Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/08/14

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Digital image longevity
From: don.dory at gmail.com (Don Dory)
Date: Mon Aug 14 18:37:17 2006
References: <200608141445.k7EEj3NT012551@server1.waverley.reid.org> <E7BF209C-C607-4133-A671-E11CFD537F3B@optonline.net>

Larry,
No, it is not brain surgery but you have to have some knowledge and choose
opportune moments to change formats.  For example, the Blue-Ray format
appears to be winning the new DVD wars so in a year or so I will buy a
burner and reburn all my CD's and DVD's to that format.  I suspect that CD's
only have a couple of years life left before you start to see non backward
compatible DVD/Blue Ray reader burners on computers.  As the music industry
goes completely online rather than CD there will be the same pressure to
have a CD drive as there is currently to have a floppy drive on new
computers.

Therefore, all those CD's that John Q has had burned at the drug store will
be mostly useless coasters in ten years.  The sad part is that John Q has
faithfully stored copies in the safety deposit box and they will be safe,
but mostly useless in twenty years.

My question to the computer literate would be what is going to replace USB
or 1394 connections?  Will Wi-Fi take over so no cables at all?

Don
don.dory@gmail.com


On 8/14/06, Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Aug 14, 2006, at 10:45 AM, Jim wrote:
>
> > My biggest complaint about digital imaging is that we will likely
> > lose the
> > "shoebox" to the ages--no tangible receptacle, like an old shoebox,
> > for
> > prints or negatives.  What's the likelihood that ephemeral digital
> > images
> > will survive?  Not bloody likely, unless you're a computer expert
> > like Brian
> > and copy all your work regularly.
>
>
> Jim,
>
> Despite the gloom and doom about digital media longevity, Kodak
> claims that accelerated life span testing shows that properly
> handled, high quality CD-R discs will retain images for 50 years or
> longer. Kodak's definition of proper handling precludes using the
> discs as Frisbees or as hot drink coasters. They prefer that you keep
> the discs in individual wrappers in a box at room temperature or
> below. Kodak used to make a line of gold flashed discs of exceptional
> stability but I haven't seen any for some time. I'm sure that top of
> the line discs from other makers will have comparable quality.
> However, if you want to look at your images 50 years from now, you
> might have difficulty finding a CD player. I suggest you store one of
> those in the shoe box with the discs.
>
> Brian is right. It might be a good idea to refresh the image file
> from time to time as new media formats become popular. But it ain't
> brain surgery.
>
> Larry Z
>
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>

Replies: Reply from reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid) ([Leica] Re: Digital image longevity)
In reply to: Message from lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin) ([Leica] Re: Digital image longevity)