Report from the Field #32
RAWcooked in action

The missing piece of software for audio-visual archives

RAWcooked encodes uncompressed audio-visual data such as 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, such as 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. When needed, the uncompressed source is retrieved bit-by-bit, in a manner faster than uncompressed sources directly stored on LTO cartridges.

Theoretically such a RAWcooked encoded file can also be played back natively, for example, in VLC or mpv media players; in practice, however, it depends heavily on … the available computing power!

What and how

A short presentation by Reto Kromer of the current RAWcooked 23.03 release, followed by an informal Q&A session and light refreshments. Exceptionally, this meeting will be bilingual German and French without translation.

We will have the following computers to play with:

• Linux under Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS with an LTO-8 deck;
• Macintosh under the old macOS 10.15.7 with an LTO-6 deck and
• Windows 11 version 22H2 running Terminal with an LTO-9 deck.

When and where

Friday the 21^st of April 2023, starting at 11 o’clock sharp, at the EPFL Innovation Park near Lausanne without webcast.

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. The attendees should be familiar with archival file formats and workflows.

Note

• 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.

2023-04-02