Going back to film...

Neil Gould wrote:


Now that the basis for your opinion is established by comments that
reflect a lack of experience and technical knowledge of the issues
that affect the longevity of writable materials, I will bow out of
this discussion.


And note Allen asks you to "quote sources" in response to being asked
where he gets this "information" he posts.. He has yet to supply one
source for anything he has posted in this thread.

Stephanie

Alan Browne wrote:

I seem to have to repeat this time and again: the probability of a given
image surviving is pretty low; the probability of various images
surviving is a certainty.



Actually what you posted was there will be a DELUGE of images that
survive. That is what is being questioned.

Stephanie

Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-03-12 17:48 , wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:


Where are you pulling these numbers from? I could just as easily say 1
in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 might survive. You have
absolutely nothing to base this on.

It's to illustrate a long shot. A guesstimate. A reasonable means to
illustrating a point.


But you used this "guestimate" to calculate a "deluge of images" is the
problem with doing that.


It's not even CLOSE to the same chance. Digital images are MUCH more
fragile.

In what sense? Does a digital original have a better chance of survival
in a fire?

Yes, if it has been copied to another location.


Drop a hard drive full of images and likely the whole lot is gone. Same
with a good static discharge etc etc etc. And you ignore with film you
can easily make duplicate prints with the same quality as the original
prints. People used to have double prints made a lot to send to
relatives etc.




And that smaller chance is offset by sheer volume of images produced.


Based on what statistics?

Who needs statistics for that. Do you think more than 1 M photos were
taken today? More? Less?


Well for your statement "smaller chance is offset by sheer volume" a
rational person would need to know how much smaller the chance is and
what the sheer volume of images were that made it off the memory cards
was over film images printed.



But if a CD was this "faded" you'd get NOTHING off it. These still print

Not true. All the laser needs is enough contrast before the bits stop
shifting.


And a negative that faded to the point of low contrast could still be
printed.


fine. I have some prints that were made on early color that all faded to
red but you can still see what they are. A digital file this "corrupted"
would be gibberish.

Not true. As long as there is discernible information, it can be read.

What a nonsensical statement. So you're saying if the information is
there, it can be read. Have you never had a file corrupted? Good luck
reading a corrupted file.


What is true is that a piece of film taken today will out last an
ordinary CD or DVD. But put that data on an archival CD/DVD and it will
give the film a run for its money in the same storage conditions:

Dry. Cool. Dark.


So says the marketing staff.

But film "reasonably kept" i.e. put in a drawer in a house that didn't
catch on fire would survive with no action needed. THAT has been proven.
These accelerated tests can't take into account everything that happens
over time.

What's good for the goose ...


But as another posted noted, he has had these "archival disks"
unreadable after just a few years. I guess his experience should be ignored?


Again your number are based on what?

A reasonable guess. There are nearly 7B people on the planet, I'd guess
on average 1 B photos per day (as did Neil Gould in his post today, he
calls it a WAG.

So you think 1 in 7 people own a digital camera and use it daily...




That was my pessimistic number. It's a lot of data for a 10 year period
going forward 500 yrs.

I don't know how many film images of _today_ will make it for 500 years.

That's not a valid comparison. The whole point of this was you claiming
BECAUSE of digital, there will be a deluge of images 500 years from now.
We are saying because of digital there will be a vacuum of images
compared to 10 years ago when most images were shot with film.


But it is a certainty that with fewer people shooting film (for a
variety of reasons) the amount of film from _today_ that survives will
be far less than the amount of film from 2000.


Well duh.



Just because of this, doesn't make film less archival, just means people
are naive if they think these digital ones will be around very long.

You're speaking about this on an individual persons basis - for that
you're right.

I'm talking about the probability of a number of unspecified images
surviving.

And that number will be a LOT lower than when people mainly shot with film.



And this would be seen as "trivial" by the shooter and deleted to make
more room on the card before they ever got home. You quote a billion
images a day taken, I wonder how many of those ever make it off the
memory card.. I'd be shocked at 50%..

No idea. I met a woman in San Andres in Jan. A asked if I could copy a
few of her snapshots (of my SO). While copying those to my netbook I
noticed the camera had shots from London, Paris, Rome, etc. All her
holiday travel over 2 years...

But again, I'm putting the probabilities on those who do manage their
data and who do prepare it for the long term.


