Making Old Sound Recordings Audible Again

orgelspieler writes "NPR is running a story on a safe way to reproduce sound from ancient phonographs that would otherwise be unplayable. The system, called IRENE, was installed in the Library of Congress last year. It can be used to replay records that are scratched, worn, broken, or just too fragile to play with a needle. It scans the groves optically and processes them into a sound file at speeds approaching real time. IRENE is great at removing pops and skips, but can add some hiss. Researchers are also working on a 3D model that is better at removing hiss."

Comments

The lawyers from the RIAA called.

[jon287]

Turns out, "antiquated recording schemes" and "broken media" are actually forms of copy protection. Scanning in this manner clearly violates the DMCA. Of course they will be asking for around 2.5 times the economic output of the entire planet in damages to make sure the original artists (who are of course dead) are fairly compensated.

On a side note, I wonder if the poor souls recorded on these mediums will now finally be able to pay back their record company advances... minus packaging and distibution fees of course.