Fred Layn just posted on the Studer List some interesting news.

- --He just talked to Steve Smith who had retired from Quantegy
October 1

- --Smith continued as a consultant until December

- --There were cash flow problems due to the decline of videotape
sales and insufficient funds to pay for raw materials.

- --DuPont had stopped making 1.5 mil basefilm

- --Flanges had quadrupled in price in the last six years

- --Oxide manufacturers weren't real interested in supplying small
quantities of audio oxides

- --Apparently Ampex sold 250,000 reels of two-inch in 1992.
Quantegy sold 2,500 in 2004.

- --Investors apparently bought two coating lines from Emtec and are
planning to manufacture in the Netherlands.

- --"Quantegy will not rise again."

Of course where there's "news," there's more information to add to the
pool. One tape distributor said that he himself had sold more than
2,000 reels of two-inch Quantegy tape in 2004, so Qunategy likely sold
more than 2,500 total (though certainly not close to the 1992 figure).
The Emtec coating equipment was apparently for cassettes. The
prediction of Quantegy not rising again is premature. Depends on how
the search for an investor goes.

Curious about the factoid that DuPont had stopped making the 1.5 mil
film. Stuff does go out of product - it happens with ICs all the time.
But large industrial supplliers don't usually pull a product,
particularly one with a limited but important customer base, suddenly.
Typically they contact the major customers (and probably post an
announcement on the Internet that nobody else notices) and inform them
that it's time for a "last lifetime buy." If the manufacturer of their
film base indeed discontinued production, it's unlikely that Quantegy
didn't know this and stock up. Maybe they did and that "lifetime"
supply became exhausted, or maybe they didn't have the money to place
a lifetime order. One who wasn't there never knows, though.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Rivers wrote:

- --Investors apparently bought two coating lines from Emtec and are
planning to manufacture in the Netherlands.

Heeehah! Go Holland!


Hans



--




This is a non-profit organization;
we didn't plan it that way, but it is

=====================================


(remove uppercase trap, and double the number to reply)

Can somebody answer this? This thread, like so many others, appears for the
first time with a Another Resource...
Where is the original post, which I believe Mike Rivers started?
I see so many posts , appearing for the very first time , begining with

Where is the original posts?

"Archiving" media is non-permanant, magnetic tapes wear out,floppy
disks wear out, operating systems become obsolete or defunct, digital
files get bit rot...
and to top it all off we have proprietary DRM,"digital restrictions
management", being sold to people as a great fix all to copying.

What happens if your master tape, or master digital recording wears out
and the tape literally crumbles into dust and the digital recording
becomes corrupt with bit rot?

What do you have to fall back on, a CD or digital file that is
copy-proof?
In the end DRM ends up hurting the creators, locking them out of thier
own legacy recordings.

Companies and technologies come and go, at one time we ended up with
about 8 amigas that eventually were thrown away,a box of 3/4 tapes that
had lots of drop out,5' floppy disks,3' floppy disks,obsolete
equipment, how are your recordings going to survive the changes over
time?
Andrea
http://www.andrearogers.com

In article writes:

Where is the original post, which I believe Mike Rivers started?
I see so many posts , appearing for the very first time , begining with

It was posted to the Studer list. Subscribe at
http://www.recordist.com/studer (I think). But that won't get you back
to the original message until it gets archived in a few months.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article ,
BLCKOUT420 wrote:
Can somebody answer this? This thread, like so many others, appears for the
first time with a Another Resource...
Where is the original post, which I believe Mike Rivers started?
I see so many posts , appearing for the very first time , begining with

Where is the original posts?

It's on my server. Does AOL give you a threaded interface so you can jump
back to referred messages?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article .com writes:

"Archiving" media is non-permanant, magnetic tapes wear out,floppy
disks wear out, operating systems become obsolete or defunct, digital
files get bit rot...

The difference is that short of catastrophic destruction like fire,
analog tape degrades gracefully. You might have some small dropouts
and a drop in high frequency response after 20 years. And after 50
years, oxide might start coming off in flakes and you have lots of
larger dropouts, but you can still recover something. You may have to
bake the tape if it has become sticky, or replace splices, but most
analog recordings are pretty restorable to listenable condition.