So you use an example of a woman who still has all the images from 2
years still stored on the memory card in her camera (and likely no where
else) as a reason why digital images will be around 500 years from now?

O.o

Stephanie

"Lawrence Akutagawa" wrote in message
...

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
On 10-03-11 23:33 , wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-03-10 23:59 , Neil Gould wrote:
"Alan wrote:\

One problem with this line of reasoning is that you are describing two
pools of photo takers.

Yes to the "two pools" notion, and the "conservators" being a much
smaller group. (I don't see that as a "problem" however).

Of course you don't, it's your position and you have repeatedly shown
you have no intent on ever bending your position no matter how much
evidence is thrown at you. I highly doubt the "conservators" are much
more than .1% of camera users, if even that. And of those an even
smaller % will be successful at even 100 year archival status of digital
data.

It's like you don't read.

What part of 1 in 1,000,000 is so hard for you to get? And even if the
number is 1 in 10,000,000 there will still be an immense number of photos
that go 500 years.

/snip - follow the thread/
.
egads...questions, questions, followed by more questions from one Alan
Browne. Hey Alan - I have two questions for you that you didn't answer in
another thread but instead faded away -

You said as per my cited references in that thread, and I quote:

"I did say "show me an authoritative source that says the opposite of
digital is analog, that film is an analog."

"So far a lot of comparisons or references to hobby sites."

Question 1:
In exactly what hobby do you place
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
All rights reserved. http://foldoc.org/computing+dictionary ?

Question 2:
Why do you see that American Heritage Science Dictionary not to be
authoritative?

ummm...and if you will, please answer the same two questions relative to
each and every one of my other cited references. I'm just curious as to
how your world looks at these as being hobby sites and not authoritative.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
http://www.synonym.com/antonym/
http://dictionary.reference.com/
which in addtion to the The American Heritage Science Dictionary
references
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007
http://www.wordwebonline.com/
http://words.bighugelabs.com/
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/
which references
Wordnet Dictionary
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/
and
http://poets.notredame.ac.jp/cgi-bin
which also references
Wordnet Dictionary
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/
.
[chuckle] Looks like Alan Browne is ignoring my request to answer those two
questions of mine. That really is very unfortunate. I was very much
looking forward to his reply. Wonder why that usually loquacious tongue of
his has suddenly gone completely dead silent on my two questions. [Major
chuckle]

And given any answer from him...such as it would have been and whatever it
would have been...to vindicate what he said, I was going to follow up with
those fabulous and most memorable words that Frasier asks of Cliff on that
venerable TV series "Cheers" - "Tell me, what color is the sky in your
world?" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083399/quotes Alan's not replying
really is too bad that because now I can't make that follow up.

hmmm....having said that and Alan Browne being as quiet as the proverbial
churchmouse, allow me ask there is anyone here who here agrees that my
referenced sites are indeed hobby sites and not authoritative. If there is
any such person, I for one look forward to him/her answering my two
questions for each of my referenced sites.

On 10-03-13 22:20 , wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:

I seem to have to repeat this time and again: the probability of a
given image surviving is pretty low; the probability of various images
surviving is a certainty.



Actually what you posted was there will be a DELUGE of images that
survive. That is what is being questioned.

Everything is relative. If you were a sole researcher presented with
30,000 images to review and analyze, you would find it a deluge. But
that's the low end of the estimate for a 10 year period. It could be 10
or 100X that number. For that 10 year period.

That's the point. So many photos are being produced that even if,
percentage wise, few survive, the surviving number will be large in
ordinary terms.

--
gmail originated posts are filtered due to spam.

On 10-03-13 22:35 , wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-03-12 17:48 , wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:


Where are you pulling these numbers from? I could just as easily say 1
in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 might survive. You have
absolutely nothing to base this on.

It's to illustrate a long shot. A guesstimate. A reasonable means to
illustrating a point.


But you used this "guestimate" to calculate a "deluge of images" is the
problem with doing that.

As I've already pointed out, the numbers I used were simply to show that
a very small part of a very big number is itself a pretty large number.
As to deluge, see my other post.

It's not even CLOSE to the same chance. Digital images are MUCH more
fragile.

In what sense? Does a digital original have a better chance of
survival in a fire?

Yes, if it has been copied to another location.


