Gilldiver
Contributor
Here is something to think about, I deal with a lot of library archivists (Yale, NY Public Library, National Archives, etc.) and the preservation problems with digital media and the new laser and spray dot printers has them all worried. A CD, RW-CD, DVD, etc. that you burn at home has a life of about 5 years and then it is unreadable. They call it hitting the brick wall in that the CD will be readable and then one day it just is not. Add to that the way that the technology changes and you have a real mess (seen any 5" flopy drives around lately?).
The only medium that we know lasts over 50 years is Black & White film on real acid free photo paper. Unfortunately, as many of you know, none of the places that have been mentioned use real photo paper, they just use a version of standard ink jet printers.
The archivists and my own computer IT people tell me that they only way that they have right now is to use a remote hard drive once a month to back up your files and then to unplug it. This is so the drive is not getting any wear on the spindle. The alternative is to use one of the digital media storage services that keep your stuff on 5 to 10 different storage systems that are independent of each other.
This problem is even worse for Hollywood as almost all films and TV shows are now shot on digital and they are having problems with shows that are only 5 to 10 years old. What they are doing is having the digital show processed onto traditional film and then storing the film.
The only medium that we know lasts over 50 years is Black & White film on real acid free photo paper. Unfortunately, as many of you know, none of the places that have been mentioned use real photo paper, they just use a version of standard ink jet printers.
The archivists and my own computer IT people tell me that they only way that they have right now is to use a remote hard drive once a month to back up your files and then to unplug it. This is so the drive is not getting any wear on the spindle. The alternative is to use one of the digital media storage services that keep your stuff on 5 to 10 different storage systems that are independent of each other.
This problem is even worse for Hollywood as almost all films and TV shows are now shot on digital and they are having problems with shows that are only 5 to 10 years old. What they are doing is having the digital show processed onto traditional film and then storing the film.