Digital media tends to fail in ways that are more absolute and more
difficult (read: "Expensive since there isn't a lot you can do without
specialized knowledge and tools") to recover. What's required to read
it also becomes obsolete quickly and the current version isn't readily
adaptable. If you have a tape transport and electronics, you can make
heads and guides to fit any size and track configuration, and run it
at the required speed without too much trouble. OK, so most people
can't make heads at home, but you can get something off of just about
any tape with just about any head, at least enough to evaluate the
content and condition. There are some practical limitations, of
course. You can't play a 2" tape on a 1/4" deck, but you can probably
adjust a 2" recorder to at least move (without damage) 1/4" tape past
the heads at playing speed.

and to top it all off we have proprietary DRM,"digital restrictions
management", being sold to people as a great fix all to copying.

When it comes to archiving, let's not include proprietary restrictive
codes. I know that copy protection is a major issue with you, but no
archive should be copy-protected. Period. If all you have is a
copy-protected file, you don't have an archive, you have a limited
working copy.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

wrote in message
oups.com...
"Archiving" media is non-permanant, magnetic tapes wear out,floppy
disks wear out, operating systems become obsolete or defunct, digital
files get bit rot...
and to top it all off we have proprietary DRM,"digital restrictions
management", being sold to people as a great fix all to copying.

What happens if your master tape, or master digital recording wears out
and the tape literally crumbles into dust and the digital recording
becomes corrupt with bit rot?

What happens when your analogue tape does the same ?

What do you have to fall back on, a CD or digital file that is
copy-proof?

Strictly-speaking, 'Archived' the same info stored on different types of
media. Just depends how much you value teh material, whatever media.

geoff

In article , Geoff Wood wrote:
wrote in message
roups.com...
"Archiving" media is non-permanant, magnetic tapes wear out,floppy
disks wear out, operating systems become obsolete or defunct, digital
files get bit rot...
and to top it all off we have proprietary DRM,"digital restrictions
management", being sold to people as a great fix all to copying.

What happens if your master tape, or master digital recording wears out
and the tape literally crumbles into dust and the digital recording
becomes corrupt with bit rot?

What happens when your analogue tape does the same ?

It is still playable. Analogue formats degrade slowly. Digital formats
have no audible effects with increasing error rates, until it hits a certain
point at which all hell breaks loose.

It's sort of like AM vs. FM radio, with the capture phenomenon magnified
a hundredfold.

What do you have to fall back on, a CD or digital file that is
copy-proof?

Strictly-speaking, 'Archived' the same info stored on different types of
media. Just depends how much you value teh material, whatever media.

The LoC standards want everything on a red-oxide tape with a polyester
base and a particular binder type.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Mike Rivers wrote:
Fred Layn just posted on the Studer List some interesting news.

- --He just talked to Steve Smith who had retired from Quantegy
October 1

- --Smith continued as a consultant until December

- --There were cash flow problems due to the decline of videotape
sales and insufficient funds to pay for raw materials.

- --DuPont had stopped making 1.5 mil basefilm

- --Flanges had quadrupled in price in the last six years

- --Oxide manufacturers weren't real interested in supplying small
quantities of audio oxides

- --Apparently Ampex sold 250,000 reels of two-inch in 1992.
Quantegy sold 2,500 in 2004.

- --Investors apparently bought two coating lines from Emtec and are
planning to manufacture in the Netherlands.

It was the cutters and the SM900 formulation. They're hoping to be up
and running within 3 months.

In article writes:

Strictly-speaking, 'Archived' the same info stored on different types of
media. Just depends how much you value teh material, whatever media.

This is a very important issue. Back when there were 1000 or fewer
releases per year and they were practically all from major labels,
archiving was manageable (though not necessarily well done but
sometimes they got lucky). Now that there are that many releases a
week, most by amateurs who think that it's very important to preserve
their work for posterity, and they can make a flawless, indestructable
digital copy with the push of a button, we have more "archives."

