{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/1z41r6nn67/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["What's Up with DAT?: A Discussion on Digital Audio Tape"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/019/original/ARSC_Full_Logo_RGB_K.jpg?1605438091","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Ciletti, Eddie (Presenter)","Figurelli, Dan (Presenter)","Pribble, Kelly (Presenter)","Smith, Veronica (Presenter)","Thompson, Jessica (Moderator)","Shimoda, Yuri (Moderator)","Hockstein, Dan (Moderator)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2021-11-03 (Created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThe Digital Audio Tape (DAT) format presents many preservation concerns, stemming from its physically fragile nature, complex playback mechanisms, and digital capture strategies. This webinar panel will survey cases, methods, and discussions among audio engineers and technicians who have strategies for tackling problems with DAT.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Association for Recorded Sound Collections"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThe Digital Audio Tape (DAT) format presents many preservation concerns, stemming from its physically fragile nature, complex playback mechanisms, and digital capture strategies. This webinar panel will survey cases, methods, and discussions among audio engineers and technicians who have strategies for tackling problems with DAT.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"provider":[{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Association for Recorded Sound Collections"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Association for Recorded Sound Collections"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/019/original/ARSC_Full_Logo_RGB_K.jpg?1605438091","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/130/155/small/ARSC_webinar_series_Whats_up_with_DAT_flyer.png?1636648554","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - 1636585152_ARSC_webinar_20211103_DAT.mp4"]},"duration":4681.04533,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/130/155/small/ARSC_webinar_series_Whats_up_with_DAT_flyer.png?1636648554","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-arsc.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/130/155/original/1636585152_ARSC_webinar_20211103_DAT.mp4?1636567163","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":4681.04533,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["ARSC_webinar_2021103_DAT_transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Alright, should we get started? I think it's about time. So, hi, my name is Dan Hockstein. I am a master's in information science student at UNC Chapel Hill. I also perform audio preservation for the Special Collections Library. I do want to recognize that Chapel Hill sits in the land of the Occaneechi, Shakori, Sissipahaw peoples. And I want to recognize the land and sovereignty of those nations on which I'm fortunate enough to live and work. \n\nYuri Shimoda","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=14.0,45.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And my name is Yuri Shimoda, I'm coming to you today from to Tovaangar, the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Gabrielino-Tongva peoples, also known as Los Angeles. I work in asset management for Disney Music Group, and all opinions expressed today are my own. Dan and I are the series coordinators of the ARSC Continuing Education Webinar Series. \n\nDan Hockstein","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=45.0,73.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And if you're not familiar with ARSC and come to us from one of the many cool outreach methods that we've used to promote these webinars, just a little primer on ARSC. The Association for Recorded Sound Collections is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings, in all genres of music and speech, in all formats, and from all periods. ARSC is unique in bringing together private individuals and institutional professionals-- everyone with a serious interest in recorded sound. We're going to share a link in the chat there. If you do want to become a member, we do have an annual conference and you can find out much more information, like what you're going to find out today. The ARSC Webinar Series is funded by a grant from the National Recording Preservation Board, administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources. \n\nYuri Shimoda","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=73.0,130.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And this webinar was a collaboration between the ARSC Education and Training Committee, along with the ARSC Technical Committee, who are hosting an event next week. We'll share more details on that a little later. Let's focus back on today's webinar, which will consist of presentations from each of our panelists, followed by a moderated discussion and question and answer period. Please post any questions you may have for our guests in the Q\u0026A box here in Zoom. The webinar is being recorded and it will be available on ARSC's Aviary site in a few weeks. I will post a link to the Aviary platform in the chat.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=130.0,178.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"To start things off, our colleague from the ARSC Technical Committee, Jessica Thompson, who is today's moderator, is going to provide an introduction to the panelists and the format. We're all here today to learn more about Digital Audio Tape. Jessica is a GRAMMY-nominated mastering and restoration engineer, audio preservationist, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay area. Welcome, Jessica. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=178.0,211.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you, and welcome to all of you. Welcome to \"What's Up with DAT?\". I did not name this session, but I approve of the pun. Thanks all for joining us. I expect to learn as much as all of you today. This promises to be deeply informative and useful for those of you dealing with everyone's least favorite format. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=211.0,234.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Aw, come on!\n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=234.0,239.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Digital Audio Tape. Should I not say least favorite? OK. I'm Jessica Thompson. I'm your moderator for today. I'm fielding the Q\u0026A. We have a nice long list of excellent questions submitted in advance, but we welcome yours throughout today's presentation. As Yuri said, please use the Q\u0026A button to ask your questions, not the chat. It just makes it easier to keep track of everything and make sure we cover everyone's questions. I do a fair number of DAT transfers in my studio and my methodology is pretty straightforward, probably the same as many of yours. I hit play and then I pray. And usually it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But like many of us doing preservation work, I have a few machines in good working order. And if a tape doesn't work, I just try another machine. And that, for the most part, is where my expertise ends.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=239.0,290.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Our panelists today are going to take that much further. You will get some insight into troubleshooting, calibration, rehousing, transferring using digital data storage drives, and more. And like I said, we will leave time for Q\u0026A, so keep those questions coming. Again, I would love to thank ARSC for putting this on, especially Yuri Shimoda and Dan Hockstein for all of their work in organizing this. Thanks to our panelists for taking the time to share their expertise. I also want to mention that ARSC will be holding another Ask the Technical Committee meeting this month. You're all invited, although you do need to sign up in advance. It's Wednesday, November 10th at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific. And I will go ahead and drop that link in the chat for you. Alright, here comes a link. Let's see. To everyone, sorry. There you go, sign up advance if you'd like to come to the Ask the Technical Committee meeting.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=290.0,357.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So let's introduce our panel's panelists and get right to it. I'm going to introduce all of them and then hand things off to our first speaker. We have with us today, Kelly Pribble, veteran audio engineer, inventor, media archivist, and studio builder who has worked extensively all over the world. A few of the musicians whose original master tapes he has preserved and restored: bob Dylan, Prince, Rush, Mariah Carey. That list goes on. Kelly's based at Iron Mountain Entertainment Services.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=357.0,388.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We also have Dan Figurelli, an audio preservation engineer who's based at Indiana University. A graduate of Columbia College Chicago, Dan got his start working in recording studios before finding his way into audio preservation. Dan specializes in rare audio formats and has digitized over 10000 lacquer discs and wax cylinders, including some of the most unique recordings in the world.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=388.0,412.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"An LIS graduate student, we have Veronica Smith. She's partnered with many media organizations around the issue of technology obsolescence and continuing digital access. Her work with CUNY TV's archive focused specifically on the use of digital storage drives to transfer DAT tapes. We are going to be hearing a lot more about that today, as well as the editing and preservation of the resulting audio files. She currently works as a digital asset librarian for an environmental nonprofit based in New York City.