Whether digital media will be as enduring as 'conventional' photographs have been I very much doubt.
We have relatively few photographs from 'the past' - so they are cherished, whereas the vast amount of digital images (on non-visual media - that might not be recognised) means that they are unlikely to survive.
In order to ensure that we leave a legacy for our descendants we should establish some sort of visual archive rather than merely storing these on various 'blind' devices that will probably deteriorate or become obsolete (where can you listen to cassette tapes, never mind floppy discs). Even hard drives have evolved from IDE to SATA and so may no longer be readable on modern computers (even IF they could be identified).
Printed photographs often have notes and names written on the back that give clues to the identity of the subjects. Few digital images have such information associated with them.
So how should we store those digital photographs so that they can be seen (and interpreted) by our descendants 100 years from now? CDs or DVDs you might say, but how confident can you be that these will be readable even 10 years from now?
I keep my photos on DVD's, memory sticks and multiple external hard drives. Keeping them in one location or single memory type is not a good idea - just for the problem you pose. Furthermore if they are kept in one location only then the loss or failure of that location, be it a hard drive or DVD, will mean the loss of your photos.
If in future one of those memory choices becomes obsolete (e.g. DVD's) then you have the other memory types (e.g. memory stick) and you can transfer the photos to the new memory types that will appear in the future.
I don't think this is such a problem as you think. I've been creating digital photos for about 8 years now and originally backed up onto CD/DVD's, as my hard drive was limited. I'm now on my 5th computer which has an enormous hard drive, and I automatically back up daily onto an even bigger external hard drive. This is further backed up onto laptops and/or large capacity memory sticks. (I have to admit that I use my computers professionally, but the costs to do this backup are minimal)
I retain all sorts of other digital media and records in these places. As computers and software progress I've always found that it's normal, indeed essential, that early versions of software can be read by later versions. If not, it would't be commercially viable. Imagine an ad: "Buy new Microsoft Word 2010!! (sorry, not compatible with earlier versions)"
It could be argued that if my house were to burn down all could be lost, so perhaps, if I want 100% security I should store a version off site or on line...you've got me thinking of doing that now! But I believe that most hard drives could be read after being involved in a fire - could some computer mechanic comment?
The difference between old media such as LP's, cassette tapes, videotapes etc and digital records is that you need a device to read them. Remember you can no longer buy a video recorder! If a family's or an organisation's digital records can be transferred incrementally from computer to computer (even if, at stages, software conversions into newer formats have to be performed) there's no reason why they shouldn't be available in 100+ years (climate allowing).
I've got a suitcase full of old family photos (as most of us have) going back to the early 1920's, and I believe they're in more danger through fire, theft, vandalism, deterioration, water damage, negligence etc than my digital records. I'd do well to scan them in to save digitally.
Can't agree with the previous two posts. Transferring from one medium to another is a never-ending task, and if you miss a couple of generations of media you will end up with unreadable media. Future generations of our descendants may not be able to read them at all.
Problem with any visible medium is size. I have just re-organised all of last years photos onto one DVD. Half a DVD equals a suitcase full of visible photos - trouble is we take so many with the size of memory cards today.
Then, again, if we went to the trouble of cutting down to the minimum number we wanted to keep - what visible media is really good long-term. Some of my early 8mm cine films (1960s) are almost falling apart now. Ordinary prints (I have some family ones from maybe 70-80 years ago) are surviving reasonably well, so maybe they are the ones to keep, but slides and negatives look a bit pale.
Even worse, though, - what do I do with my videos. I'm already on 3rd generation camcorder. Most of the first two were transferred to VHS, but they are not going to be watchable for much longer, and there is probably 200-300 hours of work to transfer these to DVD, then the same again to whatever comes next (plus the extra 50 hours I've taken in the meantime!!)
Location: N23.34.53 E058.16.37 unless the 'Boss' needs to be somewhere else!
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where can you listen to cassette tapes,
In the new set of wheels I've just purchased! An all-singing, all-dancing Kenwood 'audio device' enables CDs, Tapes, MP3 + Ipod connection, problem is I don't have any cassettes to play!
Off thread drift, I have all my digital photos on CDs, external hard drives AND memory sticks, different programmes enable you to tag photos with descriptions and date etc, so that the problem with 'fading ink' has gone!
Different problem with prints as I really don't have a good enough scanner to do them complete justice, though again there are a lot of programmes that can reasonably enhance them enough.
