Film Lover's Lament

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 02:48:23 GMT, "Jeremy" wrote:

Actually, that is the problem. Libraries and archives, throughout all of
history, have never been required to migrate their collections over to new
formats.

I suggest you talk to a librarian or an archivist. Both do this all
the time as a routine part of their jobs, whenever the information has
value beyond that of the physical artifact or whenever they have to
disseminate the information in a new way.

Daguerreotypes. Acetate movie film. Edison cylinders. Wire
recordings. Reel-to-reel recording tape (especially acetate).
Limited edition phonograph records. Books printed on non-acid
free paper. Microfiche and microfilm. The list goes on, up to
and including BetaMax tapes and Videodiscs.

Nor is this a new concept. The Rosetta Stone was little more
than an internal PR piece, yet has the information stored in three
different formats.

The problem is that most people view archiving from the wrong end of
the timeline. True, neglected materials from 100 or more years ago
survive and are viewable today. But that's a retrospective view.
For the most part, we don't know what didn't survive. I can't tell
you how many books, magazines, slides, photographs and tapes I've
watched go into landfills, simply because no one made any provisions for
curation.

The original Lotus 1-2-3 file format is no longer supported, and any
spreadsheets created in the original DOS version of Lotus cannot be decoded.

Not true. The specs for the format are available in book form, and
there are still products available for download which read .WKS and
..WK1. Example: http://www.triusinc.com/asa57.htm.

There are some formats which are either dead or very close to it.
Finding a working Apple Lisa which could read the diskettes saved
by the original Macintosh development system took a year, and that
was over a decade ago. I doubt there are many bubble memory readers
which survive, either.

I read that there is not a specialty called "Digital Archeology," that
attempts to decode obsolete file formats! If this is where we are after
only three decades, where will we be in three centuries?

Pretty much where we are today. That content and information which
has perceived value gets saved and migrated. That which does not
mainly gets discarded, which the occasional piece surviving through
the years.

If you want your digital files to survive you, impress on your heirs
their importance and make provisions for donation, transport and an
endowment for curation in your will. Or help me figure out a business
plan for http://www.wemightneedthat.biz.

--
Michael Benveniste --
Spam and UCE professionally evaluated for $419. Use this email
address only to submit mail for evaluation.

Jeremy wrote:
Kodak has gone on record recommending that
consumers consider making prints of special shots, and keeping them stored
in archival albums, just in case their digital files are lost due to
corruption of the media they are stored on.

Funny how Kodak keeps recommending that people use their products.

There is some truth to what they say and I do make a number of prints.

So far from personal experiance this is what I have seen.
Digital images have lasted the best,
next is prints.
next slides
last negatives.

I am not saying that digital storage does not have risks, but with a
bit of care they can
be pretty much eliminated.

Scott

"Scott W" wrote in message
oups.com...
Jeremy wrote:
Kodak has gone on record recommending that
consumers consider making prints of special shots, and keeping them
stored
in archival albums, just in case their digital files are lost due to
corruption of the media they are stored on.

Funny how Kodak keeps recommending that people use their products.

There is some truth to what they say and I do make a number of prints.

So far from personal experiance this is what I have seen.
Digital images have lasted the best,
next is prints.
next slides
last negatives.

I am not saying that digital storage does not have risks, but with a
bit of care they can
be pretty much eliminated.

Scott


The National Archives does not agree with you.

When the Clinton Administration ended, they looked for a way to archive the
millions of email messages that were on the White House mail servers. They
ended up printing them onto paper, then microfilming the paper and also
storing the paper.

The Department of Defense requires certain sensitive or critical
plans/schematics/operating instructions to be submitted on microfilm, in
addition to any other electronic format such as PDF.

Part of the 1970 US Census has become lost to us, because the data files can
no longer be read. One of NASA's missions to Mars has had a portion of its
data lost because of corrupt and unreadable digital storage.

Colin D wrote:


no_name wrote:

JimKramer wrote:


Bandicoot wrote:


"Tony" wrote in message
r.com...


There is nothing like the security of a piece of medium that has to go
through a chemical bath process run by a minimum wage kid more interested

in


oogling the better looking customers than keeping an eye on his machine.


But if security of the medium is your interest, then that isn't the sort of
place that you get your processing done, now is it?



Peter


But, here at least (Chapel Hill/RTP/Raleigh/Durham), it is hard to find
anyone but that to do the processing, I've been through all of the
local labs including the "professional" ones and I still get obvious
drip marks and scratches on my slides and mis-mounted slides. If I pay
a premium rate I expect a premium service and that doesn't seem to be
available here.

