IASA 2017 Annual Conference

Paper 1 - Saphir : using coloured light for recovering audio signal from challenging delaminated lacquer disk records
Conventional mechanical playback cannot be used in the case of damaged lacquer audio disk records, used between 1930 and 1960 by a large number of radio broadcasters and archives. INA has developed optical tools and software for the recovery of such records.
The Saphir scanner uses an original approach, by casting a structured coloured light beam onto a small area of the disk surface, and uses a standard video sensor for acquiring rings of pictures. From the collected pictures, the software allows to decode a wide range of audio disks recording types, from early Berliner to stampers and 33rpm vinyl disks, but its strength is at recovering the signals from lacquer recordings, even severely damaged (broken, cracked, delaminated). Extreme examples with numerous cracks and missing flakes will be demonstrated.
We will present our efforts towards replicating the scanner, making the tools available to INA, other audio archives, and service providers, with the objective of opening up the potential for recovering this highly endangered part of the audio heritage.

Paper 2 -  Applied TC04 –Equipment Specifications and Measurement Standards
 The TC04 provides the basis for almost every audio digitization project in the international archival community. It provides guidance in many aspects and also provides minimum specifications for audio equipment to be used for digitization. For economic, informational or technical reasons these minimum specifications are often not easily met.
In practice, even if a specification given by an equipment manufacturer meets the high demand of TC04, after many years of using the equipment, compliance of the criteria to specification has to be checked. This has to be done by standardized measurement, but the measurement standards found in TC04 are sometimes not stated in precise and comprehensible manner.
My presentation simply wants to draw attention to this possible imperfection of the TC04, show some examples and discuss ideas on how the potential for a departure from TC04 in certain situations can be reduced.