This thread is of particular interest to me right now. and the point that G-CTPN makes about the backs is very valid, and sometimes I scan the back and contrive to have the file names so that they stay together. I'll find one in particular when I get a moment. Mother's side hails from Ooop North, it would be a surprise if someone knew the photographers...or even the people!
I spread the DVDs round the kids in two different countries. It's been a huge amount of work, and I don't want to lose it.
I feel the only safe way is to pressure the kids to keep it updated, or refreshed, but their lives are so full right now that they only have passing interest in dead people. Funnily though, the Americans will buy old family photos, frame and hang them, even though they have no idea who they are.
Not all Americans.
One of the greatest burdens when I sold my long term family home in Essex, was the photos. I said 'they will take a couple of hours to sort'. Two days later, and with a dustbin full of rejects, I still had a box too big to lift. I wasn't even a keen photographer!
I spend hours scanning and trying to organize them. The other night, I waited 13 mins for <2 gigs to go onto a stick just to update it.
Does anyone know if it was that long because I left them in Thumbnails? (Certainly I got problems when trying to copy them to a DVD while in Thumbnail view mode.Got a question about at Thumb file for every pic! )
To me, these are very precious. I have a glass plate 8 x 10 of my g-grandmother, grandmother and g-aunt. The detail is stunning, being able to see the threads of the blouses etc.. I gather it may have been coated at the time and the picture taken while wet. It was then hand touched up, which is a bit of history I suppose.
Other pics from a leather bound album are beyond belief when viewed on a computer screen. I've had these around all my life, but never really been able to get the atmosphere of the moment while on small prints.
Maybe though, it's just an age thing...looking into the eyes of my ancestors.
I'm trying to make the point that once your media has gone digital it's easy to keep it current. Yes, to copy store and recover audio from 78's (remember them?) to 45's, tape, cassette, video etc would be a pain. Once any of these formats are digitised, the information can be manipulated and stored in multiple locations very simply and cheaply. With such a large market it's difficult to see a time when Jpeg file formats aren't recognised or recoverable and transferrable into a future format.
I don't think it's a case of some archeologist in the future finding my old HP laptop and not recognising it. All this digital material can be saved incrementally, (I'm already doing this as I replace my computer/storage media every two or three years, like many of us) thus keeping the storage media new and in good condition.
WP
Last edited by Whiskey Papa : 4th December 2008 at 19:47.
Without wanting to enter the negative/digital argument I have to say I still retain a fondness for the old style of photographic archives ie negative.
I used to use a monorail 5 x 4 inch camera the results of which were only surpassed by it's 10 x 8 inch big brother. Think of the stunning quality you get from a neg about the size of an A4 sheet of paper. But storing the negs was a precise and careful science. There will always be the hardware to print from negs so the question of image retreval is not really an issue.
But digital info can and is stored in various ways and the technology is very dynamic. How do we future proof the present means of storage?
at the risk of repeating something posted on another thread, i store all my photos on at least three different media AND have built up a large archive of hard copies.
new printing machines at my local asda print 6x4s at less than 25p a copy, but the real bargain is 10x8s at about a quid.
these machines us good quality paper and inks so fading should be no more of a problem than traditional methods.
i used to print my own b&w 10X8s and they always ended up costing more than i pay now!!!
Simple - we don't have to future-proof our digital records; indeed we cannot.
But why would a future software/hardware developer exclude his customers from retaining and using all digital media produced to date. It doesn't make commercial sense.
A thought from the The Council on Library and Information Resources
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One method for determining end of life for a disc is based on the number of errors on a disc before the error correction occurs. The chance of disc failure increases with the number of errors, but it is impossible to define the number of errors in a disc that will absolutely cause a performance problem (minor or catastrophic) because it depends on the number of errors left, after error correction, and their distribution within the data. When the number of errors (before error correction) on a disc increases to a certain level, the chance of disc failure, even if small, can be deemed unacceptable and thus signal the disc's end of life.
Manufacturers tend to use this premise to estimate media longevity. They test discs by using accelerated ageing methodologies with controlled extreme temperature and humidity influences over a relatively short period of time. However, it is not always clear how a manufacturer interprets its measurements for determining a disc's end of life. Among the manufacturers that have done testing, there is consensus that, under recommended storage conditions, CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R discs should have a life expectancy of 100 to 200 years or more;
(my bolding)
The thing to do therefore is to store them on top quality DVDs and, if it appears that they are becoming obsolete then transfer them to what is going to supersede them.