Drop a hard drive full of images and likely the whole lot is gone. Same
with a good static discharge etc etc etc. And you ignore with film you
can easily make duplicate prints with the same quality as the original
prints. People used to have double prints made a lot to send to
relatives etc.

Again (geez) I'm not saying any particular or specific image will survive.

The thing with digital copies is that the original camera quality image
can be in hundreds of places.

And a print, by the way, is already a far reduced copy of the film. It
has nowhere near the dynamic range of the negative (although B&W is
better than colour in this respect).



And that smaller chance is offset by sheer volume of images produced.


Based on what statistics?

Who needs statistics for that. Do you think more than 1 M photos were
taken today? More? Less?


Well for your statement "smaller chance is offset by sheer volume" a
rational person would need to know how much smaller the chance is and
what the sheer volume of images were that made it off the memory cards
was over film images printed.

Again: if you're talking about a specific images or collection, then
there is no guarantee at all.

I keep pointing out that "some images will survive" but I never claimed
that a particular image will survive.



But if a CD was this "faded" you'd get NOTHING off it. These still print

Not true. All the laser needs is enough contrast before the bits stop
shifting.


And a negative that faded to the point of low contrast could still be
printed.

I never said different. However, I also said that since film is used
less and less vice digital, more of the surviving images of today will
come from digital even if the vast majority of them disappear.

On a disk, where some images (let's say 50%) are not recoverable, the
other 50% is still a lot of images.

Out of millions of archival disks, most kept in benign conditions, the
majority will pass 100 years and many will make it to 500 with most of
their images intact.

fine. I have some prints that were made on early color that all faded to
red but you can still see what they are. A digital file this "corrupted"
would be gibberish.

Not true. As long as there is discernible information, it can be read.

What a nonsensical statement. So you're saying if the information is
there, it can be read. Have you never had a file corrupted? Good luck
reading a corrupted file.

Many times. If it's a text document, usually most of it can be
recovered even if there is a lot of manual re-formatting or correcting
to do. If it's a binary, then it's likely beyond salvage.

But it's easier when it's a disk. There will be files that are
corrupted and not worth effort, but there are many more intact files
that simply are recovered from the drive/disk and copied elsewhere.

Been there/done that/o too often.



What is true is that a piece of film taken today will out last an
ordinary CD or DVD. But put that data on an archival CD/DVD and it
will give the film a run for its money in the same storage conditions:

Dry. Cool. Dark.


So says the marketing staff.

So say any archivist or chemist. Motion picture distribution masters
are not only kept dry and dark but very cold (-30C and lower) to reduce
degradation over time.

CD/DVD is no different and like most chemical processes they are
accelerated by heat and light. In the case of some metals and dyes,
oxygen and humidity need to be avoided too.

It should strike you that the same conditions that favour film also
favour CD/DVD storage.


But film "reasonably kept" i.e. put in a drawer in a house that didn't
catch on fire would survive with no action needed. THAT has been proven.
These accelerated tests can't take into account everything that happens
over time.

What's good for the goose ...


But as another posted noted, he has had these "archival disks"
unreadable after just a few years. I guess his experience should be
ignored?

He hasn't stated which brand, where they're from. Just waiting to hear
that.




Again your number are based on what?

A reasonable guess. There are nearly 7B people on the planet, I'd
guess on average 1 B photos per day (as did Neil Gould in his post
today, he calls it a WAG.

So you think 1 in 7 people own a digital camera and use it daily...

Do understand averages?


That was my pessimistic number. It's a lot of data for a 10 year
period going forward 500 yrs.

I don't know how many film images of _today_ will make it for 500 years.

That's not a valid comparison. The whole point of this was you claiming
BECAUSE of digital, there will be a deluge of images 500 years from now.
We are saying because of digital there will be a vacuum of images
compared to 10 years ago when most images were shot with film.

Of course it's a valid comparison. The fact is that less people are
shooting film and by a wide margin. That means less film images will
make it over the long term.

Digital is being shot at terrific rates thereby greatly increasing the
potential of surviving images.

On top of that, people who used to shoot 10 or 20 rolls per year are now
shooting 10x that number of images in digital as there are no real
consequences to taking a photo (inconvenience and cost).



But it is a certainty that with fewer people shooting film (for a
variety of reasons) the amount of film from _today_ that survives will
be far less than the amount of film from 2000.


