Reports from the Field
A fourth glimpse of RAWcooked

The missing piece of software for audio-visual archives

RAWcooked encodes so-called raw audio-visual data (like DPX or TIFF and WAVE), using the video codec FFV1 for the image and audio codec FLAC for the sound, and wraps all into a Matroska container (an “.mkv” file). All the metadata accompanying the raw data are preserved, and sidecar files, like MD5 checksum manifests, LUT or XML files, can be added as attachments into the Matroska container. This allows to manage these audio-visual file formats in an effective and transparent way, while saving typically between one and two thirds of the needed storage and greatly speeding up the backup process on LTO cartridges.

The audio and video streams of a lossless Matroska audio-visual file, encoded using RAWcooked, can be played back natively, for example, in VLC or mpv media players.

When needed, the uncompressed source is retrieved bit-by-bit, in a manner faster than uncompressed sources directly stored on LTO cartridges.

What and how

A short demonstration by Joshua Levy and Reto Kromer of both the current RAWcooked 18.10.1 release and the improvements made in the development branch during more than two years,1 followed by an informal Q&A session. Sadly, the traditional light refreshments cannot be served neither this time …

We will have the following computers to play with:

  • Linux: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS with an LTO-8 deck;
  • Macintosh under macOS 10.15.7 with an LTO-6 deck and
  • Windows 10 version 20H2 running Terminal with an LTO-7 deck.

When and where

Online on Friday the 18th of December 2020, starting at 11 o’clock sharp here in Switzerland (10:00 UTC). We will use a Jitsi-based platform and the link will be provided in proper time.

As usual, the admission to our Reports from the Field is free, but a registration is required, as the seats are limited to a dozen, in order to allow in-depth technical discussion and information exchange. The attendees should be familiar with archival file formats and workflows.


Notes

  • Unless a newer release will become available in time. [The version 21.01 was released only on the 4th of January 2021.]
  • We are very unhappy that our generosity is often betrayed, as many of our materials are distributed without naming their origin. Increasingly, others are even shamelessly claiming authorship of our work, which is just disgusting behaviour. And that’s the very reason why some resources are no longer freely available, but have been moved to password-protected parts of our website.

2023-02-17