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=412.0,440.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And we have Eddie Cilleti a self-employed audio tech and occasional recording engineer for most of his career with stints at MCI, Bearsville, Atlantic, Record Plant, and R Greenberg Associates all along the way. His specialties, there's a lot of specialties, include helical scan digital as well as analog tape decks, wire recorders, microphones, recording lathes, consoles, outboard gear. And Eddie is based in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Well, a lot of expertise in this room today, so I'm going to hand things right off to Kelly Pribble. \n\nKelly Pribble","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=440.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thanks, Jessica. I really appreciate being here. I can see New York City from where I'm sitting in my studio right now, so I'm on the Upper East Coast. My background is in studios as an engineer and building studios around the world. I started in Nashville and then went to New York, then London, and then Brazil. And now I'm back in the New York area, and one of the things that I wanted to talk about beginning this panel here is basically where DAT came from and what preceded DAT and the formats that I know some of you probably have used, probably some of you are archiving. And I just want to give you just a little bit of history and then I'll talk about what I like and don't like about DATs and then pass it on to the more technical people like Eddie and Veronica. And then we'll jump back in and talk about some of my processes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=480.0,525.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But I just want to give you a little bit of history. The Digital Audio Tape format, PCM development in the sound stream, digital recordings and PCM 1600s and 1630s, then the great Sony PCM-F1, and DATS. And then some common denominators about those. And then some pros and cons of just my personal experience. And I'll keep this short and then move on to the more technical people and then we'll come back.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=525.0,549.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So PCM, pulse code modulation. If you don't know this, it dates back to almost 1986, when basically we were working on PCM back in the days in Japan and different coding was done for different developments. And then the first PCM recorder was developed in 1967 by NHK, which is the Japanese Broadcast Corporation. The NHK developed the first stereo PCM in 1969, which was 32 kilohertz, 13 bits on one of these great, two-inch quadruplex video recorders. I don't know if you've seen these, but you think about a DAT tape today, this is what the PCM DAT tape was in 1969. So you can kind of see going back to really where the beginning bits came from.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=549.0,599.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then this guy named Tom Stockham was the first US-based digital PCM recorder he introduced in 1975. This is Tom. And it recorded 36 kHz 16 bit on a one-inch video deck. And this is one of the first American-built PCM recorders. And then we go to the next one, which Sony built the PCM 1600. It was introduced in 1978 and recorded 44.1 kHz at 13 bit and then later at 16 bit on a three-quarter inch Umatic. So as we get to here from 1978, about 10 years, we went from two inch, to one inch, to three-quarter inch videotape.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=599.0,639.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then comes the Sony PCM F-1. And this was the first consumer professional recorder. I used to use these. I'm sure, Eddie, you've seen these as well, and some of the I'm sure some of our audience have seen these, if you archive. They went on a video deck. And so the top right picture is actually the processor. The top left was actually a Beta video deck that was consumer and the bottom right was the tuner for your television station. So you had to have all these units together to get PCM digital audio on the video track of a Beta recording. So this was also recorded on VHS or Beta consumers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=639.0,678.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So then fast forward to Sony introducing the first DAT player in 1987. So within twenty years, we went from two inch, one inch, three-quarter inch, half-inch, to DAT, which is, I believe is eight millimeter. So and then proprietary cassette sampling 44.1, 48, 32 kHz at 16 bit. Later on, Tascam built a 24 bit recorder that is very rare. If you have those, there were only a few handful those made. I actually have one, I think Eddie you probably do to and some you guys, probably on the West Coast have these. So this is kind of the chronological order of history of DATs. We went two inch, one inch, three-quarter inch, half inch and then now 8 millimeter. So within 20 years, the same processing of pulse code modulation, PCM, went from all these formats.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=678.0,724.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And what do they have in common? Which is the helical scan recording and playback. And if you know what a VCR is, it's a tilted head in helical scan is a rotating cylinder head that records that at a basically a level of different levels on the tape. You see just very rudimentary drawing. On the left it's recorded, on the right it's not recorded. And the tape goes in one way and it's recorded at a slant. And there's more recordings on this than would be on a stationary head because of the slant and giving the tape more area to record per on the tape. This was developed in the 1950s, with the quadruplex machine, perfected in the 1960s, and up until the VHS and the Beta machines this is what we were using. And this is exactly what the DAT machines are using, as well, that we are talking about today.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=724.0,773.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So just a few pros and cons of my perspective on these, and I'll move on. DAT machines became very affordable. Tapes were compact and inexpensive. Tapes could be recorded for extended amount of time. Recording quality was industry standard. The cons: The quality of the machines was not very robust. Difficult to repair such a small tape or edit such a small tape. And machines could be easily put out of alignment by just moving them around. And a lot of information stored on a very, very little tape. So that's pretty much my just perspective of history. I'll jump back in when everybody else does, but I'll pass this on to Jessica and let the technical side start. So thank you for your time. Thank you for listening. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=773.0,821.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you, Kelly. We are going to keep things rolling with this. And our next speaker today is Dan. \n\nDan Figurelli","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=821.0,835.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"OK. Thank you, Jessica. Thank you, everybody. I am going to take a second to share my screen. OK. Everybody can see that. Okay. Thank you. My name is Dan Figurelli, and I'm the audio preservation engineer here at Indiana University. So today I'm just going to talk a little bit about a DAT restoration project that we had done last year. But just a little bit of background about us here at IU. We started back in 2013 as MDPI. It was a mass digitization project that was grant-funded from the Office of the President and on down. With that, we were basically tasked with digitizing all significant audio and video holdings on all of the IU campuses by the bicentennial in 2020. In order to do that we partnered along with Memnon, who would do a lion's share of our digitization with parallel transfers. IU would do the fragile materials in a one-to-one workflow in this room that you see here. Since then, we've been part of the IU Libraries and we're now called the Audio Video Preservation Services.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=835.0,932.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Currently, we're digitizing these formats. But let's get to the real fun stuff, DATs. And so we did a DAT restoration project back in 2020, when we were quarantined and working from home. And so we had to come up with kind of a project that everybody can do. And so basically what we had to work with was about 9000 DAT transfers that Memnon had done from 2015 to 2016. These transfers were done using a NOA MediaLector System. Eight Sony PCMs were used in parallel. And this NOA system also collects error correction data, which was pretty important. But before we got to that, our QC team started immediately noticing that there was about 30 percent or so of these transfers that had digital errors within them. And so basically, what are we going to do about all this?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=932.0,997.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So it's kind of a mess. But once we had all these files and the error correction information, we were able to start putting our heads together and say, How are we going to get through this? And so from the period of March to June of 2020, we focused on this restoration project, and the material that we were focusing on was from the Jacobs School of Music here at IU. And the reason was because they did a lot of their concert recordings with duplicate copies. And this meant either it was two DAT machines that were recording at the same time. Maybe they were two independent of each other. Maybe they were one was slave to the other, or maybe it was a recording of a dub of one of the DATs. And so basically, they kind of were anticipating back in the 90s that this might be an unstable format. And so that was kind of their reason. Another reason was they usually held one of the copies in a vault and then used another copy to loan out to people kind of like library books. So we have these two duplicate copies of the same recording. And so we we're just going to basically try to make a production master file that was error free.