This is part of The Pile, a partial archive of some open source mailing lists and newsgroups.
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 11:29:46 -0700 From: Romain Kang <romain@kzsu.stanford.edu> To: Chris Paul <ChrisP@Atoga.com> Cc: "'dat-heads@datheads.phish.net'" <dat-heads@datheads.phish.net>, Subject: [svlug] Re: DAT extraction to WAV/PCM/SHN files On Fri, Jun 08, 2001 at 10:57:02AM -0700, Chris Paul wrote: > Does anyone know how to use a PC tape drive (actually in a Linux PC) to > extract a PCM digital audio tape into a common computer digital file? First, very few 4mm drives actually have audio extraction capability. There are a number of vendors out on the web that have stocks of remaindered SGI drives. I got mine from Mashek Consulting for about $150. Then you need software that will extract the audio stream without the low level subcodes. See Wayne Hoxsie's page at http://www.hoxnet.com/dat-tools/ for stuff that will write the data to a .au file. In a pinch, you can dd from the drive and pipe to a program that strips off the subcodes, leaving raw PCM. My drive doesn't seem to sense end of audio tapes, so I have to either stop extraction when the file reaches a certain size, or extract per-track with the DAT-tools. After that, sox can create a WAV file for manipulation with your favorite sound editor. A Google search for dat audio dds provides other useful info. ===