If you scan a vinyl phono-record at high-enough resolution, you can get highly detailed pictures of the grooves and use software to decode them into music. Or you might be able to, once the decoder's improved — the current proof-of-concept takes a lot of wishful thinking to get worked up about. Nevertheless, I am: worked up. Imagine the speed and error-correction you could bring to bear if you could perfect this system (in fact, you could do nifty stuff like OCRing the label on the LP to get the artist and track names, and insert them into the digital file's metadata)! Imagine libraries of TIFFs of phono-records available through the Internet Archive, available for downloading and processing into Ogg or MP3 files. Keep the TIFFs handy and you can re-rip them into new formats as they emerge. Imagine bulk-feeding phono-scanners that automatically feed stacks of wax through and turn them into digital music, rescuing and restoring entire libraries of music… Gosh, this is cool stuff.
(via /.)
