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    How do I store my video safely forever?

    I dumped it (400 hours) onto a NAS drive with RAID5 and it takes 6 terabytes.

    Should I store it in the cloud, like with Crashplan?

    Surely I don't want to just keep it on tape, especially the analog which degrades over time.

    Most people should have the same question, right? How do people protect their priceless video forever (for all intents and purposes)?
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    There is no single "save it once and it's done forever" method. Periodic archiving is the only way to prevent total loss. Past video formats have been rendered obsolete and various forms of storage media have worn out. (Much, much worse for magnetic media than for motion picture film. Nevertheless, nothing lasts forever.) Furthermore, today's digital codecs and file types will eventually be replaced.

    Every few years, you just have to work at maintaining your archives, making transfers to new formats, as well as making safe copies. That's all there is to it.

    One thing to keep in mind is that you should be careful how you encode your videos to newer formats. Heavy compression will kill quality. Once it's lost, you can never get it back.
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    In addition to filmboss80's post, I'd say that multiple backups at different sites is something you could consider. You could give copies to friends or relatives and ask them to keep them for you.

    I know nothing about Crashplan and can only say that it's up to you to decide if you think their service is viable and worthwhile. You as a customer have ZERO control over them, so if their service is unreliable or they go out of business, good luck with that.
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    One more thing. While your RAID 5 NAS is "highly unlikely" to suffer a catastrophic multiple disk failure that would kill your videos, note that "highly unlikely" is NOT the same thing as impossible. I refer you to the following:

    http://www.oubliette.org/~dberger/blog/archives/2009/02/postmortem_of_a.html

    I very strongly suggest you read that blog.

    The guy who wrote that blog used Crashplan and liked it by the way, but he did not feel that it was perfect.
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    There is something else that does not often enter the discussion:

    For most of the history of recording on tape (or negatives, slides, film prints, phono LPs, etc.), we were operating in an analog world, where the very nature of storage was fundamentally different. A section or few sections of it could be bad, without the whole thing becoming a total loss. Now, in the digital world of 1's & 0's, it becomes far less kind. (For example, all pro photographers now have a huge issue with this for the durability of their work output.) The only answer I've heard about involves PAR recovery files . . . but I don't see this being talked about that widely or that often. Certainly not for the mass audience.
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    1) Over the years just transfer/copy it to new mediums as they become norm. Since the 80s I've been storing my data from 5.25 diskettes -> 3.5 diskettes -> ZIP -> CD -> DvD -> External HDD -> soon to BD-XL backups. I still even have one file today that was originally written and stored on tape!

    And this trend will continue on, which includes my video content.

    But even within the same storage medium type, you may need to replace it as it ages, which is a good excuse for backups, hence my next point...

    2) Keep it in multiple copies and multiple physical locations too if possible. Simple. Losing data this way becomes much more of an impossibility. And I personally would not rely on an online service, especially if it's your only copy. Jman98 said it perfectly that there's no control on your part.

    3) About video formats, I personally wouldn't encode to newer formats since many of them are lossy. I do believe many of today's formats will still be decoded for decades to come, and when/if they can't I'm sure lossless formats of the future that you can encode them to will be much more efficient and easier to store with bigger hard drives. I personally am not too worried in this regard.
    I hate VHS. I always did.
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  7. Originally Posted by Video-Guy View Post
    Surely I don't want to just keep it on tape, especially the analog which degrades over time.
    Actually, you DO want to keep it all on the original tapes, if this is at all practical for you in terms of storage space. I have found over the last thirty years that not ONE of my 3000-odd VHS or Beta videos has "degraded" in the manner feared by so many so needlessly. If the tape was a lousy blank to begin with, as some cheap brands were circa 1980-82, they degraded almost immediately. Any of my tapes that survived past 1982 are still perfectly playable today. Consumer videotapes mfr'd after the earliest years (1975-1982) have proven remarkably consistent and durable. (As seeker47 so aptly reminds us, analog still has many advantages over digital, durability being one of the most surprising.) If you have the space to store the original tapes comfortably (not in an attic or garage), and you live in a moderate climate (not the humid south), then just hold onto the tapes and a few good VCRs. Its more effective than having redundant digital copies (although you should of course have those as well). Digital has the advantages of less storage space and portability to multiple new playback devices undreamed of when the original tapes were recorded.

