DAT-heads Digest #54

Contents:

dat > PC (Randy Vogel) Re: DAT -> PC (flac/wav) Migration? ("Slipkid") dat>pc for mac? (Mike Parker) Soundscards are okay ("Gary Davis") Re: DAT -> PC (flac/wav) Migration? (Michael Hackett)
From: Randy Vogel <randy@funfolks.net> Subject: dat > PC Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:00:22 -0800 if your soundcard accepts a digital input without resampling (not likely to be quoted in the specs, but important!), then you can connect the digital out from your DAT directly to the soundcard, and use whatever software you like to record the incoming signal (audacity is a free, open-source option). no need to try and dig up an SCSI DAT drive and then work with old, line-command software unless you feel more comfortable going that route.
From: "Slipkid" <slipkid@voicenet.com> Subject: Re: DAT -> PC (flac/wav) Migration? Reply-To: "Slipkid" <slipkid@voicenet.com> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:11:41 -0500 Wes wrote: > Your plan to simply play the dats and record them using a sound card will > work and will be the least expensive option, but you will impair the > quality of the audio due to the digital-->audio and audio-->digital > conversions. as long as he uses a bit perfect Digital I/O card and transfers the data via the DAT deck's digital interface there will be no "digital--audio" or "audio-digital" conversion (but by "audio" i think we mean to say "analog") with a bit perfect DIO the data will be transferred exactly as it is on the DAT (assuming no errors on playback or anything else freaky going on) the big question is whether the m-audio USB external soundcard he mentioned for doing the transfers will work as bit perfect or not (??) from research i did a few years back it seemed that with devices using USB that the USB bus itself was a limiting factor & not capable of doing bit perfect transfers, or many (all?) of the USB based devices were not bit perfect by design (IE: they did unwanted resampling or dithering down) sorry but i can't remember the details though - there should be threads here in the archives about some USB based DIOs & various possible gotchas hope this helps, - jon -
From: Mike Parker <mikeparker5@yahoo.com> Subject: dat>pc for mac? Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 17:52:28 -0800 (PST) Is there software available to make one of these Seagate dat drives work on a Macintosh (10.3.9)? thanks, Mike ____________________________________________________________________________________ It's here! Your new message! Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/
From: "Gary Davis" <g@hoxnet.com> Subject: Soundscards are okay Reply-to: g@hoxnet.com Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:23:08 -0800 >Your plan to simply play the dats and record them using a sound >card will work and will be the least expensive option, but you will >impair the quality of the audio due to the digital-->audio and audio- >->digital conversions. As long as the soundcard has a digital input, and isn't one of these cheap "Soundblaster" cards that resamples the digital input, you can, in fact, make a lossless copy from DAT>CPU with a sound card. The advantage is you have your DAT machine's error correction working on the tape (may or may not be better than using a computer dat drive), and the big advantage is you get to listen to the music while you're dubbing. The main drawback is, you can only dub in realtime (1x speed) by this procedure, and of course, you'll need a working DAT player to play the tape! --Gary
From: Michael Hackett <michael.hackett@ns.sympatico.ca> Subject: Re: DAT -> PC (flac/wav) Migration? Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:07:40 -0400 On Thu, 25 Jan 07 11:50:01 EST Wes Wagnon <weswag@ix.netcom.com> wrote: > Your plan to simply play the dats and record them using a sound card > will work and will be the least expensive option, but you will impair > the quality of the audio due to the digital-->audio and audio-->digital > conversions. The M-Audio Audiophile unit that BJr intends to use has a digital S/PDIF input (which reportedly does *not* resample), so there won't be a quality loss. And I would think that the error-concealment capabilities (when an error cannot be corrected) of the pro audio deck might be better than that of a DDS drive that would typically just punt on an error. But I'm just guessing, as I've not tried the latter method. All my transfers I've done via S/PDIF (with an Audiowerk card; I haven't tried it with the Audiophile yet), and I usually do them each at least twice and compare the audio files for any mismatches. For a large number of transfers, I would probably either automate this comparison step or use a DDS drive and DAT2WAV or something similar. Once you got everything set up, the DDS drive method would probably require less manual effort for each tape.
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE ** To unsubscribe from this digest, please send email to dat-heads-unsubscribe@datheads.phish.net If your email address has changed, you may (optionally) send the message to dat-heads-unsubscribe-oldaddress=olddomain@datheads.phish.net and the old address will be removed. Problems or questions about a subscription should be addressed via these avenues and then if needed to dat-heads-owner@datheads.phish.net or postmaster@datheads.phish.net never the list itself You can submit a message for inclusion in the next digest via this address: Internet: dat-heads@datheads.phish.net Archives of DAT-Heads digests and related files are available on the DAT-Heads home page: http://www.solorb.com/dat-heads/ End of DAT-Heads Digest ******************************