>The difference between 10,000 hour-long cassettes (for example) captured in 48
>kHz / 16-bit files and the same cassettes captured in 48 kHz / 24-bit >files is
>3,218.75 GB.
>
>The difference in data between 10,000 hour-long cassettes captured in 44.1 kHz /
>24-bit files and the same cassettes captured in 48 kHz / 24-bit files is
>>785.15625 GB. That's one hard drive's worth of difference in the amount of
>data.
>
>So do we throw away 785 GB of potentially valuable data forever (because it is
>apparently only marginally valuable) or do we save the price of storage >costs
>that continue to drop?
Another thing to consider is processing time if you wish to do cleanup work on
the files.
24/96 contains roughly 4 times the data of 16/44 Doing any kind of processing
will take a corresponding amount of time.
On oral history cassettes I now routinely use Izotope NR and usually apply some
kind of compression or limiting following that to increase intelligibility and
make the files more listenable. This is for access copies. I also retain the raw
transfers as they were recorded, for the day when the next best noise reduction
software comes along. Then I downsample the NR copies to 16/44.1 for CD
delivery. Plus an mp3 copy if requested. This means I end up with 3-4 copies of
each file, in different resolutions and states of processing. It is up to the
client as to which copies are retained and in what manner. Hard drive space
should be the least of your worries. Drive space is incredibly cheap these days.
Hard drives are also notoriously unreliable as a long-term storage medium.
To my mind redundancy is the key to longevity. I still recommend to clients to
make at least one CD copy, and find that most want something that they can
easily play in Windows Media Player or iTunes. I also recommend redundant hard
drive copies, and if possible, upload to some sort of managed server.
If your files are larger than 4GB you will need to use a program that supports
W64 (an extension of the WAV fromat that allows larger file sizes to be read.)
I have found that some of my software has problems reading files that are larger
than 2 GB (Izotope RX, for example). In this case I must split the files in two
in order to process them. A 60 minute file recorded at 24/96 holds just under 2
GB of data, so I use 1 hour as my cutoff point for splitting files.
Here is an explanation of why this is:
https://www.ableton.com/en/articles/2-gb-recording-limit/
If you are inserting markers into the file you record, consider that they may
not transfer to other software programs. There seems to be little to no
compatability between programs (if someone has a compatability list, I'd love to
see it!), for example, if I have a file I've created in Wavelab, complete with
named markers, I have to split the file into individual tracks to burn them in
the software for my Primera burner. Programs such as Windows Media Player or
iTunes don't recognize markers either.
Just a few random thoughts..
-Matt Sohn
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