Putting films, tapes, CDs, etc onto a HD

[Loony]

Hello Experts and Paul ,

Two Canon printers are available : Pixma MP170 and MX375 (this one is
new and has a fax).

I would like to be able to have a structure above the glass sheets and
to be able to apply a light beam down through 35 mm slides, or 35 mm
strips, or tapes, and through the A4 size glass sheet.

In essence what I am trying to do is to convert all the present devices
to a hard drive, or drives.

I would appreciate information about it. I may be able to make use of
MakeUseOf

Best Regards to All.

 

[Paul]

Hello Experts and Paul ,

Two Canon printers are available : Pixma MP170 and MX375 (this one is
new and has a fax).

I would like to be able to have a structure above the glass sheets and
to be able to apply a light beam down through 35 mm slides, or 35 mm
strips, or tapes, and through the A4 size glass sheet.

In essence what I am trying to do is to convert all the present devices
to a hard drive, or drives.

I would appreciate information about it. I may be able to make use of
MakeUseOf

Best Regards to All.

pixma-mp170

Scanning
Optical Resolution 1200 x 2400 dpi

There is limited room inside the thing, to make modifications
like that. You'd need to fit a transparency adapter (light source),
as well as disable the light source below the deck while scanning.
In addition, for negatives (films), you need to have the software
invert the colors appropriately for the kind of film. For example,
my scanner does both reflective and transmitted light scans,
has a light in the lid, and when doing films, you have to tell
it the film is Kodacolor or whatever, to get the correct
color inversion.

The easiest kind of scanner to convert, would be a flat bed
scanner, where there is nothing above the deck but the lid.
If you tear off the lid, you can then fit your home-made light
source.

The Pixma is likely designed to scan paper, as the paper
is passing the CMOS sensor strip. You'd have the additional
detail, of keeping your film flat, as it moves through that
path. Very tricky.

This does film, and it's $130. No hardware modifications necessary.
9600 x 4800 dpi optical. Max. Document Size 8.5" x 11.7".
Dimensions 10.7" x 19.4" x 3.8". Uses USB2. AC power cord.

Canon CanoScan 5600F 2925B002
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16838111022

Paul

 

[John McGaw]

Hello Experts and Paul ,

Two Canon printers are available : Pixma MP170 and MX375 (this one is new
and has a fax).

I would like to be able to have a structure above the glass sheets and to
be able to apply a light beam down through 35 mm slides, or 35 mm strips,
or tapes, and through the A4 size glass sheet.

In essence what I am trying to do is to convert all the present devices to
a hard drive, or drives.

I would appreciate information about it. I may be able to make use of
MakeUseOf

Best Regards to All.

This is a joke, right? You are wanting to move CDs and tapes to your HD
using a scanner? If, on the other hand, you want to scan 35mm
transparencies and negatives to some computer image format and you have
more than a small handful to work on, do yourself a favor and invest in a
real film scanner which can be had for < $100. At this price they are
nothing fancy but if you have time they will do the job.

If I haven't talked you out of it yet, there are any number of articles
online which purport to explain the method using an ordinary flatbed
scanner. Example:

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/07/14/how-to-scan-film-using-your-ordinary-flatbed-scanner/

 

[Loony]

This is a joke, right? You are wanting to move CDs and tapes to your HD
using a scanner? If, on the other hand, you want to scan 35mm
transparencies and negatives to some computer image format and you have
more than a small handful to work on, do yourself a favor and invest in
a real film scanner which can be had for < $100. At this price they are
nothing fancy but if you have time they will do the job.

If I haven't talked you out of it yet, there are any number of articles
online which purport to explain the method using an ordinary flatbed
scanner. Example:

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/07/14/how-to-scan-film-using-your-ordinary-flatbed-scanner/

Thanks John for that link.

Would one put music from a tape on an old HD, on a large computer HD?
Most likely it would be the same as putting in on a CD or DVD.

I came across a Sony TC 900 that I bought many years ago (1980's I
believe). It has a 6mm wide tape but the sounds from the music and chat
is a bit blurred. Would an up-to-date tape have similar blurring on the
TC 900 or a greatly improved music?

Comments please

 

[Paul]

Thanks John for that link.

Would one put music from a tape on an old HD, on a large computer HD?
Most likely it would be the same as putting in on a CD or DVD.

I came across a Sony TC 900 that I bought many years ago (1980's I
believe). It has a 6mm wide tape but the sounds from the music and chat
is a bit blurred. Would an up-to-date tape have similar blurring on the
TC 900 or a greatly improved music?

Comments please

Depends a lot on what blurring means.

Blurring is normally applied to vision.

Think of some other descriptive terms for sound.