    The hardest job is making the first digital transfers. If you did that well, and the files stored on your RAID look decent on a modern large flatscreen display, you're golden: just copy the files periodically to new RAIDs and possibly optical discs or cheap high-capacity memory sticks when those eventually become available. Video files encoded as MPEG2 or AVI or other contemporary containers should be supported by computers far into the future. Even the archaic VCD format is still in wide use in third world countries, so I wouldn't worry too much about formats. Just make a new backup media set every 5 years or so.
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  8. Member budwzr's Avatar
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    In the new world of tomorrow, YouTube will have every video ever conceived, so yours will become moot.
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    Originally Posted by Video-Guy View Post
    How do I store my video safely forever?

    I dumped it (400 hours) onto a NAS drive with RAID5 and it takes 6 terabytes.

    Should I store it in the cloud, like with Crashplan?

    Surely I don't want to just keep it on tape, especially the analog which degrades over time.

    Most people should have the same question, right? How do people protect their priceless video forever (for all intents and purposes)?
    you seem to be under the same misconception that almost everyone on the net is under, namely that data somehow degrades over time. this is simply not true, at least not in the way people seem to think it is.

    regardless of the storage medium, be it film, magnetic, digital, if you aren't using the media repeatedly there is no degradation.

    magnetic media will degrade over time, say like a tape, but only if it's played over and over again and the heads repeatedly scrub against the magnetic film and cause it to start degrading, likewise, the material film is recorded on will degrade from repeated playing and digital storage mediums will eventually fail if used on a regular basis but all you have to do is keep your originals, regardless of storage medium type, in a safe place, like a safe maybe, and they won't degrade, they'll outlive you, your kids, your grandkids...
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  10. Originally Posted by jman98 View Post
    One more thing. While your RAID 5 NAS is "highly unlikely" to suffer a catastrophic multiple disk failure that would kill your videos, note that "highly unlikely" is NOT the same thing as impossible. I refer you to the following:

    http://www.oubliette.org/~dberger/blog/archives/2009/02/postmortem_of_a.html

    I very strongly suggest you read that blog.

    The guy who wrote that blog used Crashplan and liked it by the way, but he did not feel that it was perfect.
    Not to mention that it isn't only the drives that can fail. Suppose the Hardware in the NAS itself dies. IT is quite possible that without an identical NAS you won't get your data back.
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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    Originally Posted by deadrats View Post
    regardless of the storage medium, be it film, magnetic, digital, if you aren't using the media repeatedly there is no degradation.

    magnetic media will degrade over time, say like a tape, but only if it's played over and over again and the heads repeatedly scrub against the magnetic film and cause it to start degrading, likewise, the material film is recorded on will degrade from repeated playing and digital storage mediums will eventually fail if used on a regular basis but all you have to do is keep your originals, regardless of storage medium type, in a safe place, like a safe maybe, and they won't degrade, they'll outlive you, your kids, your grandkids...
    Unless you are storing videotape materials in a constant low-humidity, moderate temperature environment, aging alone in most home settings is enough to degrade the bonding agent between the magnetic layer and its Mylar backing. It is not wear and tear alone that causes decay.
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    Awesome feedback! It looks like I'm on the right track, basically. Here's what I gather so far:

    • Capture all video from tape (VHS, 8MM, miniDV) to a NAS drive RAID5 arrays and a backup to external USB hard drives.
    • Cut and Paste all HD video from SD Card to NAS drive with immediate backup to an external USB hard drive. There is no such thing as an origianl tape or storage device for these video files because the SD Card needs to be cleared for new video.
    • These files should never ever change and the format should be readable for many years (avi and mts). So converting them to some format of the future isn't necessary for a long time.
    • With the files backed up to external USB drives, the files will be recoverable if the NAS drive fails for any reason whatsoever.
    • A good alternative is to back up to another NAS drive RAID5 array.
    • The ultimate is to have a backup copy stored in another location - friend, family member, safe deposit box, or even a cloud company (e.g. CrashPlan).
    • Scan the NAS disks and external USB drives regularly to catch warning signs of failure.
    • Transfer to new media every 3 to 5 years. The older drives might fail soon thereafter and/or the new media will be better and cheaper. Give the old drives to someone else who might want them or recycle them.
    • Having all the video on one NAS drive suits my editing needs. I made 2 tributes of my father and brother to be played at their funerals. Each required over 100 hours of source video spanning 25 years (not to mention pictures). I want to do many more and have stock video always available as well. It's awesome having it all in one place.
    • In case I ever need them again, store all original tapes and they should last forever. I just need to make sure I'll have equipment to play the tapes, i.e. VHS-C adapter, VCR (to play SVHS as well), 8MM, HiMM, Digital8MM, and MiniDV. As if all this isn't cumbersome enough, my professional Sony VX-2100 died so I had to buy another miniDV camcorder to transfer 250 hours of tape to the NAS drive.
    • More good tips about NAS drives and backups are in this web page: http://www.oubliette.org/~dberger/blog/archives/2009/02/postmortem_of_a.html
    • Unfortunately, this all takes tons of time and a good amount of money, but pictures and video are priceless. Right?
    Any more ideas or feedback?

