Transcoding vinyls
Ever wondered what to do with that old record collection? Sure, you could find a turntable, buy a $500 needle, record into your Mac, and clean up the crackles and pops with software. Or you could just slap the things on your scanner.
In A Virtual Gramophone, Ofer Springer writes that he's done just that. He says by scanning an LP from several different angles and applying a software algorithm that tracks the variance in reflectivity along the tracks, he can reconstruct the source music. Sort of.
Human visual pattern recognition far beyond the capabilities of a computer. You'd think if a scanner and software could read music from a vinyl LP, then humans should be able to as well. Or, at least, humans named Arthur B. Lintgen, M.D. I remember him from the "That's Incredible" TV show in 1981, recognizing Beethoven's 5th from across the room. Sadly, his later explanations sound as though most of his vinyl vision was informed guesswork.