Jim


That's not been my experience with JW Photo Labs or with NC Tricolor.


It has been mine - or strictly, my daughter's. A number of Fuji
transparency films she took on a visit to Alaska, irreplaceable, were
processed through C-41 at a Fuji Image Plaza.

To my knowledge, neither JW Photo nor NC Tricolor is a Fuji Image Plaza.

I've seen Fuji Image Plazas at Wolf/Ritz Camera and other one hour
locations, but not at the two pro labs I know of in Raleigh.


The result was about 200
grossly contrasty negative images, every one of which I inverted and
massaged in PS to get passable but not good prints. Trouble was, she
took slides deliberately for lecture purposes at her uni.

My old dad used to say "If possible, always retain the initiative. If
you give it to somebody else, you have lost control." Boy, he was
right.

Colin D.

And I seem to remember the earlier thread about the Alaska trip slides
getting processed in C-41 chemistry, that they were taken to a mini-lab
at Costco.

Where BTW, they ONLY DO C-41 PROCESSING.

Again, you are unfairly mischaracterizing pro labs in the triangle based
on your experience with a one hour lab.

Jeremy wrote:

"Scott W" wrote in message
oups.com...
Jeremy wrote:
Kodak has gone on record recommending that
consumers consider making prints of special shots, and keeping them
stored
in archival albums, just in case their digital files are lost due to
corruption of the media they are stored on.

Funny how Kodak keeps recommending that people use their products.

There is some truth to what they say and I do make a number of prints.

So far from personal experiance this is what I have seen.
Digital images have lasted the best,
next is prints.
next slides
last negatives.

I am not saying that digital storage does not have risks, but with a
bit of care they can
be pretty much eliminated.

Scott


The National Archives does not agree with you.

When the Clinton Administration ended, they looked for a way to archive the
millions of email messages that were on the White House mail servers. They
ended up printing them onto paper, then microfilming the paper and also
storing the paper.

I bet they kept digital files as well, and the microfilm/paper versions
were intended as secondary backups only.

The tone of your post seems fixated on the problems of digital storage,
but there are considerable problems with physical or analog storage as
well. The sheer space requirements, indexing, and searchability issues
are major with document storage. Imagine someone saying "I remember
Bill Clinton mentioning something about xyz in an email, way back." How
would you set about finding that email in a pile of millions of email
printouts? Or on microfilm? Whereas, searching a digital archive would
return you *all* mentions of xyz in a fraction of a second, as you no
doubt know.

Basically, once the amount of data stored with hard copy or analog
methods exceeds a critical point, that data is already effectively lost,
since the effort to find a given piece is beyond the time available to
find it, and the relevance decreases with time as well. Lawyers have
this problem with case law.

The Department of Defense requires certain sensitive or critical
plans/schematics/operating instructions to be submitted on microfilm, in
addition to any other electronic format such as PDF.

Again, I would think as secondary backup.

Part of the 1970 US Census has become lost to us, because the data files can
no longer be read. One of NASA's missions to Mars has had a portion of its
data lost because of corrupt and unreadable digital storage.

Part of the census problem is, as mentioned above, the sheer volume of
data from hundreds of millions of people, not to mention the statistical
derivations from that data. Way back in the year 1890, Hollerith
invented a sortable system of cards with punched holes around the
perimeter, to aid in speeding up the census results. In the 1900's IBM
and others got into the act with early computers. The actual census
returns were and are still stored as paper, and whatever calculations
and statistical results are required are now done with the computer data
derived from the paper. It is simply impossible to do it any other way
within a useful timeframe.

The parts of the 1970 census you say have been lost could be recovered
from the original stored paper - if sombody had the time and necessity
to do so. And that highlights what I said earlier about that data being
effectively lost, even though it still exists.

Nasa has lost more than that Mars episode. But, is it really lost? or
is it stored in a now unreadable format? This is the same problem that
those concerned about digital archival storage keep mentioning -
compatibility lost because of neglect to transfer the data to newer
standards. If they *really* needed to read that data, they could locate
or build gear that could do it. If the effort is greater than the need,
then it won't get done.

A new paradigm is needed here. Old ideas of archiving data meant
physical storage in a controlled environment, to preserve the original
documents as long as possible. Data was not considered as being
separate from the medium on which it is stored. Data storage was
evolutionary; better climate control, inert gas storage, low-light
environment, all of which extended the life of the media, but when the
media finally becomes unusable the data is lost.

The paradigm needs to be shifted to realize that the *information*
stored is what is being kept, not the medium on which it is stored. And
if it is trivial to transport the information to new media at intervals,
then that is what should be done.