    Thanks again!
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    After all these posts, you seem to overlook one important factor: the video format (codec) to which you will be capturing and storing. MiniDv and Digital8 are DV, so it is perfectly appropriate to capture as DV-AVI (through a firewire interface only; not USB).

    Yes, keep and store all your camera-original tapes, but do not assume they will last forever. (That was unreliable info you got...unless you plan to store your tapes in a salt mine down below the surface of the earth.)
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    Video-Guy,please do not cross post,one thread is enough,i have closed your other thread down.
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    You could always chisel every digital bit and byte, zero and one into granite, and hope for about 10,000 years of perpetuity... depending on which way the stone faces, weather etc....
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    Originally Posted by filmboss80 View Post
    Unless you are storing videotape materials in a constant low-humidity, moderate temperature environment, aging alone in most home settings is enough to degrade the bonding agent between the magnetic layer and its Mylar backing. It is not wear and tear alone that causes decay.
    all i know is that i have vhs tapes that were only viewed once or twice that are from when vhs first came out and they haven't degraded at all, likewise i have friends that have adult films, i mean on actual reels, back from the early seventies they still look like new when played with an old style projector, they are somewhere in the region of 40 years old now and they haven't degraded.

    for that matter there's still footage from WW1 floating around that hasn't degraded, i supposed if you were to expose said old school films to extreme conditions they would be material degradation but regardless, the OP sounds as if he's talking about digital source, all he really needs to do is backup the source to a hdd, put the hdd in a safe and he'll be fine.
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    Originally Posted by Video-Guy View Post
    • Unfortunately, this all takes tons of time and a good amount of money, but pictures and video are priceless. Right?
    Dude, we all die and nobody else will want to maintain your personal archive of downloaded Star Trek rare clips. They exist elsewhere. If you have something unique and interesting, invest some time and money. Best way is to convince someone else to archive it.
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    Originally Posted by deadrats View Post
    Originally Posted by filmboss80 View Post
    Unless you are storing videotape materials in a constant low-humidity, moderate temperature environment, aging alone in most home settings is enough to degrade the bonding agent between the magnetic layer and its Mylar backing. It is not wear and tear alone that causes decay.
    all i know is that i have vhs tapes that were only viewed once or twice that are from when vhs first came out and they haven't degraded at all, likewise i have friends that have adult films, i mean on actual reels, back from the early seventies they still look like new when played with an old style projector, they are somewhere in the region of 40 years old now and they haven't degraded.

    for that matter there's still footage from WW1 floating around that hasn't degraded, i supposed if you were to expose said old school films to extreme conditions they would be material degradation but regardless, the OP sounds as if he's talking about digital source, all he really needs to do is backup the source to a hdd, put the hdd in a safe and he'll be fine.
    As for motion picture film, you are arguing a point for which I've offered no contention. I, too, have motion picture film from many decades ago that remains pristine. I wasn't even talking about film. My point was about videotape and other forms of magnetic media. If you have VHS tapes more than 20 years old that are still looking good, then consider yourself fortunate. (You must live in a low-humidity locale.) It is uncommon in most cases, unless stored in tight temperature and humidity controlled environments.
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  19. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Although the content of digital remains eternally unchanged theoretically while still in storage, reading through this thread one gets the feeling that in the real tangible world it's storage for analog that is physically more resilient.

    Irony.
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  20. Originally Posted by PuzZLeR View Post
    Although the content of digital remains eternally unchanged theoretically while still in storage
    No. The advantage of digital is that you can copy through multiple generations and every copy is identical. Whereas the quality of analog degrades with each successive copy. The storage medium and the ability to read it remains a problem. Even more of a problem because digital technology has progressed so quickly. Do you have any Commodore 64 cassette tapes in storage? Paper tape? Eight inch floppy discs? Even 5 1/4 inch floppy drives are hard to get now.
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  21. Keep the SD card with the video on it, They don't need to be cleared, You just want to re-use them. IMHO leaving them with the recorded material on them and putting them on the shelf is one of the more durable methods.