Well duh.

Needed clarifying as you don't seem to grasp the relative issues. You
simply want "film to be the one true medium" but the reality is that it
no longer is.




Just because of this, doesn't make film less archival, just means people
are naive if they think these digital ones will be around very long.

You're speaking about this on an individual persons basis - for that
you're right.

I'm talking about the probability of a number of unspecified images
surviving.

And that number will be a LOT lower than when people mainly shot with film.

Hard to say. 2000 - 2010 has been a transition decade to digital and
from film.

The number of photos that will be shot in 2010 - 2020 will be ever greater.

The questions about conservation will be addressed since it is so important.

Media will appear that will have better and better long term archival
prospects. (I forgot to mention that SanDisk even had a write once card
in development that would permanently fix data in its memory. This is
non volatile in a very long term sense.)

I also read recently about some atomic level writes where the fix in
time was rated in millions of years regardless of the environment.
Technology that might not be available for 10 more years. But when it
is it will greatly lighten the burden of archivists.

But, as always, it is those people and organizations that prepare for
archival that will move the images forward.

There is no helping those who don't help themselves.


And this would be seen as "trivial" by the shooter and deleted to make
more room on the card before they ever got home. You quote a billion
images a day taken, I wonder how many of those ever make it off the
memory card.. I'd be shocked at 50%..

No idea. I met a woman in San Andres in Jan. A asked if I could copy a
few of her snapshots (of my SO). While copying those to my netbook I
noticed the camera had shots from London, Paris, Rome, etc. All her
holiday travel over 2 years...

But again, I'm putting the probabilities on those who do manage their
data and who do prepare it for the long term.


So you use an example of a woman who still has all the images from 2
years still stored on the memory card in her camera (and likely no where
else) as a reason why digital images will be around 500 years from now?

Not at all - did you even read the paragraph that succeeded that?

--
gmail originated posts are filtered due to spam.

Lawrence Akutagawa wrote:


hmmm....having said that and Alan Browne being as quiet as the proverbial
churchmouse, allow me ask there is anyone here who here agrees that my
referenced sites are indeed hobby sites and not authoritative. If there is
any such person, I for one look forward to him/her answering my two
questions for each of my referenced sites.



And then I have to laugh at his response to me in another group, "This
is why NO ONE takes you seriously" :P

Stephe

Alan Browne wrote:


Again (geez) I'm not saying any particular or specific image will survive.

The thing with digital copies is that the original camera quality image
can be in hundreds of places.

Or may be in one, which is more likely the case.


And a print, by the way, is already a far reduced copy of the film. It
has nowhere near the dynamic range of the negative


And a digital camera jpeg doesn't come near this range either. So the
point is?


I keep pointing out that "some images will survive" but I never claimed
that a particular image will survive.


You statement was a DELUGE of images.



And a negative that faded to the point of low contrast could still be
printed.

I never said different. However, I also said that since film is used
less and less vice digital, more of the surviving images of today will
come from digital even if the vast majority of them disappear.

That isn't what you said at all. You appear to be doing a backpedal and
playing this new "Because less film is used now, any images that survive
will have to be digital".. Which is a -well duh- statement.



On a disk, where some images (let's say 50%) are not recoverable, the
other 50% is still a lot of images.

Out of millions of archival disks, most kept in benign conditions, the
majority will pass 100 years and many will make it to 500 with most of
their images intact.


I don't believe this based on the research I have done from people who
have used these "archival" disks. But yes according to the marketing,
they will.


What a nonsensical statement. So you're saying if the information is
there, it can be read. Have you never had a file corrupted? Good luck
reading a corrupted file.

Many times. If it's a text document, usually most of it can be
recovered even if there is a lot of manual re-formatting or correcting
to do. If it's a binary, then it's likely beyond salvage.

Then why talk about a text file, these are NOT text files!




It should strike you that the same conditions that favour film also
favour CD/DVD storage.


That's not the statment I questioned, it was the "it will give film a
run for it's money" one.



But as another posted noted, he has had these "archival disks"
unreadable after just a few years. I guess his experience should be
ignored?

He hasn't stated which brand, where they're from. Just waiting to hear
that.


Like he said, the "brand" doesn't mean it's being made by them and they
can easily change their source. What might have been a good one six
months ago, might be junk today.




Again your number are based on what?

