Listening the Photos

In the music field, an open issue is represented by the creation of innovative tools for acquisition, preservation and sharing of information. The strong difficulties in preserving the original carriers, together dedicated equipments able to read any (often obsolete) format, encouraged the analog/digital (A/D) transfer of audio contents in order to make them available in digital libraries. Unfortunately, the A/D transfer is often an invasive process. This work proposes an innovative and not-invasive approach to audio extraction from complex source material, such as shellac phonographic discs: PoG (Photos Of Ghosts) is the new system, able to reconstruct the audio signal from a still image of a disc surface. It is automatic, needs of low-cost hardware, recognizes different rpm and performs an automatic separation of the tracks; also it is robust with respect to dust and scratches. © 2010 ACM.