    Originally Posted by Video-Guy View Post
    Awesome feedback! It looks like I'm on the right track, basically. Here's what I gather so far:

    • Capture all video from tape (VHS, 8MM, miniDV) to a NAS drive RAID5 arrays and a backup to external USB hard drives.
    • Cut and Paste all HD video from SD Card to NAS drive with immediate backup to an external USB hard drive. There is no such thing as an origianl tape or storage device for these video files because the SD Card needs to be cleared for new video.
    • These files should never ever change and the format should be readable for many years (avi and mts). So converting them to some format of the future isn't necessary for a long time.
    • With the files backed up to external USB drives, the files will be recoverable if the NAS drive fails for any reason whatsoever.
    • A good alternative is to back up to another NAS drive RAID5 array.
    • The ultimate is to have a backup copy stored in another location - friend, family member, safe deposit box, or even a cloud company (e.g. CrashPlan).
    • Scan the NAS disks and external USB drives regularly to catch warning signs of failure.
    • Transfer to new media every 3 to 5 years. The older drives might fail soon thereafter and/or the new media will be better and cheaper. Give the old drives to someone else who might want them or recycle them.
    • Having all the video on one NAS drive suits my editing needs. I made 2 tributes of my father and brother to be played at their funerals. Each required over 100 hours of source video spanning 25 years (not to mention pictures). I want to do many more and have stock video always available as well. It's awesome having it all in one place.
    • In case I ever need them again, store all original tapes and they should last forever. I just need to make sure I'll have equipment to play the tapes, i.e. VHS-C adapter, VCR (to play SVHS as well), 8MM, HiMM, Digital8MM, and MiniDV. As if all this isn't cumbersome enough, my professional Sony VX-2100 died so I had to buy another miniDV camcorder to transfer 250 hours of tape to the NAS drive.
    • More good tips about NAS drives and backups are in this web page: http://www.oubliette.org/~dberger/blog/archives/2009/02/postmortem_of_a.html
    • Unfortunately, this all takes tons of time and a good amount of money, but pictures and video are priceless. Right?
    Any more ideas or feedback?

    Thanks again!
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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  22. Originally Posted by filmboss80 View Post
    If you have VHS tapes more than 20 years old that are still looking good, then consider yourself fortunate. (You must live in a low-humidity locale.) It is uncommon in most cases, unless stored in tight temperature and humidity controlled environments.
    This is one of those truisms that ain't necessarily so: I have been astonished at how well my own collection of 29 year old VHS has fared thru years and years of indifferent basement storage, with temps and humidity varying widely season to season. Others I know have even worse storage factors, and equivalent durability examples. The whole urban myth of deteriorating binders/oxide is way overblown based on actual consumer experience: it just doesn't happen that often if the tapes in question were solid 80s-era TDK, Maxell or Sony recorded in SP or Beta II. If you were an ass, and re-recorded on the same tape 100 times at EP speed on a crap Emerson vcr before finally putting it in storage 25 years ago, then yeah maybe you'll have tracking problems today. But thats mostly because the slow speeds were always a tracking nightmare anyway: if you stored newish decent tapes recorded in SP, odds are they play today like they did decades ago. Unfortunately a small number of people were unlucky, and did have their wedding or baby video crap out on them and become unsalvageable: they're the ones who post all over the net with tales of tape woe, scaring everyone and supporting the "conventional wisdom" of VHS fragility. This is hard on the few people it happens to, but they are few: most tapes can sit on a shelf for ages unperturbed. Hell, I've got Sony PortaPak reels from the early 70s that still played last time I checked, and those are notorious for binder issues. Tapes stored in cool salt mines can go bad, tapes stored in humid garages can last longer than they have any right to: luck applies as well.