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=997.0,1085.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So part of the NOA system that is going to give us these block error rates, which is a useful indicator of problems in a file. Along with human intensive QC, you can start to see how severe some of these files were. So just from this spreadsheet, you can just see the color coding on the left. Basically, green means that it's pretty good. Blue is mostly safe, and there might be a few errors, going down to yellow and orange and red, and, as you can imagine, is the most severe. So we would basically match up these two files. Maybe you had a blue and a green or a red and a yellow, and you were you were tasked with making an error free file out of it. So this is kind of an example of what you might hear.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1085.0,1147.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Not very fun to listen to. And this might be the other. And an interesting note about a lot of these concerts is that they were sometimes up to two hours in length, and so you could have, you know, a 30 minute section that had no errors in it and then maybe something at the end. And so it really took a lot of patience to go through these in real time and listen to the errors.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1147.0,1185.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We started identifying kind of different groups of errors or reject outlier samples, held samples, rapidly alternating samples, and glitches. We started just kind of referring to them as glitches and zippers, drop outs. We came up with all kinds of fun names for them. But basically, how this project worked was that we would take the two files and time align them in our in our DAWS that we had available to us at home. You would line them up. You would allow for phase alignment. Make sure that they were in phase and basically go through the entire concert and select the best sections. And then, of course, you would add metadata that would go along with your production file. Basically, we're going for an error free concert from start to finish. Sometimes this would be possible, other times not so much.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1185.0,1250.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When you look at a couple of these files, you can see the blue one on the top has some pretty significant errors. This is just a sine wave. A lot of these concerts had about a minute of sine waves at the very beginning of it. So it was it was kind of easy to line it up that way. But you can see the one on the bottom in the green has a little bit of error there, as well. So sometimes you're not going to get a 100 percent error free. Here's another example. You can see the bottom one on the green has a lot of drop outs, where the performance of the top doesn't. And so these are again the same performance, but quite different in the files that you're actually getting.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1250.0,1292.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Another example of just some glitches that are popping here and there. Again, this is a concert performance. It's kind of difficult to listen to a soft piano when you're kind of anticipating an error coming. You don't really know when it's going to come, and so it kind of makes these sort of unlistenable if they hadn't been gone through yet. Here's another instance, just kind of random glitches in one performance and not so much in the other. And so basically, we would create these production files. And then if there is some unavoidable sections that had errors in it, we would include that in the metadata. Some indications of some of those comments would be something like, you know, there's error at two minutes or maybe, you know, from 10 minutes to 16 minutes, there's all kinds of errors and it's kind of unlistenable.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1292.0,1353.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So in creating the production master file, we're actually listening to the entire concert. We're focusing on nondestructive editing because we don't, you know, we're not throwing away any sort of files when we're making the production files. So as we're doing edits, we're basically making a duplicate of it so we can always refer back to the original. And we're basically tasked with creating this error free production file. We're also using YAML documents and to create our metadata. Again, this wasn't particularly ideal, but we're trying to make the best of a bad situation, especially because we're all quarantined at home. This was kind of a good use of our time from, you know, the period of March 'till June or however many months that we were actually there. And we had about five engineers working on this at once. And so once we kind of created our workflow, we were able to actually to get through quite a few of these.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1353.0,1417.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Basically, the results of this, 9000 of the DATs that were transferred, about 2700 were detected with errors. And in that time period, we were able to create 600 production files or 1200 pairs of files, so almost halfway through the ones that needed to be done. Some of the cons behind this is that it was pretty time consuming. We're not actually correcting anything within the file. We're basically just choosing between one or the other. But pros were that it actually did work, and now we have these 600 concerts that are listenable when they were not before. There are some other restoration techniques that I'm sure that we're going to be digging into a little bit more in this talk, but this is basically a pretty good workflow for the circumstances that we had to do this. And so with that, I'm going to turn it back over to the panel and we can take it from there. Thank you. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1417.0,1484.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you, Dan. Up next, we are going to hear a little bit about digital storage drives to playback DATs and that is from Veronica. So Veronica, you're up next.\n\nVeronica Smith","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1484.0,1503.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you so much. Let me just share my screen here for a second. OK, so, like Jessica said, Hi, everyone, my name is Veronica, and I'm going to talk a little bit about the DAT project I worked on while at the City University of New York's TV station. I did this in collaboration with my supervisor at the time, Dave Rice, and our project focused specifically on using digital data storage drives or DDS drives to transfer DAT tapes. So to start some background, why did we do this project in the first place? CUNY TV to want it to develop and document a workflow to transfer DAT tapes using DDS drives. The station has a small DAT collection of its own, made up of about 120 re-edits of content that is also stored on open reels. So these tapes allowed for some experimental wiggle room to focus on the true driving force of this project, which was and has been a desire just to learn more about the transfer process and its implications for audio preservation. We wanted to put time and research toward this because we felt that there were just generally fewer professional resources regarding the preservation of tape-based digital audio. And so with that being said, this project relied heavily on the expertise of nonprofessionals or folks who were working outside of institutions on personal projects.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1503.0,1607.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So to start, the first thing we needed to do was build a transfer setup. Trying to navigate obsolescence issues on both the hardware and software fronts proved to be one of, if not the biggest challenge in getting this process up and running at all. The transfer workflow we developed is specific to Mac operating systems with an attempt at utilizing primarily open source materials. We repeatedly tried to configure a set-up that could run off of more modern hardware and software, which would ultimately reduce our reliance on obsolete materials. This piece is definitely still a work in progress. So for now pictured here are the components we used for a successful transfer set up.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1607.0,1647.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In the picture you can see at the very top, we have our Sony SDT 9000 DDS3 drive that was fitted with 12.2 version of firmware. The drive was connected to an external enclosure that provided it with a power source, as well as the connection via SCSI cable to our Power Mac G4 from the year 2000. We fitted the computer with an Adaptec PCI card so the drive could be recognized by the computer. We used Apple's 10.3 operating system, and then the transfer software that we ultimately ended up with is DAT Extract, which is a program that was developed by an engineer named Peter DiCamillo.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1647.0,1695.