A reasonable guess. There are nearly 7B people on the planet, I'd
guess on average 1 B photos per day (as did Neil Gould in his post
today, he calls it a WAG.

So you think 1 in 7 people own a digital camera and use it daily...

Do understand averages?


Again do you think it averages out that 1 in 7 people on the planet own
a digital camera and use it daily? And then save those results on ANYTHING?



That was my pessimistic number. It's a lot of data for a 10 year
period going forward 500 yrs.

I don't know how many film images of _today_ will make it for 500 years.

That's not a valid comparison. The whole point of this was you claiming
BECAUSE of digital, there will be a deluge of images 500 years from now.
We are saying because of digital there will be a vacuum of images
compared to 10 years ago when most images were shot with film.

Of course it's a valid comparison. The fact is that less people are
shooting film and by a wide margin. That means less film images will
make it over the long term.


Less film images FROM TODAY. This whole debate started from your claim
that BECAUSE of digital, we will have a deluge of images from this time
period. What is more likely to happen is we will have a vacuum of them
BECAUSE of digital.


Digital is being shot at terrific rates thereby greatly increasing the
potential of surviving images.

That is again ignoring so many factors against this happening.


On top of that, people who used to shoot 10 or 20 rolls per year are now
shooting 10x that number of images in digital as there are no real
consequences to taking a photo (inconvenience and cost).


And most of those are deleted before they even get home..




But it is a certainty that with fewer people shooting film (for a
variety of reasons) the amount of film from _today_ that survives will
be far less than the amount of film from 2000.


Well duh.

Needed clarifying as you don't seem to grasp the relative issues. You
simply want "film to be the one true medium" but the reality is that it
no longer is.

Where did I say that? For most people digital is fine, especially if
they have RA-4 prints made. The problem is most people don't, something
happens and their childhood images disappear.



And that number will be a LOT lower than when people mainly shot with
film.

Hard to say. 2000 - 2010 has been a transition decade to digital and
from film.

The number of photos that will be shot in 2010 - 2020 will be ever greater.

The questions about conservation will be addressed since it is so
important.

Media will appear that will have better and better long term archival
prospects.

Well until it does, images will continue to poof into thin air.



So you use an example of a woman who still has all the images from 2
years still stored on the memory card in her camera (and likely no where
else) as a reason why digital images will be around 500 years from now?

Not at all - did you even read the paragraph that succeeded that?


Yep and if you hadn't happened to look at her camera, they would still
just be on her memory card. How many people do you think does what she
did? I can tell you MOST do.

Stephanie

Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-03-13 22:20 , wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:

I seem to have to repeat this time and again: the probability of a
given image surviving is pretty low; the probability of various images
surviving is a certainty.



Actually what you posted was there will be a DELUGE of images that
survive. That is what is being questioned.

Everything is relative. If you were a sole researcher presented with
30,000 images to review and analyze, you would find it a deluge. But
that's the low end of the estimate for a 10 year period.

Again, if you believe that 30,000 images from a 10 yeah history of the
world is a "deluge"... Or that this 30,000 is massively more than the
images that will survive from the film era 10 years before this one.

Stephanie

On 10-03-22 1:04 , wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-03-13 22:20 , wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:

I seem to have to repeat this time and again: the probability of a
given image surviving is pretty low; the probability of various images
surviving is a certainty.



Actually what you posted was there will be a DELUGE of images that
survive. That is what is being questioned.

Everything is relative. If you were a sole researcher presented with
30,000 images to review and analyze, you would find it a deluge. But
that's the low end of the estimate for a 10 year period.

Again, if you believe that 30,000 images from a 10 yeah history of the
world is a "deluge"... Or that this 30,000 is massively more than the
images that will survive from the film era 10 years before this one.

I stand by my guesstimate that for any 10 year period now, about 30,000
- 3,000,000 digital images will likely survive 500 years if put on
archival media and stored correctly. Any historian would be delighted
with 30,000 images - moreso with 10 or 100x more.

I also posted recently about 2 technology areas where the storage is
estimated to be 1M years (for one technique) and 1B years for the
other. Such technologies may be available within 10 yrs or less. If
people adopt that, then the survival rate of digital will increase
dramatically. Then it comes down to the "chain" of keeping the media
from being lost or destroyed - just like film.

--
gmail originated posts are filtered due to spam.