Media is still physical. Instead of a tape or CD you're carrying a hard drive.
this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
147 points (98.0% liked)
Technology
60351 readers
6237 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Back in the day, I had just envisioned storage media getting more and more dense, to the point where we might be using some kinda holographic cube or some shit in the future to store petabytes of data.
I never thought of the entire world just constantly streaming and downloading everything around the planet on demand. The state of Internet bandwidth in those days made it hard to imagine.
i was a recording engineer during the time analog recording was just starting to get surpassed by digital, and of course there are still people who will die on the "analog is always best forever and ever" hill
but it's to the point where if you're not a completely-obsessed-to-the-point-no-one-can-stand-being-around-you audiophile, you're not going to be able to tell the difference between an analog source and a digital one pretending to be analog
the pros of digital just simply can't be outweighed by the pros of analog anymore
photography might be an area where digital hasn't caught up, since film's resolution is down to the molecular level, but that won't be the case forever (if it even is the case, i'm not a photographer)
photography might be an area where digital hasn't caught up, since film's resolution is down to the molecular level
Film resolution is limited by the size of the silver halide crystals that make up the light sensitive layer of the film. Crystals can come in different sizes, but their sensitivity to light depends on their size - generally you need pretty large crystals for usable photographic film, somewhere between 0.1 and 10 microns (depending on the film ISO rating) - about 3-5 orders of magnitude larger than what you would consider molecular scale.
When the film is developed the crystals are visible as film grain limiting the resolution in some ways similar to pixel size of a digital camera (although there are differences, since the crystal size is not completely uniform but rather has a specific distribution, creating a more random effect than the regular pixel grid of digital cameras)
The pixel sizes on modern high resolution digital camera sensors are actually similar, down to 0.5 micron. It's hard to make an exact comparison, but I have seen estimates that you need a full frame digital sensor of somewhere between 10 to 50 megapixels to equal the resolution of 35mm ISO 100 film.
And modern sensors are much more light sensitive than film, which allows you to shoot more optimally and give you more flexibility (less exposure time, potentially higher f-stop with better lens resolution, lower ISO, less light, etc.) and therefore achieve potentially better results in more conditions. Add to that the hassle and costs of working with film, and most professional photo work is now done in digital as well. Film is generally only used for stylistic purposes, by purists who are not satisfied with digital simulation.
i was a recording engineer during the time analog recording was just starting to get surpassed by digital
I've got a cassette of some parody songs made by a local radio station that's basically going to become lost media if I don't digitize it myself. The only cassette players I currently own are a Walkman and one of those retro-style-but-not-old CD/cassette/record combo players. Do you have any advice on what I should do to get the best quality transfer that I can?
While the quality won't be particularly good, a cheap cassette-to-MP3 converter off Amazon can ensure that the material at least isn't lost forever. Run the tape through 2-3 times to make sure you get at least one decent copy of everything. Once you've got that done, escalate as suggested by solsangraal to get a better transfer.
1st thing i would do would be call the radio station--they might have a digital copy already, since it's a performance. or they might have the equipment you'd need to get it digitized. just don't leave the tape with them, unless you make a copy.
failing that, the public library might also have tape to digital conversion gear, depending on how big/well funded the library is.
last resort would be a recording studio, which might cost lots of money per hour, and it'll have to be converted in real time--play the tape from start to finish, while the computer 'records' it. if the studio don't have a top of the line gourmet tape deck, then they can take just take the output of your own player and plug it into protools, just ask for the highest resolution/bitrate in a lossless format
edit: i forgot another option, if you're in the states. you might try your state archives, just google the name of your state along with "archive", it should be a .gov address. they might actually be interested in the recording for their own digital collection, and would definitely have the necessary gear to get it digitized. the tricky part is they would need the permission of the radio station and/or whoever owns the copyright to post it publicly
1st thing i would do would be call the radio station–they might have a digital copy already
It hasn't existed since 2003 (there's still a station on that frequency, but it's changed ownership and programming a couple of times). Maybe they still have the old master copies anyway? Or I suppose I could try to track down the DJs who produced it...
The library and state archives ideas are good suggestions; I'll look into them.
last resort would be a recording studio, which might cost lots of money per hour, and it’ll have to be converted in real time–play the tape from start to finish, while the computer ‘records’ it. if the studio don’t have a top of the line gourmet tape deck, then they can take just take the output of your own player and plug it into protools
I mean, if using my own player might be considered "good enough," couldn't I just hook my Walkman's headphone output to the line in or mic input on my computer and do it myself? In addition to the audio built into the motherboard, I also have a relatively-cheap USB audio interface, which I guess isn't as good as it could be (it's 48KHz, not 192KHz) but would still be better than nothing.