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And so once we got all of our pieces up and running, we were able to use DAT Extract to transfer tapes at about one and a half times their normal playback speed. On the left is a screenshot of the software running as a tape is being transferred. Each DAT Extract transfer generates three files, the audio file itself in a form, a text file, and a log file. On the right, you can see zoomed in, these are the preferences we used for the software because of our specific interest in potentially using the metadata files for editing and preservation purposes once the tape was transferred. So under logging you can see we've chosen to have the program write both metadata and log files.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1695.0,1737.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So once we were able to get in a groove and transfer tapes with relative ease, something else we wanted to do as part of this research was compare the transfers done with the drive to those of an actual DAT player. To do this, we recorded calibration tones onto a blank DAT tape and then intentionally damaged it in various ways. The damaged tape was then transferred three consecutive times using both a drive and the original playback device for a total of six passes. We used Audacity's editing software, again emphasis on open source, and we observed significant differences in the way each device dealt with error handling and correction. The primary reason for this difference is that the drive allows known misread data to be passed along as is, whereas the DAT deck doesn't give access to the misread data, but instead provides an interpolated replacement.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1737.0,1799.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So in this image, you can see for the taped sections with minor damage, the deck transfer on top did not report any errors but gave us a very cleaned up file while the drive transfer on the bottom reported and did not interpolate the errors that it logged. For taped sections with more moderate damage, the deck was able to successfully interpolate some of the errors, but was unable to correct all of them, which caused the signal to drop intermittently, which you can see in that top picture. The drive transfer, however, reported the whole host of errors and was able to do so without dropping the signal. And then finally, for tape sections with severe damage, the deck could neither interpolate the errors nor report them. You can see at the top the signal has just like completely dropped out. The drive transfer, however, did not drop the signal and was able to log all of the errors, although the resulting file, as you can see, is a bit of a mess.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1799.0,1860.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So once we understood that we got error concealment with no reporting from the deck and error reporting but no concealment from the drive, the next thing we wanted to do was see if we could use the reporting from the drive transfers to emulate the corrections made during the deck transfers. This metadata driven approach to editing would be based on information taken directly from the tapes via the DAT Extract software and not from an editing program's rereading of the files.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1860.0,1894.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"OK, so the tool that we chose to help us make these corrections was FFmpeg's declick filter. For folks who might not know, FFmpeg is essentially a free and open source library of video and audio processing programs. So the filter that we use is one tool that's available through this library. In our case, it provided a ready-made script that we could fit into our testing. But we feel it's possible that with a more DAT-specific editing script, the error correction process that we use could be refined and improved even further.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1894.0,1928.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"OK, so how did we get the declick filter to only target the locations where there were errors and not act over the entire audio file indiscriminately? Our first step was to develop a script that we called DAT Logger, which transforms the log file created by DAT Extract into a CSV, indicating the channel timestamp and duration of each error. In the image on top you can see that most of the errors for this transfer occur between the 30 and 55 second mark in the red box. This info was captured in the accompanying log file. And in the bottom image you can see how we passed that log file using DAT Logger to create instructions for FFmpeg that the filter should only be applied to areas with known errors. I know it's tiny, but you can see here we have like the time stamps that correspond to where the errors are in the file.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1928.0,1986.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So after we ran this parsed data through the declick filter, we got a final file that had been selectively edited based on the error locations reported during the drive transfer. You can see here we have the top image from the previous slide of the original file, and below is the same file after it has been declicked. The audio that has been corrected is located only within the timestamped ranges determined by the original DAT Extract error log and the rest of the audio file has not been changed.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=1986.0,2021.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Being able to successfully error correct and edit the audio files of our drive transfers, the final piece of our project was to compare the resulting audio files from the DAT player transfers again to those from the drive. So once again, we compared the three mild, moderate, and severely damaged sections of our tape. As I mentioned earlier, for sections with minor damage, no error correction was needed for transfers made with a deck because the player was able to successfully interpolate all the errors. The drive transfer, however, sends those audio frames with errors along as is, but with logging. By using the logging, we were able to emulate the DAT deck's interpolation process and filter for the audio with known errors. So here you can see the difference between the original drive transfer in the middle image and the same section of audio once it's been declicked twice in the bottom image.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2021.0,2080.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Again, for sections with more moderate damage, the DAT deck was able to interpolate some of the errors. However, the sections that could not be corrected simply dropped out and were unable to be declicked. Because the playback machine does not report any errors it's impossible to use the DAT Logger/declick combination to correct anything that is not interpolated during the transfer. The drive transfer, however, was able to be selectively declicked thanks to its error reporting. And so you can see in the bottom screenshot, after two rounds of declicking the quality of the audio is significantly improved. It's not perfect, but it's much better than it was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2080.0,2121.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And finally, the DAT deck was unable to correct any of the errors caused by severe tape damage and the entire section of audio was dropped. Similar to the tape with moderate damage, these issues were unable to be repaired through the editing process. Again, the drive did not interpolate any errors for this section with severe damage, but it reported everything, which allowed for significant correction using the filter. The bottom image shows the file after it was selectively declicked three times. We were actually able to declick it a fourth time, but at that point the audio began to distort so significantly that the reduction in errors was not worth the sacrifice in quality.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2121.0,2163.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And so after this yearlong testing period, what did we learn? First, we learned the DAT transfers using DDS drives are definitely possible. We know that this isn't new information, but wanted to reiterate that it is a viable option, especially for smaller tape collections. Although DDS drives are not capable of error correction in the moment the way that DAT players are, the transfers made with the drives provide metadata that can be used by preservation tools to clean up the audio files later on. We also learned that there are certainly limitations to this method. Getting the transfer set-up up and running at all was not an easy process, and because of the age of any one of the components, there is a chance one piece could suddenly stop working, thereby disabling the entire thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2163.0,2215.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And lastly, we feel that the next steps in this project, which was put on hold because of COVID, would be to, 1) run the same set of tests with quote unquote real audio tracks and not just calibration tones to see how the transfer setups and editing methods respond; 2) to build upon the declicking filter with something more DAT-specific and see if that improves cleanup capabilities. And then, 3) to potentially explore the possibility of using these metadata logs to create compilation files of the best version of a tape if it has been transferred more than once. And we realize that when we would make multiple transfers of the same tape, the errors would appear in different places for each transfer. So being able to splice those together could be something that would be really beneficial for preservation. And so with that, I say thanks so much. You can get our full project documentation through AMIA's open source GitHub or from the link listed here. Yeah. Thanks so much!\n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2215.0,2284.