and listening habits are progressively being overtaken by downloadable MP3 or similar formats. It’s therefore a logical progression to do the same about a music magazine that disappeared from the shelves in April 2002. With entire libraries of books available in digital format online or downloadable to your Kindle, it comes as quite a surprise that the internet hadn’t actually saved more forests sooner. Continue reading
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
So far we’re up to ten drives across eight PCs unable to read the discs, and I’m getting a little peeved. Both look perfectly OK… no scratches, degradation, fading, rot or anything visible to the human eye — and these are two discs stored in two different rooms, far away from sunlight or other radiation. Feared lost is a time capsule. Continue reading