For Release: April 26, 2014
Dietrich Schüller to Deliver the Heyser Memorial Lecture at 136th Audio Engineering Society International Convention
— The lecture, entitled “Preserving our sound recordings: 25 years since everything changed,” will address the change of paradigm in the preservation of audiovisual documents —
The 136th Audio Engineering Society International Convention, being held in Berlin, Germany, on April 26 – 29, 2014, at the Estrel Hotel and Convention Center, will feature Dietrich Schüller, early advocate of digital audiovisual archiving, giving the Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture, one of the most anticipated events at every AES Convention. With his strong international engagement for audiovisual preservation and background experience in physics, ethnomusicology and cultural anthropology, Schüller will explain how technological development has led to a paradigm shift 25 years ago and the ways in which safeguarding the world's audiovisual has further developed since. The lecture will take place Saturday, April 26, 19:00 – 20:00 (Estrel Hall A).
Schüller originally joined the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences – the world’s first sound archive founded 1899 – as a student assistant and, following graduation, became its Director in 1972. After concentration on methodological aspects of sound recording for research purposes, he became increasingly engaged in audiovisual preservation and re-recording. He was a member of the Executive Board of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) from 1975 to 1987, founder of the IASA Technical Committee and its chair until 2001. He is a member of the Audio Engineering Society, was a member of the Organizing Committee of the Vienna AES Conventions 1992 and 2007, and Vice-Chair of the AES Standards Subcommittee on Audio Preservation and Restoration until its closure in 2012. Schüller currently serves as UNESCO Vice-President of the Information for All Programme (IFAP), and chair of the IFAP Working Group on Information Preservation. An author of numerous publications on audiovisual preservation, he is also involved in national and international training courses and workshops for audiovisual archivists.
“The change of paradigm in audio preservation” Schüller reports “started 25 years ago in an informal environment around AES Conventions in the US. The first pilot projects, however, were established by German radio stations in the early 1990s, later followed by television archives. Adequate standards have been established, and we continue to adapt these to the development of the technical environment. I am looking forward to delivering the Heyser lecture at the Berlin convention, to sharing my experience of the development of audiovisual preservation, but also my concerns: specifically magnetic tapes are under threat by the rapid disappearance of replay machines. If not transferred in time to digital repositories, contents will be lost, even if the tapes are still in good physical condition.”
The Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture series was established in May 1999 by the AES Technical Council, the Board of Governors and the Richard Heyser Scholarship Fund to honor the extensive contribution to the Society by Heyser, widely known for his ability to communicate new and complex technical ideas with great clarity and patience. The Heyser Series is an endowment for lectures that bring to AES conventions eminent individuals in audio engineering and related fields. Like Dietrich Schüller, many previous lecturers were also exceptional across creative, technical and entrepreneurial roles, including Ray Dolby, Ray Kurzweil, Walter Murch, Phil Ramone and George Massenburg.
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