Klarinet Archive - Posting 000320.txt from 1998/10

From: "Jim O'Briant" <jobriant@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Music Scanning - New News!
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 21:16:29 -0400

David C. Blumberg quoted a Coda/Finale press release:

> [Coda Music Technology] announced today that it has signed an agreement
> with Musitek, the leader in music scanning technologies. Musitek, based in
> Ojai, California,
> develops and markets the popular MidiScan® product for Windows® computers
> which allows users to translate scanned music images into intelligent music
> data that
> can be transposed, edited and even performed by MIDI-equipped musical
> instruments.
> The agreement allows Coda access to proprietary file structure information
> so
> that Coda’s Finale® product, the world’s best-selling music notation
> software,
> can directly import MidiScan’s scanned music data.

In reply, Oliver Seely wrote, in part:

> Thanks David for the information about the agreement between
> Coda and Musitek. The biggest problem I have in converting old
> manuscripts is the intermediate step right now of cleaning up
> Midiscan's MND format, then putting it into a MIDI format, then
> importing it into Finale and having to clean it up once again.

I have found exactly the same problem with Midiscan -- the cleanup of their
*.mnd file takes far longer than just entering the original work into (in my
case) ENCORE, note by note, with a mouse.

There is also a down-side to this Midiscan/Finale agreement. Originally,
virtually all of the notation software companies were working together to
develop standards for *.nif (NIFF) files -- "NIFF" = "Notation Interchange
File Format." Then Coda (Finale) pulled out of the project, more than a year
ago, I think. I have read that it was because they did not want to reveal
any of their source code to anyone else, or cooperate in any project that
would give any other software company equal footing with them in any way.

In the meantime, Musitek/Midiscan has been active in the *.nif (NIFF)
project. Now, they also have no incentive to continue. By this move,
Musitek/Midiscan had allied their company with Coda/Finale, giving them a
ready-made new market. At the same time, Coda/Finale has effectively quashed
the NIFF movement, thus shutting out all other notation software companies.
Shrewd marketing move, but for anyone who uses any notation software other
than Finale, it is bad news.

Jim O'Briant
Bayside Music Press
Gilroy, CA

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