For example, "muddy sound" on a computer is caused by excessive reverberation
added by the sound card driver. A tape deck has no such software inside
it, so can't make "muddy sound" on its own. The tape deck has limited
means to screw up. The frequency balance can be off, if a tape is
recorded in Dolby, and the deck doesn't have the appropriate
reversal of the method. I've had that problem here, where a tape
recorded with a later version of Dolby Noise Reduction (NR),
my deck can't undo that properly, and the high frequencies might be
too accentuated.

As for a recording method, connect the line-out of the tape deck,
to the line-in on the computer. Then use a sound recording application
( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ). I believe that program has
a preference, to either temporarily store sounds in system RAM or
on the hard drive, in case it indicates a short recording time.
The last time I tried it, I think my record time was up to
24 hours straight. Meaning, I could play a tape continuously for 24 hours
and record it as a single track. If you have reel-to-reel, it
probably doesn't last that long, and won't exhaust the available
record time. Once you save a track and close the file, you have
the entire record time to use again.

Windows has a built-in application called Sound Recorder, that
also works, but there's a little trick to expanding the record
time.

In fact, both recording methods are tricky. In that, when I use
Audacity for this kinda work, I have to "bang on the controls a lot"
to get things adjusted right. It's hard to ensure the Line-In
is selected as the recording source for example.

The problem with tape recorders, as they age and get dirty, is with
the tape transport, and maintaining a constant speed. If I needed
to transcribe my small cassette collection, that would be my
first problem. The recording part is trivial. Cleaning the damn
transport rollers on that deck, is not. And I wouldn't buy another
tape deck, as a solution to cleaning the old one.

You can get cleaning tapes of various sorts, for attempting to
keep a deck clean, but you must use those regularly. Like
every 30 hours of deck usage, run the cleaning procedure. You
can't come along after 20 years of usage, and expect one usage
of a cleaning tape to make the thing "like new". It's like
rings around your bath tube. They never go away.

Paul

 

[Don Phillipson]

Would one put music from a tape on an old HD, on a large computer HD? Most
likely it would be the same as putting in on a CD or DVD.

Digitized music can be stored anywhere (internal or external HDD,
USB, CD etc.) The main determinant, aside from ripping software,
is your choice whether to store in WAV format (with maximal detail)
or lossy (e.g. MP3 or OGG format.)

 

[Loony]

Depends a lot on what blurring means.

Blurring is normally applied to vision.

Think of some other descriptive terms for sound.

For example, "muddy sound" on a computer is caused by excessive
reverberation
added by the sound card driver. A tape deck has no such software inside
it, so can't make "muddy sound" on its own. The tape deck has limited
means to screw up. The frequency balance can be off, if a tape is
recorded in Dolby, and the deck doesn't have the appropriate
reversal of the method. I've had that problem here, where a tape
recorded with a later version of Dolby Noise Reduction (NR),
my deck can't undo that properly, and the high frequencies might be
too accentuated.

As for a recording method, connect the line-out of the tape deck,
to the line-in on the computer. Then use a sound recording application
( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ). I believe that program has
a preference, to either temporarily store sounds in system RAM or
on the hard drive, in case it indicates a short recording time.
The last time I tried it, I think my record time was up to
24 hours straight. Meaning, I could play a tape continuously for 24 hours
and record it as a single track. If you have reel-to-reel, it
probably doesn't last that long, and won't exhaust the available
record time. Once you save a track and close the file, you have
the entire record time to use again.

Windows has a built-in application called Sound Recorder, that
also works, but there's a little trick to expanding the record
time.

In fact, both recording methods are tricky. In that, when I use
Audacity for this kinda work, I have to "bang on the controls a lot"
to get things adjusted right. It's hard to ensure the Line-In
is selected as the recording source for example.

The problem with tape recorders, as they age and get dirty, is with
the tape transport, and maintaining a constant speed. If I needed
to transcribe my small cassette collection, that would be my
first problem. The recording part is trivial. Cleaning the damn
transport rollers on that deck, is not. And I wouldn't buy another
tape deck, as a solution to cleaning the old one.

You can get cleaning tapes of various sorts, for attempting to
keep a deck clean, but you must use those regularly. Like
every 30 hours of deck usage, run the cleaning procedure. You
can't come along after 20 years of usage, and expect one usage
of a cleaning tape to make the thing "like new". It's like
rings around your bath tube. They never go away.

Paul

Thanks Paul, you are always on the right spot and have the right answers.

 

[Loony]

Digitized music can be stored anywhere (internal or external HDD,
USB, CD etc.) The main determinant, aside from ripping software,
is your choice whether to store in WAV format (with maximal detail)
or lossy (e.g. MP3 or OGG format.)

Thanks Don, I used the MP3 mostly, so I'll try the WAV. I bet the WAV
takes up much more space. What kind of percentage difference would you
guess?