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you, Veronica. I urge you all to read the documentation of this project. It's really fascinating and I have to say I used the DAT Extract program when I was at the Magic Shop in, like, I don't know, early 2010-11. And even then, the G4 was an ancient machine. So bravo for finding a working G4 and getting that all set up to test. \n\nVeronica Smith","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2284.0,2308.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2308.0,2310.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Alright, our final presenter for today, we will hear from Eddie. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2310.0,2318.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Oh, here we go. Hi, everybody. I created the video I was up until 4 a.m. last night or this morning trying to get it all together. I applaud Veronica. I would actually love to see what the data drive saw. I'm a technician, so I use an oscilloscope to calibrate machines. I will say, and this is explained in the video, but the way that DAT works and most of these helical formats work is that they transmit or record the data with two heads. One had records the data say, for example, left to right or one through eight. And the other head records at eight to one or right to left. That way, if the RF envelope, which you will see in this video, has collapsed on one side. If the other head is fine, you get the data from either head. The DAT format, all of these formats, were kind of designed so that if one head was bad, but the other head was getting perfectly good data, it could reconstruct the data. But that data is on there twice and it's remarkably robust. There's a lack of errors and what you call concealment, which is when it can restructure the data and then what Veronica was saying, interpolation beyond that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2318.0,2404.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So my main curiosity was that many people were using DAT to, you know, when they're archiving, just finding a machine that will play the tape. So this will show you how you can with an oscilloscope, see whether or not the problem is the tape or the machine. I will say and it says it in the video, but Sony machines from that era were the most likely to make out of spec tapes. And so when you can see what about a of spec tape looks like, then you can at least adjust your machine to that tape. And so if you want to just roll the video, I don't know how much of it you're going to see, but it's only seven minutes long, and it pretty much shows what machines I like and which ones are easy for you all to stick a screwdriver in. \n\nVideo: Helically Scanned Digital Audio Tape Formats, Part 2, by Eddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2404.0,2457.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Welcome to Part 2 in a video series that focuses on helical scan, digital audio tape formats. Sony's professional grade transports have two separate reel motors eliminating wear item parts such as belts and clutches found in consumer grade transports. And while they should be more mechanically reliable, Sony's older precision tape guide design can hold an alignment. This is one reason that some of the tapes you are trying to archive will be out of spec.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2457.0,2487.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When a DAT is inserted, the tape is pulled from the cassette threaded around the head drum, and we hope the machine can pull the tape, read the time code and output anything but this dreaded sound. You already know the importance of manually cleaning the heads and fast winding the tape. Sometimes multiple times. This video is about tape path alignment, the video equivalent of azimuth, using two versions of the user friendly decks made by Pioneer, the Fostex D5 and the Tascam DA20. To adjust tape path, an oscilloscope is connected to the appropriate test points so that the RF envelope can be observed and, if necessary, optimized via the entrance and exit post rollers, otherwise known as tape guides. Unlike Sony's tape guides, the Pioneer guides have no locking screws, so it's easier to get started. The test points are on a header rerouted to the rear panel for ease of connection, either for monitoring with the lid on or calibration. A support bracket is removed and then set aside to allow easy access to the tape path adjustments. The right arrow points to the exit guide. The hole above the left arrow was added for easier access to the entrance guide. A modified screwdriver is used to adjust the guides. The entrance guide affects the left side of the RF envelope. While the exit guide affects the right side of the envelope.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2487.0,2596.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Let's now revisit that nasty sound at the head of this video, a 40 Hertz tone has been recorded and monitored at barely audible levels so that it's not annoying unless the signal quality is beyond error correction. Notice how deformed the wave form can be without signal interruption. No matter what you think of the DAT format, the error correction is very robust. An oscilloscope's view of the RF envelope is essential to understanding the integrity of the signal from tape. Oscilloscopes are like recording consoles and workstations. They all do the same thing, but not exactly in the same way. In lieu of having an experienced tech on hand to guide you through the process, here is a quick tutorial.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2596.0,2648.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The vertical amp. The RF envelope is connected to scope channel one and the head switching pulse is connected to scope channel two. Adjust the height of the waveform via the controls labeled volts per division. Adjust the position of each waveform via the two pots at the top of the vertical amplifier. Note that the RF signal requires a short, low capacitance cable or a test probe set to x10. While it is not necessary to view the head switching square wave, the scope uses it as a trigger. At the top right of the screen notice that channel two is the trigger source. The rate at which the oscilloscope screen is scanned is adjusted by the horizontal sweep rate labeled seconds per division. This adjusts the width of the wave.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2648.0,2704.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Three manufacturers designed transports that use the capstan motor to drive the reel tables. Panasonic covered in Video 1, Pioneer detailed in the first half of this video, and ALPS who OEMed the transport found in the DA30 Mark II, DA40, DA45 HR, DA302 and the DAP1 Portable. All use the same 30 mm head drum, the only difference being the loading mechanism. On the underside, many of you are familiar with the most common failure, a stretched threading belt. And while we're here, note the location of the head drum motor, as well as the belt that links the capstan motor to the reversing idler.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2704.0,2750.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Topside, there are two issues worth pointing out, note the location of the supply and take up brake pads. These either disintegrate or fall off. The double arrow points out the reversing idler pivot assembly. Notice the unintentional space at the top where the plastic is cracked. This will eventually cause problems during fast wind. That said, both problems can be repaired.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2750.0,2780.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Archivists are already aware of the most common DAT issues. I've chosen a handful of models that are inherently reliable and their known issues repairable. The common failures with Sony, Panasonic and Tascam's ALPS transports are assemblies that are press fit and held together by friction. Sony's metal on metal tape guides come loose and make out of spec tapes. And while Panasonic's cast tech plate is beautifully machined, the base of the exit guide is machine brass press fit into a spring loaded plastic pivot arm. The plastic cracks, the brass catches on a deck plate and flings the tape into the playback amplifier, where it can get tangled on the components. Surprisingly, the ALPS transport used by Tascam has a deck plate made from a molded plastic resin far cheaper to manufacture than Panasonic's deck plate. But the design is more reliable, and it has to be because the DA45 HR is the only 24 bit model. Pioneer-made transports are perhaps the least known and the most reliable so far. Finally, observing tape path via scope will help archivists understand whether they are fighting alignment or tape degradation. Thanks for watching. And stay tuned for more.\n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2780.0,2874.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Wasn't that fun? \n\nKelly Pribble","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2874.0,2877.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It was fantastic, Eddie, very good. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2877.0,2880.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Eddie, that was great. Thank you. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2880.0,2882.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Sure thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2882.0,2882.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Following along the Q\u0026A and the chat, so please read through the chat. There's a lot going on there and we have so many questions. Some are specific to our presenters and some are more general. I thought we'd start with a couple of just general questions and then narrow our focus as we get more in depth to some of these. So one of the first questions that was submitted prior to this workshop, it's pretty general, but I think it's worth hearing from all of our presenters on this, which is, do you have any tips or tricks when you have a tape that just won't play back? \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2882.0,2923.