But are they real archives? Will you lose that CD on your desk some
day? Or will it degrade before the next time you play it? How much do
you care?

I'm all for backup copies, but after a few years, why worry? If your
fame continues over the years, your archive will continue. If not,
nobody will be interested in your pile of CDs 200 years from now.
That's what my crystal balls says, anyway.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Caffrey wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:



- --Investors apparently bought two coating lines from Emtec and are
planning to manufacture in the Netherlands.


It was the cutters and the SM900 formulation. They're hoping to be up
and running within 3 months.


I predict that in about a year from now there will be 3
or 4 manufacturers of professional audio tape, possibly
a restructured Quantegy among them.

--
--
John Noll
Retromedia Sound Studios
Red Bank, NJ



http://www.retromedia.net

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1105704531k@trad...

In article writes:

Strictly-speaking, 'Archived' the same info stored on different types of
media. Just depends how much you value the material, whatever media.

I should have added "different geographic locations" as well....

geoff

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:14:16 GMT, John Noll
wrote:

It was the cutters and the SM900 formulation. They're hoping to be up
and running within 3 months.


I predict that in about a year from now there will be 3
or 4 manufacturers of professional audio tape, possibly
a restructured Quantegy among them. snip

Look for the resurrected Emtec SM900 to be prohibitively expensive in
the US, due to the impending collapse of the dollar, which is already
sinking at record levels, thanks to Bush's failed economic policies.
Quantegy, assuming it gets the $11 million, could keep them at bay on
pricing point versus performance alone for quite some time. But, to
be realistic, there's not nearly enough demand for analog tape
anywhere to attract the kind of "cowboy capitalists" who are ruining
the US economy now. To put it in a baseball analogy, these guys only
invest in a home run, and refuse to waste their time on a base hit or
ground rule double. It's called "short sightedness."

Another worry: I hear that Flux, makers of those fine custom heads,
is just about out of business, and the Quantegy fiasco might push
them over the edge. Anyone have any factual word on their situation?

dB

DeserTBoB wrote:

Look for the resurrected Emtec SM900 to be prohibitively expensive in
the US, due to the impending collapse of the dollar, which is already
sinking at record levels, thanks to Bush's failed economic policies.

That's okay. It won't be any more expensive than anything else.

Quantegy, assuming it gets the $11 million, could keep them at bay on
pricing point versus performance alone for quite some time. But, to
be realistic, there's not nearly enough demand for analog tape
anywhere to attract the kind of "cowboy capitalists" who are ruining
the US economy now.

If the dollar does drop, Quantegy will have a good market abroad for
tape and will actually find themselves at a point where making cassette
media may even be profitable for them again. This may actually help
them a lot. Remember that Quantegy's main business these days is videotape
and everything else is fairly small.

A decade ago there was a huge market for cheap red oxide tapes in the
broadcast industry. All of that market is gone now, which is a lot of
the reason why the tape manufacturers are dying out. That was a much
more profitable market than the high end 2" market.

To put it in a baseball analogy, these guys only
invest in a home run, and refuse to waste their time on a base hit or
ground rule double. It's called "short sightedness."

Yes, this is the current story of American business, and this is why I
think the shutdown of Quantegy was mostly an attempt to wave their hands
and point out to potential investors that they have a viable and vocal
market.

Another worry: I hear that Flux, makers of those fine custom heads,
is just about out of business, and the Quantegy fiasco might push
them over the edge. Anyone have any factual word on their situation?

No, but a decade ago I was keeping a list of about sixty head manufacturers.
Today I think five or six companies on that list still exist. Saki was the
last of the big ones to go. I think Flux is in a good position, though,
because they are a small company mostly dependant on craftsmanship and
making an expensive high-end product. I think that as the dollar falls
that this is going to be the most successful sort of organization in the US.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Ohh noo, the sky is falling, ..

Relax guys. Supply and demand. The demand is still there. The price will
adjust. Somebody will make it, and probably at even better quality. It
really hasn't gone up much in a lot of years, even *before* adjusting
for inflation. Sure, some will just finally go digital. But there will
remain those that believe analog multitrack is still worth the extra
money and hassle (or lack of, depending on your point of view).

