What should I archive my DATS to?

[RetroSmith]

Lately I am hearing all kind of Horror stories of DAT tapes not playing back 5 or so years after they were recorded.

Well, I have about 25 DAT tapes of my bands two track masters, as we always mixed to DAT.

How should I safety copy these? To another DAT? CDR? 15 ips Reel to Reel? Both? I own a studio quality SONY DAT machine.

These are irreplacable. Many of them are Live tapes, so there is no multitrack tape to go back to, the DAT is it.

What say you guys?

[Chris Desjardin]

I'd say archive them to a high quality (like Mitsui gold) CD-R. That way it's easy to make a copy if you want, and easy to play any time you want. Plus they've been tested for a life of something like 300 years (at least the Mitsui golds were). Even if the testing is off, it should still outlast all of us.

[Steve Hoffman]

I have DAT's from 1988 that still play.

However, you should clone them over to CD-R's for safety backups.

[Jeffrey]

Originally posted by Chris Desjardin
I'd say archive them to a high quality (like Mitsui gold) CD-R.

Hi,

I second the recommendation.......Mitsui Golds are the stuff.

My buddy hadda bunch of DATs and many have failed. He has since backed up everything left to cdr's. :)

-Jeffrey

[Jeffrey]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jeffrey
[B]

whoops :)

-Jeffrey

[RetroSmith]

Thanks, guys. Anybody know a good online source for the Gold Cds?

[Sckott]

www.cdroutlet.com

IMHO, saving the wav data AS data is best. If you ever have to copy or transfer the data lossless, it's harder when you rip the stream using a PC.

I've had CDRs totally lose their nut on me. If for whenever possible, IMHO, save the stuff as WAV. It's easier to transfer without packet loss or jitter, when you copy things... :(

Steve has the best place in the world to store DATs... Dry California! They'll last almost forever in that climate! :)

Been at stations in the NE where DATS may fail at 2 years old....But that's radio. Steve would treat those tapes 1000% better...and so would you! :)

[Grant]

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman
I have DAT's from 1988 that still play.

However, you should clone them over to CD-R's for safety backups.

I have DATs from 1993 that still play perfectly.

Yes, just do a direct transfer to good quality CD-R.

[Doug Hess Jr.]

I would agree with saving them as data because you can't save your 48K DATs as audio on a regular CD.
Also-- and of course use this at your own risk, but I've been recently archiving with this FLAC (http://www.mikewren.com/flac/) program. It says in the information that unlike WAV's where if one piece of data won't read, the whole file is screwed, with FLAC, each frame is readable so it can skip any bad frames and keep on going with the decode back to a WAV.

[RetroSmith]

Thanks Guys!!!

[Sckott]

.WAV saved as PCM; only. Yes, as 48 or 44.1

Don't ever use compression schemes like APE SHN or FLAC as Data, if this were to be a long-standing backup. Will that software be available in the future? Will we be using a totally different way of data read in 20 years? Even if you backed up the .exe file to decompress your backup, do we know in 20 years if Windows will have the same simple C++ implementation?!? PCM is the way to go.

Many music archivists use straight 44.1 or 48Mhz PCM WAV. Yes, it's big, but it should be worth the $1.25 CDR you're using for 67-72 min of Wavs.

Or else, knock your socks off. I've done music backups several different ways. Straight PCM has always worked securely with NO additional software help....

[RetroSmith]

Sounds good.

[Craig]

American Digital (http://www.american-digital.com/prodsite/default.asp) also has them.

[Doug Hess Jr.]

Originally posted by Sckott
[B].WAV saved as PCM; only. Yes, as 48 or 44.1

Don't ever use compression schemes like APE SHN or FLAC as Data, if this were to be a long-standing backup. Will that software be available in the future? Will we be using a totally different way of data read in 20 years? Even if you backed up the .exe file to decompress your backup, do we know in 20 years if Windows will have the same simple C++ implementation?!? PCM is the way to go.

I'm not debating because I have both .wav and .flac files backed up. The argument for .flac was that each frame of data is independently recoverable. If your .wav becomes corrupted, you may lose it all.
Also, to your point, how do we know that PCM and .wav or any digital format will be OK in 20 years.

Here's some additional information: Article on archiving (http://www.minidisc.org/dat_archiving.html)

dough1981

P.S. bcnu craig!