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I would defer to anybody who does this more than me. I do repair more than I do archiving. I do some, but I did run into tape that one of my clients was asked to remix film shoot DATs. They had all been left in random places. And every place where the tape was left, the tape that was under the flap for some reason wanted to clog the head. And the only way to fix it was to rewind the tape back and forth several times, the dirt being transferred to the head and then you clean the head, and eventually enough dirt would come off that you could play the tape. Again, being able to see the head clog even in fast wind with the oscilloscope helped me to understand what and where the problem is. Sometimes I will say that that funk that builds up under the flap makes it hard for some machines to even move the tape. So that's another issue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2923.0,2986.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I did want to bring up, I mentioned this to Kelly because he's the real mechanical engineer in this group. But on the Tascam DTRS machines, they have a tape scraper on the impedance roller before the head, and this very sharp scraper is used to clean stuff off the tape before it goes to the head. And I am considering adapting one of these for a DAT machine to see if it might help with clearing the funk off the tape, assuming it's on the surface and it's not actually the oxide. And I will, anybody scream if they are trying to solve this problem, but I will try to get to that in the next year. \n\nKelly Pribble","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=2986.0,3027.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Jessica, one of the things that we do a lot when we're dealing with mass migration. First thing is to do is I bake the tape. I will bake digital tapes. I will bake a DAT tape just as much as I will an analog tape. A lot of times I have a lot of new old stock DATs that if I can't get a DAT to play my first go-to sometimes will be to reshell it into a different shell or brand new shell. Because first thing I'll do is I'll make sure that tape plays in the DAT player. It's not the DAT player. At that point, it's not the DAT player or is it the tape itself? But I found reshelling tapes a lot of times will fix certain things that have happened over a period of time within that case itself. So that's my first go-to, baking and then possibly reshelling. And then I call Eddie after that. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3027.0,3074.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you, that's really useful. Veronica, Dan, you want to chime in on this? \n\nDan Figurelli","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3074.0,3084.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Sorry. You know, I would just echo what we said before, just reshelling, exercising the tape, would usually give you the best chance to trying to play it back. Cleaning the heads, obviously before and after exercising and things like that. But that's the best bet that I think that you have. \n\nVeronica Smith","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3084.0,3114.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I'd say that my experience truly is really just with transfers based off of drives. Shout out to John, who is in this session, who he's the one who made the transfers for us from the actual DAT player. But my people who are doing drive transfers, my advice is just like, have a lot of patience. I think that that probably is writ large advice for DATs generally. But it's a lot of tinkering. It's a lot of like readjusting. It's a lot of maybe this cable isn't exactly the cable that I needed, so I have to swap it out and try something different. If you're not getting any results when you make transfers, it's just a lot of tweaking and patience to see if any one of those very small changes will result in something that you can work with. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3114.0,3162.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you. On that same topic, I'm going to throw out three things. And again, you're all welcome to chime in as you see fit. Kelly, you talked about baking. Richard Hess posted a question prior to the workshop around cold playback. Thought that was worth discussing if anyone's doing cold playback of DATs. And finally, multiple passes to get fewer errors on subsequent playbacks. So three techniques, take it away!\n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3162.0,3201.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I think Richard Hess has done some cold baking. He worked on a project that I had started and had some moderate success putting his DAT machine in the refrigerator. And I think that works for analog tapes, maybe more than for DAT. But I will say that those tapes that I was attempting to transfer did suffer from that same issue of this film that builds up on these tapes that are exposed to the environment or in a bad environment. And I think the tape scraping technique might work because Richard said that the only way he got any playback was for multiple fast winds until enough came off that he could play it. And he played it in sections, which you have to do. When I started, I think I maybe got 10 seconds and got it up to 30 seconds. So a little tedious. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3201.0,3261.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And there's a lot of tedium in this. Anyone else doing cold playback? No. Alright, something worth experimenting with moving forward. The tape scraper thing sounds really fascinating, I'll just say anecdotally, the, knock on wood, the one tape I've lost so far in my years of doing tapes, had a little bit of mold on it and it split and I tried to reshell it and it just shredded. So it was gone, and I called Spec Brothers at that time to see if there was anything I could do. And they basically said no. So at that point, there was really no salvaging that DAT. Fortunately, we had a cassette backup. So that's another reason to keep your backups.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3261.0,3310.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Getting into some of the more specific questions directed at our panelists today, because so much information and so much interest in all of these things, and I'm just going to kind of go in the order in which they were received and we'll bounce around a little bit. But here's a question for Dan. Would multiple passes of the same tape give different error rates due to different error correction in playback? And I'm not sure if that's on the same deck or on different decks. But Dan, what do you think? \n\nDan Figurelli","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3310.0,3339.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yeah, absolutely. I think you can find that when you're playing something back on the same deck, errors might occur in different places as well as moving it to a different deck. You just get different results depending on how things are aligned. So it is, you know, like we're talking about, pretty tedious, but by retransferring things a few times, you can probably compile those transfers into one good working copy. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3339.0,3371.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You know, that answers a couple of other questions in the Q\u0026A section and beyond around multiple passes of the same tape. It sounds like with multiple passes, you get a chance to exercise the tape, you get a chance to work off some of the gunk and possibly get better or different error rates on subsequent playbacks. So that's certainly an option. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3371.0,3398.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Jessica, I have a quick question, that tape that fell apart on you, is that a 3M tape by any chance? \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3398.0,3405.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I don't remember, but it had been in a shoebox under a bed in Ghana for like 30 years. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3405.0,3411.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Okay. Because I had one tape like that where the tape was literally stuck together. Where it broke. Every time I tried to pull it off, it broke again it. I did eventually piece it back together, but it was the oddest tape I'd ever seen. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3411.0,3427.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That's exactly what had happened. It peeled. So I tried baking it. I tried reshelling it, and it just completely shredded. So hopefully you win more than you lose. Back to our questions. Let's see. Veronica, you got a lot of questions, so I'm going to throw a couple at you. Can FFmpeg also perform de-emphasis, if needed, or is there any way to generate a flag so you know if it's needed or not? \n\nVeronica Smith","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3427.0,3465.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I think the answer is yes. I think that that is one of the like tools that exist in FFmpeg's library. I will say the DAT Extract software that we used, we had to use because it was Mac-specific and that was the equipment that we had available to us at the TV station. From what I have learned from, like lots of forums and folks who are doing this at home, there is a software called WaveDAT that people really love, that runs on Windows and that is a software that has de-emphasis options built into the software itself for the transfers. So I believe it is an option that you could use via FFmpeg, but I also know that some other engineers are building that correction into the transfer logging itself. Yes. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3465.0,3522.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you. Along those lines, similar question for Veronica from Brian Hoffa. What about other artifacts from DAT errors like ringing or glitching? Did you hear anything like that with the DDS transfers and is there anything in FFmpeg to deal with that? \n\nVeronica Smith","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3522.0,3539.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yes, we definitely did hear a lot of those artifacts when we made the transfers. I don't think we quite got to that part yet. Our project was sort of cut short because of COVID and needing to be at home, so we hadn't really fully explored the potential for editing. We just kind of wanted to use this declick filter as the sort of like out of the box thing that we could use to test the metadata-based corrections. But I feel confident that there are other tools that could be used, especially if someone were to create something that is more specific to DAT tapes and DAT correction. I feel like that would be a possibility. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3539.0,3583.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you. We also got a request for you to drop the link to the project documentation of that in the chat if you've got that handy. Some more questions about cleaning. So let's talk a little bit about both cleaning the DATs and cleaning the machines. I know I've also heard that sometimes cleaning the machines has the potential to damage them. So perhaps our panelists can go into a little bit more detail about how you clean both the tapes and the machines. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3583.0,3615.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I'll do the head cleaning. The head cleaning is. DAT heads are a lot more robust than, say, the DTRS heads. The DAT heads, with all heads you should turn them counterclockwise. You want your cloth to be damp and not soaked, because the head spins but it's connected via a transformer, which means no wires, but the clearance is very narrow. So if you oversoak your cloth, the fluid can get into the head and there's lacquer that laminates all the wires together, and that lacquer gets loose and gets in between. And then when the alcohol dries, it can freeze the head up. I did have a machine come in that was completely frozen and I soaked it in alcohol and kept turning it until the alcohol vaporized, and then it was able to spin again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3615.0,3671.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You can use anything from lint free cloth to yellow paper, believe it or not, and that is safer than using the cleaning tape, if you're comfortable with cleaning the heads by hand. The cleaning tape should really be used sparingly because it is fairly abrasive. The same thing that makes repeated passes of funky tapes self-cleaning is that they deposit dirt on their heads, but the heads are designed to have enough friction to wipe the tape, the dirt off the head. Believe it or not, in my video, in my first video, it showed where of the two heads, one of the heads blanked out because the head was worn more or not sticking out enough out of the head to self-clean, just a certain amount of self-cleaning going on. So I would say that of all the heads that DATs are most forgiving to human touch. The ADATs are the least forgiving and the Tascam machines, you cannot turn the head clockwise because the head is like a race car. It's very smooth and the counterclockwise direction and the back is very square and you can take the head right off if you go backwards. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3671.0,3755.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you. Really great information. How about cleaning the actual tapes? Kelly, you must have a story about this, right? You have to have some. \n\nKelly Pribble","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3755.0,3763.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Oh, I've got some horror stories. I do a lot of cleaning. You don't know. I do a lot of remediation for IMES around the world. We have a lot of assets around the world and everything comes in New Jersey for me. And I just actually created a machine to clean VHS and digital video cassettes like the DigiBetas and things like that. Where you actually, there were cleaning machines made for those formats, and I'll get back on to the DAT in just a second. But the problem when you talk about any cassette format is if there's anything inside the cassette, say it was mold or moisture or just a build up, these machines that used to be able to clean those formats would take the tape out of the cassette, clean it outside of the cassette and put it right back in. And if we're talking about something like mold it gets recontaminated immediately. So the only way we and I have been able to figure out how to clean something, especially if it's moldy or has some kind of residue within the tape or on the tape, is taking the tape out of the cassette itself and cleaning the tape.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3763.0,3825.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The problem with that is DATs are so small and fragile and and I did make a mistake saying there are 8mm wide earlier, they're 4mm wide, but that's a very small, thin format tape that if it comes unrolled quite easily. So you have to be very delicate about it. But I have taken DATs out and I've made a little mechanisms where I've had an eraser and I've actually rolled through the two rails between a cloth of sorts and cleaned them that way. But I'm still working on something to, to work on, to build something. I don't have as many problems with DATs as I do with VHS tapes and DigiBetas with mold and content. So it's still a work in progress, and I don't have an exact answer other than I have seen some guys-- Eddie, you probably have known this too-- where people put Pellon or some kind of cleaning solution on one of the rollers inside and then fast forward it and cleaned them that way. Unless you know a machine or you're mechanically inclined that's a little dangerous, but today that's the only thing I'm aware of, of how to clean tapes. And it's one at a time, and it's very tedious and it's very time consuming. So I don't have a great answer for that yet. But Kim wipes are really good, if you don't know what Kim wipes are, Kim wipes will clean almost any kind of head pretty well, and isopropyl alcohol 92 percent or 90 percent and above is always good. And Eddie, do you have any comments on that? Because I know you've ran across this and we've discussed this as well of cleaning tapes within the machine. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3825.0,3925.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You mean using the actual cleaning tape? \n\nKelly Pribble","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3925.0,3928.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, actually doing something with. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3928.0,3930.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yeah, I have wrapped cloth on the roller. The problem is, like I said, that that format is so small and I really think even though I am distracted by many different things, but I really think that that scraper thing might be the better thing. And I am hoping to try that out. \n\nKelly Pribble","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3930.0,3951.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, I think one of the things that I may try out and probably Eddie would need your help is can you remove the head and still get the transport to work within a machine that we could build some kind of device that would clean the tape out or within a machine? And I'll get a machine and try something like that. Is that possible to get the mechanism to work? \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3951.0,3973.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That would be very interesting. The head would want to be connected. \n\nKelly Pribble","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3973.0,3979.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Sure. So how do we get around that? \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3979.0,3982.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, just the heads come out pretty easily, and as long as there's enough wiring that it could be set aside for, you know, then it's possible. I have about a zillion dead Panasonic DAT decks here and I might give that a shot because then you could actually affix, you'd have an actual place where you could mount your mechanism, whatever it is. Or you could even, you know, have a dummy head in there and put something on the dummy head so that the real head would be setting off spinning this so the computer wouldn't get upset and the dummy head could have some cloth on it. So that might be something to try. \n\nKelly Pribble","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=3982.0,4025.