[game_preservation] Dreamcast Archival

[Jason McNeal]

While it is wise to consider copyright issues and be cautious, one
should also consider that, historically, most companies do not have
the foresight or resources to archive their materials and I would go
so far as to say it's not a priority. This has proven to be the case
with all forms of media - and in relation to video games, Atari's
incompetence comes to mind. While I obviously cannot speak for SEGA, I
imagine (and hope) they have something in place as far as archiving
their work. The other side of this is, smaller publishers most likely
do not have the resources for a proper archive, and therefore the
original code, pre-production art, etc. could or will get
lost/destroyed over time. Individuals who take the initiative to
archive historical content turn out to be valuable assets later down
the line. Personally, I wouldn't let copyright issues stand in the way
of that. A perfect validation for this is the recent disaster in
Japan. Sure SEGA might have an expansive archive documenting
everything they've ever produced, but what if it had all been
destroyed by those earthquakes and floods?

Regardless of the above, optical discs are definitely not a suitable
storage medium and they will deteriorate to the point of becoming
unreadable. Data should be migrated from them and kept on hard drives
for long term storage.

My two cents...

Jason McNeal
Independent Motion Picture Preservation Specialist
Gainesville, FL


On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Perti <andrew.perti at thesimm.org> wrote:

> Not sure if this went through last time because I changed my email address

> around.

>

> Interesting read, Mike.  I too have contemplated the archival of proprietary

> optical based media.

>

> From my research, and specifically for the Dreamcast, there is such a method

> already available using a Broadband Adapter and a Dreamcast hombrew

> application called httpd-ack.  Apparently there are plenty of tutorials

> online.  Might I also remind everybody that data migration, even for

> preservation, altruistic or benevolent purposes, certainly borders on the

> darker end of the gray area.  Non-profit and educational institutions DO get

> some leeway for fair-use and archival purposes but it's not enough to

> legally justify copying such material as far as I can tell.  Don't take me

> for a legalese expert.  I recommend consulting with a lawyer before taking

> any actions.

>

> Going further.  Even with a .cue sheet and RAW data/audio .BIN dumps of each

> track, there is still sub-channel data missing and quite a few other

> extraneous and un-captured bits as well.  True preservation, in my mind,

> encompasses the entire disc, bit for bit.  I've had an idea on the back

> burner(crude cd-r joke?) for some time now conceptualizing how to go about

> creating a file system/disc format agnostic method to copy data off of any

> optical medium given the right hardware.  From my understanding, all that

> one has to do is gain low level hardware access to an optical drive, start

> at offset -1000 (give or take) and start reading the disc's peaks and

> valleys.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be relatively simple to

> code such a tool for a specific drive if you were familiar with the specific

> drive's I/O protocols?  Alternatively, you could always just scan a disc's

> data side in at 4000dpi and have a virtual laser read the peaks and valleys,

> right?  KIDDING!  Kinda.  Double layer discs would be a bit difficult to

> scan anyway.

>

> For the data portion, 7zip currently has some of the best compression

> algorithms and it's open source.  I would be so bold as to recommend it over

> any other format for archiving.  For audio, FLAC is also open source and it

> does provide great compression as well.  Cheers to that.

>

> So we've migrated, now what?  Optical drive emulation for data

> retrieval/referencing/usage of course!  It wouldn't be difficult to code a

> simple plug-in based tool for the new format agnostic disc image.  Each file

> system type would need it's own plug-in to be readable though.

>

> I'm interested to hear what others have to say on the subject!

>

> To reiterate; we have to be mindful of current copyright legislation and

> other applicable laws, both domestic and worldwide.

>

> Andrew Perti

> Founder | Seattle Interactive Media Museum

> andrew.perti at thesimm.org | www.thesimm.org

>

> On 5/23/2011 10:54 PM, Mike Melanson wrote:

>

> I've been thinking of efficient ways to move Dreamcast data off of

> proprietary optical media and into more permanent storage. Members of this

> list might be interested:

>

> http://multimedia.cx/eggs/dreamcast-archival/

>

> --

>     -Mike Melanson

>

> _______________________________________________

> game_preservation mailing list

> game_preservation at igda.org

> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>

>

> _______________________________________________

> game_preservation mailing list

> game_preservation at igda.org

> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>

>