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 22:28:22 -0600, Joe Sensor
wrote:

Relax guys. Supply and demand. The demand is still there. The price will
adjust. Somebody will make it, and probably at even better quality. It
really hasn't gone up much in a lot of years, even *before* adjusting
for inflation. Sure, some will just finally go digital. But there will
remain those that believe analog multitrack is still worth the extra
money and hassle (or lack of, depending on your point of view).

So, which of these two models applies to audio tape manufacturing?

1: Kodak

B: Vinyl record pressing

The two models both look (from the outside, to me) mutually
exclusive, but equally (im/ )plausible. It might depend on material
availablities upstream and/or on large cash/credit flows.

Some wild-eyed dreamer (damned hippies!) recently posted his
prediction of homebrew semiconductors at the IC level. Never would
have occured to me, and so opened up my sphere of possibilities.

The flipside of the conservative argument is that tape was made,
good enough to use just-fine-thank-you, before I was born. Before
"I have a tip for you, just one word, plastics", etc.

So, are cottage industries possible?


Chris Hornbeck

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
Some wild-eyed dreamer (damned hippies!) recently posted his
prediction of homebrew semiconductors at the IC level. Never would
have occured to me, and so opened up my sphere of possibilities.

I don't think that will happen. But what will happen is that FPGAs
(and the analogue equivalent) will get so cheap and easy to program
that people will just use them in place of existing chips. Lose some
weird unavailable DTL part? Blow an array to replace it. This is the
case of using an existing general-purpose technology to replace
unavailable components.

Now, the question is whether this can be done with magnetic tape, and
I'm having some trouble seeing how, but I'm really hoping somebody comes
up with something.

The flipside of the conservative argument is that tape was made,
good enough to use just-fine-thank-you, before I was born. Before
"I have a tip for you, just one word, plastics", etc.

Right, but the original material from which it is made (the plastic sheeting)
is becoming unavailable. How do we get around this?

So, are cottage industries possible?

They certainly have become in the vinyl world. Brooklyn Phono is out there
making money and selling records with only two operating presses. You could
not have afforded to run an operation like that in the early eighties
because you couldn't compete on price with the large-scale mass-production
shops that were stamping for a buck or so each. Those guys no longer exist.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 17 Jan 2005 09:36:02 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Right, but the original material from which it is made (the plastic sheeting)
is becoming unavailable. How do we get around this?

I wonder how similar or dissimilar the plastic used for videotapes
might be and if it's made in suitable sizes? It'll likely be around
for a while worldwide.

Thanks, as always,

Chris Hornbeck

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 17 Jan 2005 09:36:02 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Right, but the original material from which it is made (the plastic sheeting)
is becoming unavailable. How do we get around this?

I wonder how similar or dissimilar the plastic used for videotapes
might be and if it's made in suitable sizes? It'll likely be around
for a while worldwide.

It is much, much thinner.

Typical audio tape is 1.5 mil. You can get 1 mil tape, but it's a pain in
the neck to edit.

Videotape is 0.5 mil or thinner. Sometimes 0.25 mil even.
This is where the supply problems come in. Everybody wants to buy and sell
thin stuff. Nobody wants to do thick stuff anymore.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 17 Jan 2005 20:22:35 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Typical audio tape is 1.5 mil. You can get 1 mil tape, but it's a pain in
the neck to edit.

Videotape is 0.5 mil or thinner. Sometimes 0.25 mil even.
This is where the supply problems come in. Everybody wants to buy and sell
thin stuff. Nobody wants to do thick stuff anymore.

Drat. How about this from left field: if the magnetic layer
could be trapped between two plastic backings (of, say, 0.5 mil
each) would it still be close enough to the head gaps?

I can imagine a good variety of other potential problems in
construction, durability, etc. And of course there would be
dozens more I can't think of, 'cause I know From Nothing about
it. But just as a gedanken experiment.

Thanks, as usual,

Chris Hornbeck
"someone might think it's more valuable in the future than he did
in the pasture." -Mike Rivers