Cable & Wireless Plc has signed an agreement with the British Library to develop a sound restoration system called Cedar, Computer Enhanced Digital Audio Restoration to improve the quality of material in the UK National Sound Archives. The new product takes recorded sound in digital audio tape format and repairs the damage caused by cracks, scratches and hiss and then facilitates the storage and manipulation of digital recordings on hard or floppy disks. Cedar is being marketed by Cambridge-based Cedar Audio Ltd, which is providing bureau services to a number of companies interested in re-releasing old 78 rpm records. The bureau also expects radio and television companies to be interested in Cedar, since it will enable them to update old film soundtracks, and Cedar Audio Ltd is now looking at the possibility of repairing early 1920s acoustic recordings – an area in which Australian archivist Robert Parker has done such sterling work. Cable & Wireless was approached initially to provide technical expertise and financial backing, but there are long term plans to make the service available worldwide via the company’s digital network of fibre optic cables. Furthermore, the company cannot lose in terms of the potential for telecommunications traffic – the customer will have to pay for dialling in, listening time and data transfer. Cedar, with 16 bit analogue to digital conversion requires 4.8Mb per minute of audio at 40KHz and 2.4Mb per minute at 20KHz. Costs vary depending on individual requirements, but the bureau is currently charging between UKP100 and UKP270 to eliminate the surface noise from an old shellac 78 rpm record.