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yeah, I'm thinking that, you know, as we get into this further, that's one format that I haven't had just an abundance of tapes come in that are moldy. I get lots of VHS. I get lots of three-quarters, a lot of things to DigiBetas. So I've actually built a machine to take those cassettes on one machine and clean the tapes through some Pellon motorized mechanisms. But that's something that, you know, I think probably we could look at in the future. The one thing that I don't think you guys brought up here that I've had experience with on so many times, that I had so many people call me and go when I put my tape in, it spits it back out. And as I started talking to the guy down in Philadelphia who used to work on the R500s and R700s. And basically, he said, look, if those machines set for a long time, the lubricant that's in the head dries up and gets hard. Take a pencil with an eraser and spin the head and basically free the head from whatever's keeping it bound up a little bit. And those machines would play automatically. And it's one thing that we haven't mentioned that that I've done on several occasions because I may have a DAT player set for two years and not use it. And I'm sure probably everybody who is doing this probably might have that as well. Is sometimes those heads just get stuck. So I'm sure you're going to address that a little bit better technically than I can. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4025.0,4104.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yeah. The head gets stuck because of the amount of fluid on the cleaning cloth gets into the transformer. And so it's not usually the bearings. The bearings are pretty good. It's the clearance between the two sandwiches of the transformer is less than the thickness of this paper. And so any fluid that gets in there will dissolve the lacquer that's holding it all together, and the lacquer then settles right in that very thin area and glues the head together.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4104.0,4135.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I did have a machine that I tried to service for a guy, and servicing long distance is a pain, but this is back in the early part of this century. I would send the machine to him and the head would be frozen and he would get very frustrated, with me especially. Until I got the machine and the head was stuck for me and I realized, Oh, now I understand what the problem is. The other problem, though, when you put a tape in and it's not because the heads not spinning is, a lot of machines, especially all of the Sonys. The Sonys have these two black concentric ears underneath the head assembly that move the slab blocks around the head and they have a grease in them that becomes stiff, more like rubber cement, and all of the things that are supposed to happen don't. And so the machine can't load the tape, and it's looking to see if it's loaded the tape because there are switches to tell it that everything is in place or not. And so it times out, basically, and stops.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4135.0,4200.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And for those of you who do DTRS machines, all the Tascam, the A88, 38, 78, those machines, they all eat tapes because there's a tension arm that's supposed to swing into place and grease gets stuck. It doesn't swing into place. And then, this is the thing about all tape machines analog or digital, the tension on either side of the capstan is essential. It likes to be approximately the same. Understand that in an analog tape machine, you know, between the capstan and take up reel there's no friction, but between the supply reel and the capstan all the friction is in the stationary heads. Well, the rotating head still applies some friction and in the DTRS format if there is no back tension then the tape skews up the capstan and eventually off and then gets caught in the mechanism. Similarly, with DAT machines, in fact, my first DAT video shows this, any shuttling that you do relies on the tension of both directions to be very factory spec and when it's not the tape will ride up and down the capstan. And that's dangerous to the tape. So I would always recommend, do not shuttle, just play it from the beginning. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4200.0,4286.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you. That's really good advice. Ooh, you're taking us into the weeds with some of these details, but it's excellent. And again, please watch Eddie's videos. We'll make sure we have links to those as well. We're heading into the last few minutes of our workshop today, so if you do have questions, please make sure to put them in the Q\u0026A. I also want to point out that Tom Fine put some excellent resources for DAT repair in the chat, so check that out if you have DATs in need of repair, don't we all? We all have DATs in need of repair. And I want to turn the topic now to quality control and thinking, maybe, Dan, this is a good question for you. Can you talk about your quality control workflow for the files you get off your DATs? \n\nDan Figurelli","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4286.0,4333.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Sure, we, back when we were doing these transfers, we had a QC team that was basically looking at these transfers up to nine thousand of them and really just kind of going through them, both human intensive QC and also using the error categories from the NOA system. And so with this sort of team, we were able to kind of create these categories, if you will, of the severity of errors within the files. And it was it was kind of time consuming, but something had to be done because when we were going through, you know, thousands of these files, somebody quickly said, Hey, wait a minute, there's kind of an issue here that we need to get through. And so of course, when we're kind of doing this in this kind of industrial kind of workflow, you know, we just kind of kept the transfers coming and decided to, you know, figure out what to do about it after the fact. So that was back in like 2016. And so we were kind of going through that QC part of it over the years. And so we never really got around to that sort of restoration project that we did here at the university until 2020. So when we were doing that QC we were quickly noticing certain types of errors that we were seeing and also how frequent they were happening. So you might get a couple of errors at the very beginning and then that's it, you know, as opposed to just something throughout the tape. So as we're kind of categorizing them as to how severe it is, we were kind of able to decide, OK, this is a candidate for retransfer because it's just the whole thing is just full of errors as opposed to, oh, there's maybe one or two, maybe we can get around this. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4333.0,4466.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you. I'm going to throw in a follow up question of my own that anyone can answer, but as part of the QC process, are you mainly relying on data like the logs that DAT Extract might spit out or auditory human-driven QC? \n\nDan Figurelli","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4466.0,4483.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"it's a combination of the two. And obviously, it kind of depends on your resources and how many QC people you have devoted to this. But it was a combination. With that NOA system we were able to have that sort of data driven approach for all of the transfers, and that kind of led us to deciding where the QC worker would actually be physically listening to it and say, OK, this, I'm going to flag this group of files because that looks like, you know, because of the data, that tells me that this is something I should be listening a little bit more to. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4483.0,4524.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thank you. Anyone else have anything to add on QC workflow? Alright, then. \n\nEddie Ciletti","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4524.0,4535.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Go ahead, you're all better at it than me. \n\nJessica Thompson","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4535.0,4540.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"There are so many questions I know we could continue talking about this. I really love the idea of doing a deep dive on a format like this. So as we wrap things up here today, again, I want to thank all of our panelists for sharing their expertise and to the ARSC Education Committee for organizing this. I hope we can continue the conversation. I'm going to hand things back to Dan and Yuri. \n\nDan Hockstein","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4540.0,4566.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Thanks so much, Jessica. Really appreciate it. I learned a ton today, and will definitely be taking it back into the studio. And I also just wanted to address, we will save the chat on our end and try and make it accessible with the video. There's so much good, so many good resources put in there today, and so we'll try to do that. Thank you so much to all of our panelists. Jessica, thank you. Thanks to the ARSC Board. Thanks to Executive Director Nathan Georgitis, Webinar Series Promoter Joaquin Perez, Social Media Editor Jennifer Vaughn, Aviary Site Editor Miyuki Meyer and NRPB and CLIR. And Yuri, if you want to seal the deal here. \n\nYuri Shimoda","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4566.0,4610.0"},{"id":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155/transcript/34268/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Sure. Next up, the ARSC conference call for papers, panels, posters will be going out on November 15th. So if you have any information to share on projects or research you're working on, please think about submitting a proposal. In addition, as Jessica mentioned, the ARSC Technical Committee is hosting one of their infamous \"Ask the TC\" sessions next Wednesday, November 10th at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll go ahead and stick the registration link in the chat. Those are always very informative and entertaining. Last but not least, please join us for our next Continuing Education Series webinar event taking place in January 2022. Until then, please take care of yourselves. Stay safe and we'll see you then.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1249/collection_resources/55528/file/130155#t=4610.0,4681.04533"}]}]}]}