I've got some negatives of photos and the original prints taken at Hendon airshows with a box camera in 1911.
They survived in a cardboard box, the first 60 years in my wife's grandfather's wardrobe and since 1977, in mine. They're still in excellent condition.
One day I'll get the sole remaining Spitfire film from 1955 put onto DVD.
Before my rant below .... I should point out there is some excellent (and free !) material to get you started on the National Archives website on the subject of Digital Preservation.
So how should we store those digital photographs so that they can be seen (and interpreted) by our descendants 100 years from now? CDs or DVDs you might say, but how confident can you be that these will be readable even 10 years from now?
Oh come, come .... surely you should have enough experience with IT to know :
(a) That nothing will last 100 years. Irrespective of whether it is turned on or off, or whether or not it has moving parts.
The only way you will be able to approach a decade, let alone anywhere near 100 years is if you keep your storage medium in a perfect environment, which I can almost guarantee you will not have in your house (hint: I'm talking Precision Air Conditioning units .... and that's just the start of it).
(b) It's not like the change will happen overnight. Just migrate your data to the next medium once it is sufficiently developed and tested, and you will have nothing to worry about.
(c) people who are really serious about having access in 100 years will keep the means to read it as well as the storage medium itself.
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Few digital images have such information associated with them.
Oh yes they do, in the commercial environment .... it's just that your average home user can't be bothered to catalogue to the same extent....
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under recommended storage conditions, CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R discs should have a life expectancy of 100 to 200 years or more;
(my bolding)
The thing to do therefore is to store them on top quality DVDs and, if it appears that they are becoming obsolete then transfer them to what is going to supersede them.
Green Granite, you forgot to bold the words "under recommended storage conditions"
The Long Now Foundation has been looking at very-long-term archival methods, and have a few ideas here:
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The key concepts to remember here are Format, Media, Metadata, and Multiple copies. FMMM, if you will. Giving a little attention to each of these elements can ensure that your data will survive at least until the next great technology change, and most likely beyond it.
I don't personally feel that my digital data has to outlast me. Most of it will be little use without me. Given how common digital cameras are now, the photos I've taken with mine aren't worth much. There may be bits that others will want to hang on to, but the bulk of it can go when I do.
This is a question that has vexed me - my solution is to keep copies of files on an on-line storage system (I use BT's Digital Vault) hoping that BT or whoever they become in the future will maintain this resource for a good few years to come (or at least give me some warning if they plan to discontinue it to give me a chance to switch to another such provider). I keep my own copies of all files on my PC & laptop with regular back-ups to DVD. I suppose in time I'll switch over to Blu-ray and so on.
I did hear recently that most digital media would only be last (i.e. be usable) around 20 years un-tended. There is definitely a gap in the market for long-term data storage - no doubt the Sonys/3Ms of the world are working hard to develop such technologies (whatever happened to gold CDs?)
I wonder if the material used would make much difference to the damage done by fluctuating magnetic fields. We know that currents can be induced into aluminium, that's how old speedos worked, but just how a sustained field would break down the inner media, I have no idea. (I haven't read the links yet however.)
The thing about printed photos is that when you come across them in a pile of old junk you can immediately see what they are without any specialist equipment.
In years to come, yes it will probably still be possible to get hold of equipment to read old CDs, DVDs, USB memory sticks etc. But we probably won't have this equipment hanging around the house.
There will be billions of old CDs, DVDs etc around - but most will be poorly labelled and it won't be obvious which contain valuable images. Consequently many will get discarded and images lost.
I guess the power of digital media is that multiple copies can exist very easily. So the way to ensure survival is simply to breed more of them (just like certain species in nature ensure survival of their species which are fragile in isolation)
The Egyptians were ahead of us here I think: They carved their memories/events/stories into the hardest medium they could work with and this has stood the test of time
.....I do wonder if, for example a catastrophic event happened....*right now*.....how much of the worlds knowledge would be accessible to the survivors? Very little. Almost nil. Books can burn. Servers and computers are useless without electricity. Electricity cant be made without knowledge. Knowledge is on the servers/computers/books or in the minds of a small number of people (equally susceptible to the catastrophic event)........would we have to start from scratch again? has the world existed in these cycles for ever?
.... I should point out there is some excellent (and free !) material to get you started on the National Archives website on the subject of Digital Preservation.
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