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Post by Peterj on Aug 24, 2018 20:10:57 GMT
Ask yourself a few questions:
1) Will my future relatives be able to view in 2100?
2) Will they have a dvd reader?
3) Will my cloud provider still be in business?
4) Will my chosen file format still be supported?
Certainly there's no single solution to the problem!
What is your digital image collection’s long term prognosis?Is your backup stored off site? Consider Jacques Lowe’s unlikely scenario – choosing a safe deposit vault in JPMorgan Chase at 5 World Trade Center, NY, NY ……………………...before 9/11/2001 www.forbes.com/2005/04/14/cx_ah_0414photo.html#1704818c6db6
DPC’s handbook introduction
“There is a rapidly increasing volume of information which exists in digital form.
Whether created as a result of digitising non-digital collections, as a digital publication or artwork, or as part of the day-to-day business of an organisation or individual, more and more information is being created digitally and the pace at which it is being created is accelerating. This activity is occurring in an environment in which there is a growing awareness of the significant challenges associated with ensuring continued access to these materials, even in the short term.
The combination of these two factors is both challenging and troublesome. On the one hand, there are considerable opportunities offered by digital technology to provide rapid and efficient access to information. On the other hand, there is a very real threat that the digital materials will be created in such a way that not even their short-term viability can be assured, much less the prospect that future generations will also have access to them.” www.dpconline.org/handbook/introduction
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Post by kdcintx on Aug 24, 2018 21:17:12 GMT
Peter - You've raised a very pertintent issue. Just think we have photos that are 100 years old, still in good condition, and certainly viewable. If kept safe (e.g, dry, in the dark, etc.), they will probably last another 100 years. I have wondered about the future of the myriads of digital photos on my computer, external hard drives, and dvds after my lifetime. I don't have a good answer either.
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Post by ritage on Aug 24, 2018 22:43:37 GMT
No need to wait for that bleak future.
My last VHS Player gave up the ghost last winter and all my tapes became useless. Some overhauled VCRs were offered online and a friend of mine bought one which died on her within a few weeks.
I also have some Kodak PhotoCDs. The latest PS version I have that can deal with them is CS2 and I spent most of a week last year converting them all to both .psd and .jpg I hope they will at least outlast me.
Rita
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Post by Bailey on Aug 24, 2018 23:35:33 GMT
If we have WW3 before 2100, then these issues won't matter at all because there won't be many, if any, people around to look at old photos  .
But in any case, I have no reason to think that at least jpeg and tiff formats won't still be easily viewable in 100 years time.
I still remember those 3-1/2in and 5-1/4in floppy disks that were the main storage/data transfer mediums when pc's first came into the world. They are both obsolete now. So if/when new storage mediums become mainstream in the future we will just have to be vigilant in transferring photos/files from current storage mediums to whatever supersedes them in the future.
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pontiac1940
CE Members
Posts: 6,362
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by pontiac1940 on Aug 25, 2018 15:36:08 GMT
Yeah, what's a person to do? We also have a few fam prints that are over 100 years old. As for my digital images on umpteen drives? Two years ago, I scanned a few hundred slides dating back about 50 years....I should put them on a disc for our two sons. Now, as for the 200,000 (  ?) digital photos on assorted external drives and my (current) main computer, my guess they will never be looked at after I drift off this mortal coil. Like the slide images, I should select (say) 1,000 fam pix and put in the cloud or on a disc. My wife has hundreds of physical prints of the grandkids in a bunch of physical albums. In many respects a shoe box full of old B&W prints or more likely to be looked at than hard drives. |
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Post by Peterj on Aug 25, 2018 18:19:49 GMT
Posted by pontiac19402 hours ago Quite a bit of my photography revolves around what intrigues me so I don't have thousands of family pics. I'm uncertain about preserving the multitude except for myself.
However I'm considering all the family images I do have; maybe printing and "scrap-booking" is the best option, after all during a family outing having a crafted book to pass around is far better than everyone glued to some sort of viewing device. |
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Post by whippet on Aug 27, 2018 17:41:40 GMT
As I have been saying for years . . . .
Good thread, Pete. I still have floppy disks that I can't use.
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Post by Bailey on Aug 28, 2018 8:11:34 GMT
Personally, I am not a fan of prints as a long term storage medium. Depending on the quality of paper, dye or pigment ink and amount of exposure to sunlight, prints could last anywhere from just a few years to 70+ years. But for short term use then no problem at all.
I shoot a lot of video as well, especially holidays and at events - family, friends and other. I then usually make a video of the event (Adobe Premiere Elements - PRE) combining the photos and video clips to tell a story. I prefer videos because I can animate photos and movie clips, add my own narration to help tell the story and soundtrack rather than just have people watch a simple slideshow of one photo after another. I then burn the final video onto DVD or Blu-ray discs. I use these discs for sharing and I definitely want to be able to preserve the discs and the digital copies of the final video.
