Legacy Format Ingest

Legacy format ingest is the capture of audio from older and obsolete carriers into a modern digital workflow.^[1] It requires the right playback machines and expertise for each format, since material may exist on dozens of tape, optical, and film based media that current systems cannot read directly.

Because the equipment needed to play many of these formats is increasingly rare, ingesting them is often time sensitive. Once captured at high resolution, the audio can be preserved, restored, and reused, which is why careful ingest is the essential first step in saving older recordings.^[2]