Hi richard, I still work in the Archival Mastering Dept. of a major film studio. In the �Hollywood� film industry, 24/48 Wav was agreed upon a few years ago as the standard for production and archival. That said, everything that goes to our servers is 24/48 Wav. If the source was Fairlight, SDII, Sonic Solutions, Waveframe or whatever, regardless of bit depth, it is played in real time, using the original or (at least) a compatible platform and captured at 24/48 wav. This includes the digital tape sources as well. More often than not, the capture is from the AES bitstream which I don�t necessarily agree with because better results can be obtained (IMHO) from the analog output of a quality converter using 192 bit DACS. Regarding AIFF files, yes they are PCM files but they still have to be �saved as� or re-written in some manner to get the .wav extension which adds the potential for additional data errors. You wrote: �I am one of the few voices seriously questioning making 24/96 WAV files from analog cassettes of oral history.� I would agree, 24/48 is plenty adequate for spoken word and such. I�m a stickler for a bit depth of 24 bits for archival files regardless of sample frequency. ~CB Corey Bailey Audio Engineering Quoting "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>: > Hi, Corey, > > if the original DAT is 44.1 or 48 ks/s and 16 bits, why would you > make a preservation master at anything faster or deeper than this? > > I am one of the few voices seriously questioning making 24/96 WAV > files from analog cassettes of oral history. > > If you have a digital file, I think that it should be archived in its > original sample rate and bit depth. I think the IASA TC-04 book > concurs, but I didn't look it up. > > Making a digital recording of the analog output of a DAT player > imprints the preservation master with the sonic signature of the > playback DAT's D-A converter. It is not the same as the original digital > file. > > There is no reason to store bits that weren't saved in the first place. > > As to AIFF and WAV, they are the same PCM data in different wrappers, no? > > My software of choice, Samplitude, will read or save in either > format. I don't think you're interpolating or doing any form of > conversion to the data (except perhaps re-ordering it), but rather > just rewriting headers and other metadata during this conversion. > > Cheers, > > Richard > > > Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask] > Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX > Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm > Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes. >