Re: Archival Quality: was benefit of digital camera

Although I'm not sure this topic really fits, I thought I'd share some interesting info.

I started by searching for a news artcile I read last year sometime. It related how some company
or government agency was now taking all their newly stored digital information and putting it
back onto film for archival purposes. Turns out there's a fungus that destroys the cd media and
the disks were only good for 1 to 5 years... I couldn't find the article. Sorry...

But I did find a few interesting links:

First, our governments report on CD storage. They were testing audio CD's, so there was an
acceptable failure rate which does not exists on a digital computer cd.

http://www.loc.gov/preserv/study%20of%20CD%20longevity.pdf

This is a great article because it relates to archival cd's and the resolution needed to preserve
35mm film. Really a must read for those 'digital' folks!

http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw52/kovacs.html

And just some interesting info on why not to scan to cd's.

http://www.expressiveimage.com/pdfs/Reasons_NOT_to_Scan.pdf

I am no more biased towards film as the digital folks are to digital. I have been involved with
computers since they only came in kit form for hobbyists. I know their capabilities and downfalls.
There is absolutely _nothing_ in the digital world today that can compare with film. Period! What
you personally find accepable is something else...

Rich...

On Tue, 13 Apr 2004 21:06:09 -0400, Jonathan Borden wrote:

>Bill,
>
>> It has always been interesting to me how photographers frame the
>> question of archival quality.
>>
>> When a CD or DVD approaches the end of its useful life and it becomes
>> necessary to move the original digital informaton to some new media,
>> the information itself does not change. Its integrity can remain
>> completely unaltered. It is simply moved to other media. The container
>> changes, but not the information.
>>
>> You cannot do the same thing with original information stored in
>> either film or print media. You can copy it, but you cannot literally
>> move the original information to another container.
>>
>Perhaps this is true, but the lifespan of CD-R and DVD-R is not what
>folks would normally describe as "archival" e.g. they might only last a
>couple of years or perhaps a decade. Now the disc *might* last longer,
>but on the other hand it might get totally trashed after a short time
>in which case *no* useful information can be recovered.
>
>Film and prints degrade more gently. Archivally processed prints are
>expected to have a lifespan > 100 years. AFAIK there is no digital
>storage medium which approaches this (save microfilm which is err...
>silver based :-)
>
>Jonathan
>
Received on Tue Apr 13 20:10:15 2004