There are many video formats available at the moment and PRE can output many of them. I am not sure yet which are more likely to pass the test of time. That might be a something for the kids and grandkids to sort out when the time comes  .
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Post by Peterj on Aug 28, 2018 18:34:10 GMT
In my quest for a reasonable solution - here's some more food for thought.
Optical disc longevityOptical discs have been commercially available since the 1980s. After merely 30 years, a solid amount of information has been collected on what causes CDs and DVDs to break and much progress has been made in the development of material that will last longer. While estimations predict a life time of up to 200 years for optical discs, we can never be sure when they are really going to break. However, by being aware of what determines the life span of optical discs and what causes them to break, you can make choices and significantly increase the survival time of your stored data. SSDs are not the solutionSSDs have a number of advantages over conventional hard drives. They draw less power, they’re an order of magnitude faster, and while they remain more expensive in absolute terms, the size of that gap has shrunk markedly over the past few years. There is one downside to SSDs, however — long-term data retention remains a significant issue. How long will data last?Media preservation is the method by which we record, store, and preserve media over time. Stored media includes everything from written words to audio to photos to computer instructions to documents, software, and more. The various types of media are stored on everything from books to a hard drive all the way to video game cartridges. We’ve discussed the history of these various methods of data storage in the history of data storage and backup. But what we didn’t talk about is the lifespan of these different data storage methods.
USB flash drives might workThe write and erase function on a USB flash drive is the main life expectancy source. According to the Slo Bytes USB Flash Drives report from Brian K. Lewis, flash drives are capable of handling 10 thousand to 10 million write and erase operations during their lifetime, depending on the source as well as the specific USB drive. Regardless, a flash drive typically will outlast any standard hard drive. The main concerns about the life expectancy of a flash drive are damage from neglect and becoming lost or stolen. Preserving data 100 yearsA 350 year old copy of Shakespeare is about as readable as a new one. But a 35 year old floppy? Preserving data is essential to digital civilization, but how? Here's a new approach. |
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Post by Andy on Aug 30, 2018 0:04:49 GMT
I can attest to the limitations of DVD's. I had burned my home videos to DVD's over the years. When I tried to copy them back to my computer, I found many of the disks had read errors. A few were completely unreadable, forcing me to go back to the original 8mm tapes. Now I have the DVD's and copies on two hard drives (magnetic ones).
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Post by Bailey on Aug 30, 2018 1:14:55 GMT
Yes, DVDs have limitations. You certainly wouldn't want to scratch them.
The oldest video DVD that I have created myself is only about 10-11 years old now and it is still readable. Occasionally one of my DVD's fails to load in a DVD player. After checking for scratches and seeing none, I then wipe the DVD with a lint free cloth. So far the DVDs have then always loaded into the DVD player successfully.
My current strategy, well actually since I started creating video DVDs, is to keep backups, on an external HDD, of my Premiere Elements projects of combined photos and video clips so I can quickly remake a DVD should one become lost or unreadable.
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alexr
Established Forum Member
Posts: 555
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by alexr on Aug 30, 2018 8:00:11 GMT
I don't have children so maybe this skews my answer a little, but broadly I wouldn't want to saddle future generations with thousands of my images to have to sift through or manage on my passing. I worry that we want to store images into perpetuity 'because we can' rather than because there is any value in doing so, and that this is a symptom of the 'look at me' Facebook generation. Yes, I can see that future generations of my family might be interested in seeing some pics of old great great great uncle Alex, but once I am out of living memory you only need a very few selected pictures to do that. These will then easily be housed on various relatives' standard computing storage devices, which will undoubtedly be successively moved onto new formats as jpegs etc get overtaken. Which is pretty well what we do now with scanning those 'special' pics of our ancestors and emailing around the family. No one outside my family will care about me or how I lived and what I enjoyed to take pictures of. Sad but, I think, true.
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Post by Bailey on Aug 30, 2018 10:43:49 GMT
To a large extent I agree alexr
At the moment the grand kids are too young to see photos and videos of them when they were 0 - 5 years old as much more than just a novelty. But when they grow up and reach their later years they might have a different attitude to looking back to how things were and what they did now. I'm sure the world in 50 - 60 years time will be very different to what it is now.
Family related photos and videos I will be very keen to pass on to our kids. They already have most of them. In the future they can then sort through what they would like to pass on to their kids (our grand kids) on whatever is the most appropriate future proof format and storage medium at that time. It's not going to be a major issue.
I am not expecting my non family related photos and videos to survive past our kids' lifetime.
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Post by Peterj on Aug 30, 2018 20:15:51 GMT
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Post by Sepiana on Aug 31, 2018 3:55:13 GMT
Pete, thanks for these links! Perfect timing! I am helping a family member who is working on our family history. |
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?) digital photos on assorted external drives and my (current) main computer, my guess they will never be looked at after I drift off this mortal coil. Like the slide images, I should select (say) 1,000 fam pix and put in the cloud or on a disc. My wife has hundreds of physical prints of the grandkids in a bunch of physical albums. 
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