As a video historian and archivist myself, I'm really interested in your opinions on what you think the long term archive format of the future is going to be. I'm just chilled by the thought of no longer having a piece of physical media I can hold in my hand and put on a shelf and KNOW that as long as the playback equipment is cared for, I have a viable product 10, 20 hopefully 50 years down the road. Who knows what computer file formats will be supported or still viable on those time frames? To say nothing about how easily a computer file can become corrupted or unusable for a multitude of other reasons. Posterity is in great danger of losing priceless material to cybernetic oblivion.

Where do we go from here?  How do we prevent this from happening in the digital world?

 I'm actually working on a storage medium myself that is the size of a DVD case for future recording, mastering, and storage of cameras that produce an image of upto 36k (even though we're only at 4k right now). It would still be file-based storage but, the decks I'm planing on making would always be compatiable with the files (DPX, JPEG2000, TIFF, and some of the most common video formats, and of course new ones to take care of newer cameras.). Just need a ton of funding before I can start R&D. I'm open to suggestions too, if you have any for something like this.

Film is the archival medium for the future.

It is high quality, relies on well understood and very simple technology and lasts indefinitely in the right conditions.

VGUK2:

Film is the archival medium for the future.

It is high quality, relies on well understood and very simple technology and lasts indefinitely in the right conditions.

 

I will never use film as an archive medium. All your doing is taking that clean, perfect Digital image and introducing that ****, people call film grain.

You might not but many will.

If you think film grain is an issue you haven't understood the process.

 My concern about film stock is when a point in time is reached where Hollywood as a whole adopts digital imaging all the way from acquisition to theater distribution of the final product, the days of film stock manufacturing will clearly be numbered. I would think that less than 10 years from now, all film stocks will be discontinued because without Hollywood there would never be enough demand in the marketplace to justify it. Thoughts?

VGUK2:

You might not but many will.

If you think film grain is an issue you haven't understood the process.

I don't want any film grain visible at all in my frame... It just simply looks like crap. That's one and only reason I shoot video over film. Sure digital has the equal of digital noise, but if you light properly there is none what so ever.

Retrieving the digital image from an analogue medium is tried and tested and grain is easily dispensed with using digital means as too are scratches.

Whichever digital means we choose to store our media can we be sure that in 10, 20 100 or 1000 years they will still be able to be accessed?  Surely this is the point of archiving.  The HDDs I bought five years ago don't work or are incompatible with current technology.  A digital archive medium today would probably not be around in five or ten years probably sooner.  I've got a load of Beta tapes that I can no longer play as the player died ages ago this is the fate of digital backups to be lost when the players die.

The increase of digital acquisition does not mean the death of film is imminent in fact it ushers in a new era as an archival medium.  Film is simple and fool proof.  Heck, you can even hold it up to the light and see the images.

Humans in a hundred years time and maybe a thousand years will be watching film not some son of blu-ray to learn about our time.

 Yes indeed, the point of archiving is to preserve priceless, irreplaceable material for future generations. It does seem to me as well that some kind of physical medium is needed to assure accessability across the decades and eventually centuries, as I just don't believe that any digital computer file format can provide that sort of "peace of mind".  I have lots of 3/4 inch umatics that are still playable because I've recently had my 3/4 inch machine refurbished so I can back up the more important material to DVD, which is the only physical medium today that I even begin to trust.  By the way, anybody out there know of a source I can explore to find one of the old 3/4 inch umatic tape evaluator/cleaner units?

For the next 10 years BluRay in some form. Personally XDCam disks work well here. The worklow has just got better with the disks now allowing almost any computer file to be written to them. XDCam, EX, P2 any Avid media.  The drive is $3K (approx) standard USB2 connection and the disks hold up to 50 GB's with instant random access.

More expensive than harddrives but far easier to manage when your storage needs runs to multiple harddrives. With more than 20 300+Gb backup HD's here and increasing at 2 to 4 a month it is staring to become a management and disk storage nightmare. 

A disk into a permanently connected device is also easier and quicker than reconnecting HD's

AndrewAction:

A disk into a permanently connected device is also easier and quicker than reconnecting HD's

Well what about a drive that slides into a permantly connected device? like the drives on the Codex Digital recorders. Anyway, the tech. I'm looking into would be able to hold atleast 9TB of storage in something no bigger than a a single DVD case. With the goal of making the storage drives slightly higher in price than current bluray discs.

I'm so sick of disc technology, as they require moving parts and a laser to read the material.

 So allow me to speculate for a minute - hypothesis - digital recording formats cannot be depended on for long term (decades) storage and retrieval. Potential solution - a new high quality lossless analogue format is needed. 

Your speculation on what this new state of the art analogue format should be.

 I'd put my money on ssd technology. (solid state disk or solid state memory if you will) No moving parts, less expensive compared to film in about 4 years, small, easier to store, if in the right kind of container fire, water and idiot proof. Though if you look to store information over a period of more then 1000 years.... well.... the oldest info on record still existing today would be the clay tablets the sumerians left us.

Andrew McCarrick:

Well what about a drive that slides into a permantly connected device

I vaguely followed research into recording 15 layers on DVDs but think dual layer is more optimum. I also followed people claiming huge compressions that were supposed to be lossless and we are not there yet.

Andrew McCarrick:

hold atleast 9TB of storage in something no bigger than a a single DVD case

AndrewAction:

I am a fan of smaller capacities and using more of them.

I would definitely agree with this, so long as the physical medium is small enough (or thin enough) to accommodate much larger volumes of individual "units" for lack of a better term, in storage.  Having source material catalogued and cross referenced by individual entities is the way I would want to go.