[BC] A Question About Audio Logging and hard Drive space

[Rich Wood]

------ At 12:36 AM 4/29/2008, Justin Kaiser wrote: -------

>I record 1 station at 128k Stereo at 57MB per hour...  So, a quick
>calculation of 57mb x 24hrsx 90 days x 7 stations looks like it would come
>in around 850 gigs...  So at 192 k probably 1.2-1.5 TB.

Unless these files are going to be used on the air why is it 
necessary to do much more than 64K or less? Open reel and DAT loggers 
had notoriously low quality but were used only for legal purposes and 
to assure a client his spot actually ran. Some ad agencies wanted to 
hear spots in context - a minute before and a minute after.

In a legal case involving music licensing the logger tape is 
considered a recording that might put you over the limit of how many 
copies you can make. I got bitten by that one over the use of a 
commercial song as a theme, even though our ASCAP, BMI and SESAC 
licenses clearly allowed it.

There are arguments on both sides as to the advisability of keeping 
logger tapes/files. If they don't exist they can't be subpoenaed. In 
one case, the station was required to keep open reel tapes and the 
machine that made them (a huge boat anchor) for years. A personality 
was accused of bilking listeners out of millions. He died. The tapes 
live on. The Feds required us to assign a staff member to listen to 
all the tapes for any mention of the offense. The show was boring and 
the quality horrible. I think he's still in therapy.

Rich