    That said, I did not realize when I first replied that Video-Guy's tapes were mostly VHS-C and variations of 8mm: with those formats, all bets are off and I would be more apt to agree with filmboss80's negative point of view regarding durability. VHS-C production was fraught with problems and the 8mm tape variants were one hellish mistake after another- none is known for durability. MiniDV is no paragon, either. They're certainly compact enough to hold onto in storage, but I'd concentrate more on maintaining the digital HDD copies: maintaining hardware for five or six disparate tape formats is not worth the effort, the camcorders were more fragile than the tapes and repairs are no longer available. For that matter, I'm willing to risk redundant DVD-R copies just to get rid of all my VHS clutter: convenience and digital versatility beats mass tape storage and worrying about the playback hardware holding up.
    Last edited by orsetto; 2nd Feb 2011 at 21:45.
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    I've been doing many tapes of late from the mid to late 70's recorded in Beta X-1 or X-2 and other than a few with tracking problems after 30 odd years of storage, they play remarkably well. The only problems I have found are on tapes where the recording was problematic to begin with (bad equipment, bad reception if it was a TV show, etc.). Also been doing some VHS SP and LP recorded tapes from the early to mid 80's and found the same things though they seem to have fared a bit better when it comes to tracking them. Just aquired a Panasonic ES-15 DVD recorder from a pawn shop today so I will try to get rid of some artifacting when transferring some of the old tapes I had received from contacts at the time recording in VHS LP speed. Those tapes seem to have degraded the most but are still quite watchable. The material on them is not available anywhere online that I know of which puts paid to budwzr's post about videos on Youtube. I am boycotting them anyway as they have become so paranoid that for any infraction they will take down your entire video collection rather than the offending piece. Many archivists are getting tired of that policy. Oh yeah, I must say that the better brands of tape at the time definitely have held up well. The VHS I am currently working on are on TDK Super Avilyn and Fuji Beridox. The Betas were all on Sony branded L-500s or L-750s. As to availability of hardware I'm finding it to be harder in my area (limited as it is) to find things like HD-DVD players than Beta decks (found 2 Super Beta decks in good mechanical and electronic condition in 2 months). The Panasonic Es-15 was a plus today as I don't have that model in my collection and I wanted to try it on those problematic VHS LP recorded tapes to get rid of some problems. Many pawn shops in your area probably have similar finds I wouldn't doubt but most people I know never look there...
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  24. Originally Posted by orsetto View Post
    Originally Posted by filmboss80 View Post
    If you have VHS tapes more than 20 years old that are still looking good, then consider yourself fortunate. (You must live in a low-humidity locale.) It is uncommon in most cases, unless stored in tight temperature and humidity controlled environments.
    I have to agree with Orsetto. Most of the tapes I cherish and have converted (properly stored now of course) spent years stacked up in my parents basement (that once flooded) or in hot garages for summers on end. A few of the EP tapes have noticeably degraded or have their quirks, but for the most part they are in stellar shape -- and better yet -- the quality of the VCR playback decks I have now easily blow away the crap decks I recorded and played these tapes back on in the 80s and 90s, so really these tapes look better than they ever did before. Not to say that is any way to store tapes, but I've been lucky I suppose. I have more confidence that the VHS tapes than my DVD backups in terms of playability in 20 years (so I have them on my hard drive and a backup of that too). I think storing DVDs properly will take them a long way though, although the first couple of years my storage methods were questionable at best.

    Somehow my Commodore 64 5 1/4" floppies all still work too . Those are sure a lot easier to convert digital than VHS tapes though, that's for sure.
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by PuzZLeR View Post
    Although the content of digital remains eternally unchanged theoretically while still in storage
    No. The advantage of digital is that you can copy through multiple generations and every copy is identical. Whereas the quality of analog degrades with each successive copy. The storage medium and the ability to read it remains a problem. Even more of a problem because digital technology has progressed so quickly. Do you have any Commodore 64 cassette tapes in storage? Paper tape? Eight inch floppy discs? Even 5 1/4 inch floppy drives are hard to get now.
    Yes a digital copy is always 1:1 as opposed to analog, but I was referring to the fact that the digital content remains constant as a function of time wherever it is, even if transferred to a new medium or not. The content in a CD, for example, will sound exactly the same 20 years, or even 3000 years, from now if the physical medium survives (transferred or not). It will never change - regardless of physical container, or time.

    I was making that comment because analog content not only degrades when copied, it still degrades even when not. A vinyl record, cassette tape, VHS tape will not sound, play, etc the same way 20 years later regardless of how it was used or stored. There is bound to be some degradation in some form due to fades, stretches, dropouts, whatever, etc, even to the slightest amount.

    Given a quality graph, as a function of time, there would be a declining curve representing this analog content, where the digital would have a 100% straight horizontal line.

