More Fritz Lang info HERE

1.  Since the age of 10, Shawn Borri has tried to duplicate the wax recording techniques used by the North American Phonograph Co., founded by Thomas Edison in 1888, beginning with melting crayons around a roll of toilet paper. He has reopened that company as a wax cylinder recording studio (http://members.tripod.com/~Edison_1/). [Webmaster's note: Please be aware that clicking on ANY tripod members' site is an invitation to a plethora of popups, popunders, clickthroughs, cookies, possible spyware, possible malware, and so on. Caveat Emptor.]

Tracks are recorded on wax and digitally transferred using an Archeophone (and HERE and HERE) a state-of-the-art digital cylinder recorder designed by Henri Chamioux. "Acoustic sound recording on the phonograph gives a presence to the recording that no other method can duplicate," says Bori.
Mix My2004

2.  J.P.Leger has pointed out the huge variation in quality in DVD recordable blanks. Here is a site that addresses this: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

3.  NAXOS has a set of 7 CDs devoted to the instruments of the orchestra (8.558040-2). Narrated by Jeremy Siepmann, it devotes one disc each to violin, lower strings, brass, percussion, interlopers (typewriters, guns, cowbells, etc.), and the full orchestra. The booklet is worth the price alone with essays on the major instruments, instruments makers, orchestrations and transcription etc. Any casual lover will get a huge amount of enlightenment from it--Frank Behrens, Monadnock Shopper News, 26My04.

4.  "600 macs, 4000 lines, One Giant Leap for DVDs" leads a piece on scanning films in high definition. John Lowry, of Lowry Digital, who's responsible for some of the best-looking DVD restorations in recent years, including "Casablanca," Singin' in the Rain," and "Once Upon a Time in the West," is now working on 4000 line (4K) scans of the nine James Bond films, starting with "You Only Live Twice."

Engineers calculate that this is sufficient to reproduce all the visual information in a frame of 35mm film. It takes 4 seconds to scan one frame. The Imagica scanner costs about $300,000, the Macintosh computers at $3000 each hold a total of 2.5 terabytes. "We're making an archive--DVD, film, digital cinema, HDTV, TV, whatever--that will last the next two or three generations of technology," Mr. Lowry said.

Thirty five years ago, Mr. Lowry, who is 71, patented a method of cleaning up NASA's live televised transmissions from the moon. Six years ago, as the DVD revolution took off, he set up Lowry Digital. He hired a photographer to make a short 35mm film, then transferred it to digital, using a 4K scanner. Then he processed the images with his film-restoration software, which took months. The result was clearer, sharper, and more detailed than the original film. NYT 18Ap04

David Hadaway

President, Boston Audio Society

email: dhad000@yahoo.com