Paper will eventually decay, microfilm will eventually decay.
*Information* decays along with it. Until now. We have, with digital
storage, the capability to store data *for ever*, without decay, simply
by regular and timely transfer of data to new media. That capability,
in anyone's language, is a revolution.

Colin D.

no_name wrote:

Colin D wrote:

It has been mine - or strictly, my daughter's. A number of Fuji
transparency films she took on a visit to Alaska, irreplaceable, were
processed through C-41 at a Fuji Image Plaza.

To my knowledge, neither JW Photo nor NC Tricolor is a Fuji Image Plaza.

I've seen Fuji Image Plazas at Wolf/Ritz Camera and other one hour
locations, but not at the two pro labs I know of in Raleigh.

You're way off beam here, friend. This Image Plaza is in Hong Kong.
Where the hell is Raleigh?

The result was about 200
grossly contrasty negative images, every one of which I inverted and
massaged in PS to get passable but not good prints. Trouble was, she
took slides deliberately for lecture purposes at her uni.

My old dad used to say "If possible, always retain the initiative. If
you give it to somebody else, you have lost control." Boy, he was
right.

Colin D.

And I seem to remember the earlier thread about the Alaska trip slides
getting processed in C-41 chemistry, that they were taken to a mini-lab
at Costco.

Where BTW, they ONLY DO C-41 PROCESSING.

Yes there was an earlier thread, last year, about this topic. You can
find it in Google groups if you have a mind to.

Sorry to prick your bubble there, noname, but you are completely wrong,
and further, your using caps to 'correct' me puts you right in the
'asshole' category.

The slide films in question were my daughter's, an associate professor
at Hong Kong University, and they were processed in Hong Kong, China, at
a Fuji 1-hour lab in Discovery bay, Lantau Island, Hong Kong. They
should have sent the films to the lab where they process Fuji slide
film, but they didn't read the cassette labelling, and shoved them
through the Frontier.

There is no Costco in Hong Kong, and to the best of my knowledge Hong
Kong is not in America.

Again, you are unfairly mischaracterizing pro labs in the triangle based
on your experience with a one hour lab.

Say what? Again what? Unfairly? triangle? What the hell are you on
about? Your mistaken memory has led you astray here, is the most
charitable thing I can say.

Perhaps you might like to look up the original thread in Google, and
start again.

Colin D.

In article LPZTf.3027$4N1.2160@trnddc06, Jeremy wrote:

"Scott W" wrote in message
roups.com...

I am not saying that digital storage does not have risks, but with a
bit of care they can
be pretty much eliminated.

Scott


The National Archives does not agree with you.

When the Clinton Administration ended, they looked for a way to archive the
millions of email messages that were on the White House mail servers. They
ended up printing them onto paper, then microfilming the paper and also
storing the paper.

The Department of Defense requires certain sensitive or critical
plans/schematics/operating instructions to be submitted on microfilm, in
addition to any other electronic format such as PDF.

To be fair to the digital guys, the Department of Defense, and the defense
and aerospace industries in general, are very conservative and tend to be
slow to commit to new technologies.
--
"The main, if not the only, function of the word aether has been to
furnish a nominative case to the verb 'to undulate'."
-- the Earl of Salisbury, 1894

"Colin D" wrote in message
...


Jeremy wrote:

"Scott W" wrote in message
oups.com...
Jeremy wrote:
Kodak has gone on record recommending that
consumers consider making prints of special shots, and keeping them
stored
in archival albums, just in case their digital files are lost due to
corruption of the media they are stored on.

Funny how Kodak keeps recommending that people use their products.

There is some truth to what they say and I do make a number of prints.

So far from personal experiance this is what I have seen.
Digital images have lasted the best,
next is prints.
next slides
last negatives.

I am not saying that digital storage does not have risks, but with a
bit of care they can
be pretty much eliminated.

Scott


The National Archives does not agree with you.

When the Clinton Administration ended, they looked for a way to archive
the
millions of email messages that were on the White House mail servers.
They
ended up printing them onto paper, then microfilming the paper and also
storing the paper.

I bet they kept digital files as well, and the microfilm/paper versions
were intended as secondary backups only.

The tone of your post seems fixated on the problems of digital storage,
but there are considerable problems with physical or analog storage as
well. The sheer space requirements, indexing, and searchability issues
are major with document storage. Imagine someone saying "I remember
Bill Clinton mentioning something about xyz in an email, way back." How
would you set about finding that email in a pile of millions of email
printouts? Or on microfilm? Whereas, searching a digital archive would
return you *all* mentions of xyz in a fraction of a second, as you no
doubt know.

