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80-Year-Old Edison Recording Resurrected
embolalia writes "An 80-year-old recording of a live radio broadcast featuring Thomas Edison has been uncovered and reconstituted. The recording was done on an obscure technology called a pallophotophone — Greek for 'shaking light sound' — that uses optical film to reproduce sound. The archivists who uncovered the canisters tucked away on a bottom shelf in a museum in Schenectady, New York (the city where Edison's General Electric was founded), did not have any machine to replay the films. Two GE engineers — working nights and weekends for two years — were able to construct a machine to replay the old tapes, recorded only two years before Edison's death." There's a video at the link, which may or may not contain some of the resurrected recording, but we couldn't get it to play from the Times Union site.
Here's the video of the people, machine, and recording
You need the Flash 10.2 beta which accelerates pallophotophone files.
Weren't we talking about this in the chatroulette story a few days ago?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
http://www.timesunion.com/multimedia/video/TUvideo.asp?title=Preserving+history&vidid=96943677001&bccapt=Freeing+Thomas+Edison's+voice.+(Paul+Grondahl+%2F+Times+Union)
This is neither the only recording of the broadcast, nor the best. A recording of the broadcast made by Edison's own technicians on his then-state-of-the-art 30 RPM radio transcription system was restored by Professor Mike Biel and released by Mark 56 Records three decades ago.
In some ways, it is interesting to think that it is technically easier to recover data from this sort of recording (and likewise, other analog systems like magnetic reel-to-reel tape and records) long after the means to recover the data are lost compared to more modern, computerized formats. I sometimes worry about the 'lasting-ness' of all my JPEG photography compared to my film negatives through this same issue.
Is there any reason you wouldn't just make a high resolution scan of the film and attempt to process it from there? Certainly I understand the satisfaction in making a physical machine, but doesn't that risk a lot more damage to the original media?
There's a video at the link, which may or may not contain some of the resurrected recording, but we couldn't get it to play from the Times Union site.
Why am I not surprised that kdawson wasn't able to figure out how to take the javascript popup link and add it to the base url of the Times Union site?
And a week later, the markets crashed.
mod me funny
1929? So the entirety of the content from those things would still be under copyright, right?
Eh, torrent link plz.
It is during instances and moments like these that we should be reminded of exactly how bad it is to protect content and patent data processing methods. These are the surest ways for us to lose the historical data we are creating today. Already, losses of great works have been lost due to lack of republication because copyright has not expired before the last copies were lost forever. If it were not for a few brave individuals, Disney's "Song of the South" would be lost forever today as they will never EVER publish it again and it is not available for sale anywhere.
And more and more, we are seeing technologies phasing out... floppy disks... anyone got an 8" floppy drive laying around? What about 5 1/4" No? I still have a few USB 3.5" floppy drives but that was only to make a floppy disk RAID for fun. We might find some paper tape somewhere in an archive out there in a dark closet, but will we find a reader for it?
The push for "open formats" is precisely about better guaranteeing that data will be available in the future and so few people are willing to listen or understand. "DOC" is the standard right?
Dont worry, those engineers obviously spent two years working on breaking Edison's DRM, I hear hes planning on returing from the dead, and suing for 150k.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
http://www.gereports.com/edison-speaks-cracking-the-pallophotophone-code/
Finally, the full audio. Really exciting to think of all the audio they can save this way, and bring forward for more permanent storage.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Law firm representing NBC has filed suit alleging their client's copyrights have been violated for unauthorized rebroadcasting of the film content. "The audio programs recorded on those films are wholly owned intellectual properties belonging to our client, and their unauthorized rebroadcasting over the web is a willful theft of our client's intellectual properties. We fully intend to pursue this matter for the maximum payou... punitive damage under our law... ahm, the law."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
They've pulled the beta off of their website. They received a letter from the lawyers representing the estate of Edison. The lawyers clients are claiming ownership of the ip rights to all pallotophone codecs and pallotophone encryption/decryption algorithms. Said counsel for Bubba Edison - Mr. G. R. White, "Mr. Edison is seeking to ride on his Great Grandfathers coat tails -we aim to help him since that's the right thing to do - and the fact that he's paying us lots of money". Mr. White was not immediately available for comment as he was participating in a feeding frenzy.
Link to actual project at General Electric, including access to the Edison audio.
A more informative video can be found here with one of the engineers describing its function while it plays back some old recordings.