The main thing is I'm not sure how I need to set the volume on the Walkman (it also apparently has a feature called "AVLS" that might or might not be relevant) or if I need an amplifier or something. I also don't know if I need to do anything special with ALSA/JACK/PulseAudio and know basically nothing about how to use Ardour or XMMS (I'm aware they exist and are the right type of software, but that's about it).
i do analog photography for a hobby, in the grand scheme professional analog photographers only account for like less than 1 percent and current film manufacturers are only able to exist because some high profile film directors insist on shooting film (think nolan) and film students. when theyre no longer around film will die soon.
there is almost no new film camera produced and the price of film keeps increasing to unreasonable prices.
no new film camera produced and the price of film
it's the same with analog audio. reel to reel tape actually disappeared for a bit because no one manufactured it anymore, but some company (forget who) finally started making it again for the audiophiles. one reel of tape ~~is~~ was, 10 years ago, ~$300 and gives you 15 minutes of recording time, if you're running it at high speed for the best quality. no idea what the state of the business is in now, i was never a gear head and never kept up with any of it
I still enjoy looking through my albums and the process (and sound) of playing a record.
The lack of physical media will just drive more people to piracy.
it's not piracy if I've paid for it
physical media will always be superior
torrents are the new physical media
both statements can be true
I haunt estate auctions wherever I go. Physical media in the form of CDs and LPs is at a prime. Unless it’s old classical or country the prices skyrocket. The LP could be scratched to hell, they only ever show the sleeves in pics, but it doesn’t matter.
Physical media is at a premium. LPs used to be a dollar or so each 5 years ago. Sometimes even 4 for a dollar. Now, minimum $5 each to start. Unless it’s country or classical.
I hate physical media. I was growing up with the worst type, VHS, so subconsciously I associate every physical media with VHS. lt was bulky, you always had to roll it back. If multiple things were recorded on the same tape, you had to write down where they start and you had to stop seeking at the correct time. If you copied from one tape to another quality worsened.
I don't hate it, but as someone who's had to pick up and move repeatedly it's just too much stuff. I buy digital books (would buy digital movies if buying them was actually buying them), and did buy digital music when buying it was actually buying it (back in the days of Google play music when you actually could just do whatever you wanted with the tracks you bought so long as you downloaded them).
I think part of what people are neglecting to understand is the digital media is physically stored somewhere. It's not just out there in a cloud. It has to be maintained just like physical media does. Don't store a cassette/VHS tape properly and it won't be around for a long time. It's honestly the same with CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray. I'm sure it was the case with 8tracks and Mini discs, and so on too. When the medium through which that media is housed goes, so does the media.
This discussion is pretty interesting to me because the only reason a lot of people seem to be against digital media is their view of how the license for it differs from the license for physical media. It's the same license but one of them gives the company licensing the media more control than the other and that's what people don't like. If companies would stop taking things people paid for from them, this wouldn't be an issue.
Okay, but now there are much better options besides VHS. And I for one line physical media. At the end of the day if my internet is out or something is removed from a service, I can still just pop in a disc.
Sorry about your experience with VHS.
And if my internet is out or if something is removed from a service, I can plug in an external drive that has orders of magnitude more capacity than a DVD, and not bother with having to swap them or them taking up too much space.
That's the whole point. I'm going to guess that the media on your flash drive was ripped from physical media at some point in the chain.
Having access to the physical media gives you the ability to do what you want with it... Want it on a flash drive? Great do it. Want it on your plex sever so you can stream it yourself? Cool. Want to put it on a modded ipod classic? Cool.
VS. The way the Music / Film industries want you to have to access this data. They don't want it on your plex server, they don't want it on your flash drive.
Mark my words when physical media dies they will find more ways to crack down even harder on us enjoying content the way we want. Hell now a days they even restrict what browsers you can use to access media.
A lot of the offerings say "Webrip", so not sure about that - also, a lot of media simply isn't released in physical form. Also, if I wanted to pay (hope I eventually earn enough for this), I would rather buy a DRMed copy to correspond to my DRMless one that I actually use. I do that already with Steam. Because a disk would either occupy space, have to be sold or thrown out, none of which are options I like.
And I can pop-in a thumb drive.
I never liked having to carry a bunch of shit around. Now i have a small device in my pocket with hundreds of CDs worth of capacity.
I like how they used a shitty cheaply made chinese cassette radio for the front picture. I can't even really fault them; all the remotely decent ones are decades old and collector's items...
Same goes for turntables, decent new ones that are selling for a couple of thousand dollars are still garbage compared to even an entry-level Technics deck from the 80s.
Some time ago, the industry seemed to have standardized on a cheap-ass all in one platter/motor/stylus assembly that's just dropped into every modern record player now. I think I started seeing that thing everywhere in the late 80s. They did the same to tape players. It's now just an entire chassis containing the play head, motor, etc where they just make a shell to go around it and a circuit board to drive it/amplify it.
Yep, that same old BSR mechanism that was invented in the mid-80s. Decent casette players use Tanashin mechanisms (or clones rather since Tanashin itself doesn't make them anymore AFAIK) and as long as they have metal flywheels and proper erase heads they're ok.
Forget about 3-Head Closed Loop Dual Capstan, though, you're never gonna find that on a modern deck.