Basically, once the amount of data stored with hard copy or analog
methods exceeds a critical point, that data is already effectively lost,
since the effort to find a given piece is beyond the time available to
find it, and the relevance decreases with time as well. Lawyers have
this problem with case law.

The Department of Defense requires certain sensitive or critical
plans/schematics/operating instructions to be submitted on microfilm, in
addition to any other electronic format such as PDF.

Again, I would think as secondary backup.

Part of the 1970 US Census has become lost to us, because the data files
can
no longer be read. One of NASA's missions to Mars has had a portion of
its
data lost because of corrupt and unreadable digital storage.

Part of the census problem is, as mentioned above, the sheer volume of
data from hundreds of millions of people, not to mention the statistical
derivations from that data. Way back in the year 1890, Hollerith
invented a sortable system of cards with punched holes around the
perimeter, to aid in speeding up the census results. In the 1900's IBM
and others got into the act with early computers. The actual census
returns were and are still stored as paper, and whatever calculations
and statistical results are required are now done with the computer data
derived from the paper. It is simply impossible to do it any other way
within a useful timeframe.

The parts of the 1970 census you say have been lost could be recovered
from the original stored paper - if sombody had the time and necessity
to do so. And that highlights what I said earlier about that data being
effectively lost, even though it still exists.

Nasa has lost more than that Mars episode. But, is it really lost? or
is it stored in a now unreadable format? This is the same problem that
those concerned about digital archival storage keep mentioning -
compatibility lost because of neglect to transfer the data to newer
standards. If they *really* needed to read that data, they could locate
or build gear that could do it. If the effort is greater than the need,
then it won't get done.

A new paradigm is needed here. Old ideas of archiving data meant
physical storage in a controlled environment, to preserve the original
documents as long as possible. Data was not considered as being
separate from the medium on which it is stored. Data storage was
evolutionary; better climate control, inert gas storage, low-light
environment, all of which extended the life of the media, but when the
media finally becomes unusable the data is lost.

The paradigm needs to be shifted to realize that the *information*
stored is what is being kept, not the medium on which it is stored. And
if it is trivial to transport the information to new media at intervals,
then that is what should be done.

Paper will eventually decay, microfilm will eventually decay.
*Information* decays along with it. Until now. We have, with digital
storage, the capability to store data *for ever*, without decay, simply
by regular and timely transfer of data to new media. That capability,
in anyone's language, is a revolution.

Colin D.

Well, there is no point in your arguing this with ME--you should call the
various Government departments that insist upon microfilm and tell them that
they've got it all wrong . . .

You are apparently convinced that long term archiving (i.e. for centuries)
is a simple affair--one that can be easily implemented. From what I've been
reading, institutions charged with maintaining digital collections do not
seem to agree with your perspective.

While digitization clearly offers benefits for short time horizon uses,
people that a re a lot smarter than me have gone on record as saying that
there are long-term issues that have yet to be solved, and that analog
storage offers a margin of safety for the time being.

By the way, the Census data CANNOT be reconstructed, because the paper
original documents were destroyed, leaving only the digital data. Did you
really think that the Census Bureau was just too lazy to go back to the
paper originals?

"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote in message

To be fair to the digital guys, the Department of Defense, and the defense
and aerospace industries in general, are very conservative and tend to be
slow to commit to new technologies.
--

I find it rather incredible that you would dismiss the procedures that have
been established by experts--with just the proverbial wave of the hand--as
though they were a bunch of people that are unable to keep up with progress.

You are expressing opinions as though they were fact.

Jeremy wrote:

snip

By the way, the Census data CANNOT be reconstructed, because the paper
original documents were destroyed, leaving only the digital data. Did you
really think that the Census Bureau was just too lazy to go back to the
paper originals?

No, I would have thought that sifting through 200 million or so census
papers (or, if stored by State, still four or more million) was not
cost-effective, so was vetoed by government. It would have meant
comparing every paper with the digital record to find the missing ones,
a huge task. In fact, it would probably be simpler to just re-enter the
entire census again.

The original census papers were destroyed? That surprises me, Jeremy.
My wife is a genealogist, and she subscribes to various websites and
buys dozens of CD's with digitized images from old English Census
papers, going back to 1841, the year of the first real census in
England. These are still stored by the Public Records Office in
England, and have been accessed by people like Rod Neep for the purpose
of making digital records of the original papers which are then
available for all interested parties.

My own country, New Zealand, destroyed census records until some time in
the 1900's, a wanton act of vandalism IMHO, but I am totally surprised
that the USA has detroyed theirs.

Colin D.