    However, I do agree with most posts here that physical storage for analog content is generally more durable than that for digital content.
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  26. Originally Posted by PuzZLeR View Post
    I was referring to the fact that the digital content remains constant as a function of time wherever it is, even if transferred to a new medium or not. The content in a CD, for example, will sound exactly the same 20 years, or even 3000 years, from now if the physical medium survives
    Media degrade with time whether the data stored on it is analog or digital. Digital data may be less susceptible to corruption, especially if ECC is present, but it can still be corrupted.
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    Those residing north of the 35th parallel may have fewer consecutive months of high temps and humidity, thus reducing the need for long-term tape storage in climate-controlled environments, but I can assure you that aging concerns over magnetic media are neither truisms or myths. This is especially true with Ampex and JVC tapes (and even Sony when it comes to 3/4" U-matic archives). Of course, if you are conscientious about storing your archives (and I'm almost anal retentive about it), you can get a lot of good years out of your tapes.

    As for celluloid acetate based motion picture film (Regular 8, Super 8, 16mm, and 35mm), the general concerns are projector gate scratches, sprocket damage, film shrinkage, and color fading (damn you, Eastman Kodak for that last one); nevertheless, film tends to hold up much, much better over the long term than magnetic videotape.
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by PuzZLeR View Post
    I was referring to the fact that the digital content remains constant as a function of time wherever it is, even if transferred to a new medium or not. The content in a CD, for example, will sound exactly the same 20 years, or even 3000 years, from now if the physical medium survives
    Media degrade with time whether the data stored on it is analog or digital. Digital data may be less susceptible to corruption, especially if ECC is present, but it can still be corrupted.
    By now, you must have seen that ubiquitous commercial for that kitchen / home ofc. gadget (has the word "neat" somewhere in the product name, I think) -- some sort of "intelligent" scanner that is supposed to let you go paperless by digitizing anything on paper, whether it be text or image. Just for the sake of discussion, suppose that it actually lives up to their ad claims, is simple enough for anyone to use, etc. I still have to wonder how good of an idea that really is for the average Joe or Jane. One of these days, something's going to go wrong with the storage -- whatever it is -- or with the integrity of those 1s and 0s, and the user will be left truly up the creek regarding something that is important and very difficult or impossible to replace. I'm probably a dinosaur in regard to a lot of today's tech, but I rejected that idea way back when the better scanners sold for $1800. (I had one, but used it infrequently.) No thanks -- I'll stick to my filing cabinets and the actual, non-digital items, if they're worth keeping.

    Originally Posted by filmboss80
    you can get a lot of good years out of your tapes.

    As for celluloid acetate based motion picture film (Regular 8, Super 8, 16mm, and 35mm), the general concerns are projector gate scratches, sprocket damage, film shrinkage, and color fading (damn you, Eastman Kodak for that last one); nevertheless, film tends to hold up much, much better over the long term than magnetic videotape.
    Weren't recording studio masters (on tape, for LPs, and for CD sources, if that is still the way it's done) pegged at holding a 35 year longevity ? So what did they do after the 35 years were up -- transfer them with some loss, or take them digital ? Films that get the archiving / preservation type of care have special storage arrangements that should take them many decades, at least.

    If you really needed some format that could last eons -- uncorrupted, non-obsoleting, and near-indestructible -- I think there may be a long wait for that. (Anyone recall the "talking rings" from George Pal's 1960 version of "The Time Machine.")
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    Originally Posted by Seeker47 View Post
    Weren't recording studio masters (on tape, for LPs, and for CD sources, if that is still the way it's done) pegged at holding a 35 year longevity ?
    I have mentioned climate-controlled archival environments. Also, many studios store their master recordings in excavated salt mines. No joke. Home recording enthusiasts don't have the same resources.

    In trying to preserve/restore warped magnetic sound recordings, there is the last-resort of "baking" the tapes (literally); but this is a job best left to the experts.
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by PuzZLeR View Post
    I was referring to the fact that the digital content remains constant as a function of time wherever it is, even if transferred to a new medium or not. The content in a CD, for example, will sound exactly the same 20 years, or even 3000 years, from now if the physical medium survives
    Media degrade with time whether the data stored on it is analog or digital. Digital data may be less susceptible to corruption, especially if ECC is present, but it can still be corrupted.
    Of course even digital content can be corrupted, but, unless I'm misunderstanding something, isn't that a physical problem? ECC/FEC check for integrity of data regarding imperfections in the storage, RAM or even from electrical disturbances, or simply because it has moving parts (although I'm no expert on this). Sorry my friend, I'm still not convinced. Data corruptions to me are not a result of a change in data due to time, but a change in data due to the physical media which holds it (unlike analog where change is inevitable regardless of how well-kept it's media container is).
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