[Discuss] [OT] digitizing old 78rpm records? ELP laser turntable services?

[jabr at blu.org (John Abreau)]

Thanks! That looks like a good starting point.

On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 5:19 PM, Steven Santos <Steven at simplycircus.com>
wrote:

> http://www.lp2cd.com/
> ---
> Steven Santos
> Director
> Simply Circus, Inc.
> 86 Los Angeles Street
> Newton, MA 02458
>
> P: 617-527-0667
> F: 617-934-1870
> E: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 12:12 AM, John Abreau <jabr at blu.org> wrote:
> > Doesn't do 78s; it only plays at 33.3 and 45 rpm. And the needle would
> > probably destroy the 78s while trying to play them.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 11:34 PM, Steven Santos <Steven at simplycircus.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> For $40 this might be worth trying:
> >>
> >> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0029QRA1U/transfermymusic-20
> >>
> >>
> >> ---
> >> Steven Santos
> >> Director
> >> Simply Circus, Inc.
> >> 86 Los Angeles Street
> >> Newton, MA 02458
> >>
> >> P: 617-527-0667
> >> F: 617-934-1870
> >> E: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 9:45 AM, Kent Borg <kentborg at borg.org> wrote:
> >> > The frustrating (or amazing) thing about 78s is they are not
> >> > "information"
> >> > devices they are "industrial": They have big grooves that make big
> >> > excursions and they whip by really fast, all to make noise rather
> >> > directly.
> >> > There is no amplifier in an old Victrola, yet it makes a room full of
> >> > sound.
> >> > The 78 record isn't just information, it is a big part of the sound
> >> > reproduction system, and playing it is destructive. But you knew that.
> >> >
> >> > I have a related problem, I inherited a zillion slides from my
> parents'
> >> > world travels. How to digitize them? There were two obvious routes:
> use
> >> > some
> >> > service or buy a slide scanner. Pricing the services was scary--not
> bad
> >> > for
> >> > a few but crazy expensive for a lot. Looking that reviews of scanners
> I
> >> > was
> >> > disappointed with the quality, and they can be slow.
> >> >
> >> > So I took the homebrew approach and crafted my own "scanner". Right
> now
> >> > there is a lot of competition in the high-end camera market, so I
> bought
> >> > the
> >> > fanciest DSLR any normal person should buy with his/er own money, and
> I
> >> > am
> >> > taking pictures of the slides.
> >> >
> >> > A macro lens, a light box, a tripod, a black plastic food container
> with
> >> > a
> >> > hole in it upside down to move the slide up from the less-than-perfect
> >> > diffuser (use distance to diffuse and throw small patterning out of
> >> > focus),
> >> > a remote release, wooden bracing to hold the camera more steady...and
> a
> >> > bunch of futzing...and I can see the film grain.
> >> >
> >> > My wife and I can digitize slides as fast as we can individually pull
> >> > them
> >> > out of a Carousel, puff off the dust, place them in the upside down
> food
> >> > container, and return them. In about the time that it would take to
> pack
> >> > up
> >> > a batch to send out, we are done with that batch. Well, not done yet,
> >> > but on
> >> > a recent long weekend visit to the ol' homestead we digitized over
> four
> >> > thousand slides, and that's a good fraction of the total
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > As for 78s, I might be crazy...but a 78 side usually only runs
> >> > 3-something
> >> > minutes of low-fidelity sound. There isn't much fundamental
> information
> >> > there, a high quality photo (or several stitched) of a record side
> might
> >> > capture it all. Then it is a "simple matter of programming" to recover
> >> > the
> >> > sound! You could even crop out the label details for your metadata.
> >> >
> >> > Googling "optical record groove software"...
> >> >
> >> >   Amazing recovering of audio from paper recordings:
> >> >
> >> >
> https://mediapreservation.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/extracting-audio-from-pictures/
> >> >
> >> >   A hacker who demonstrated he could get something audible from LP
> >> > photos:
> >> > http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~springer/DigitalNeedle/index.html
> >> >
> >> > There are plenty of general purpose open source imaging processing
> >> > libraries
> >> > available, maybe there is specific useful software available from the
> >> > Irene
> >> > project??
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > -kb
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
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> >> > Discuss at blu.org
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> >> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
> > Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
> > PGP-Key-Fingerprint A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23  C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6
> >
>



-- 
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
PGP-Key-Fingerprint A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23  C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6