Writing the Safety Rules for Recordable CDs

[bob_lazzarini]

Found this article, which may be of interest...<p>

 

<a href=http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/19908.html>Writing

the Safety Rules for Recordable CDs</a>

[peter nelson]

I think we've already reached a general consensus here on P.N. that the real gotcha with CD-R's or DVD's is not the media longevity but rapidly changing technical standards.<P>

 

The real question is not whether the data will still be intact on a CD-R in 20 or 30 years, but whether whatever passes for a PC by then will still have a mechanism for reading a CD-R. And whether the software will recognize and be able to utilize the directory and file formats on it.<P>

 

It doesn't do my heirs or family historians any good if they have a stack of intact CD's but have to go to a computer museum to read them. While it seems reasonable that there would be service bureaus around to convert antique CD-R's, a safer bet is eternal vigilance - make multiple copies to protect from media failure, convert all your CD-R's to the Next Thing as soon as it becomes clear what the Next Thing will be.

[ahaohio]

And spend less and less time creating and more and more copying :-)

[david_f._stein]

Hard drives can fail but we are at the cost/benefit/quality point where it just makes

more sense to archive on high capacity ATA drives-accessed with the latest USB 2.0/1.1

- Firewire external cases. GOOD LUCK ........

[leonard_richmond7]

"And spend less and less time creating and more and more copying"

 

Not necessarily, and that's certainly not been my experience in the past.

 

Imagine having double sided, double layer recordable DVD (the standard has existed for a "long" time and there are such printed DVDs). 17 gigabytes, the equivalent of 25 CDs. My CD drive will read a CD in just over 2 minutes. So in an hour, I could copy 17 GB from CD to my hard drive and start the burn of the DVD. Come back later, and it's done.

 

That's 1,800 TIFF files, or 15,000 JPEGs. In an hour. For those that use the migration argument against digital and for film, try to do ANYTHING with that many prints in an hour - take them out of grandma's acidic photo binder and put them in an acid-free binder, for example. Right.

 

Then I can duplicate those thousands of pictures in 10 minutes (by burning another CD - of course, I only need to be there for a few seconds of that time) and give them to someone else. What's the film equivalent of that?

 

My mom turned 75 this spring and started handing out the old family photos to her children, friends, relatives - whoever was in the picture. All these pictures that I would like are being given away! I took the photo albums and am scanning them, color correcting them (some of the old color ones are fading), then putting them all on CD. I'll make a bunch of duplicate CDs (25 cents a piece) and we'll distribute them to everyone. That way I'll get all the pictures (digitized), plus the few prints. Of course, we can all make prints of any we like for 16 cents per 4x6 print, $1.99 per 8x10.

 

So what the film alternative to my solution? Shoot negs of the prints and have many prints made of each? I've done that in the past. Believe me, my Photoshop skills are better than the copy neg materials we have - the prints from the scans will be better than prints from copy negs, and that's before the restoration work that I'll do on the off-color or faded images.

 

That won't be the end of digital migrations, but the next time will be even larger capacity and faster speed. If I look back at the past and see floppy backup, then CD backup, now DVD backup, it gets easier and faster each time, even though there's that much more to do because of the accumulation over time.

 

Rather than worrying and complaining, I'm as thankful as I can be for the digital solution.

[cole_petersburg]

"So what the film alternative to my solution? Shoot negs of the prints and have many prints made of each?"

<BR>

Um, why not just keep the negatives in the first place? A negative is analog and physically simpler than a CD. Therefore it will keep both its physical integrity and usability longer.<BR>

Also, one uses a print and archives a negative. With a CD, you're using the archive every day, unless you make lots of copies, which gets very space-consuming.<BR>

I don't know what happens to your CDs, but I can't seem to keep a CD more than a year or two without getting scratches in the foil. Scratches on the bottom side appear within two months. I'm trying to keep them in jewel cases, but they take up so much space that I frequently just leave them on a spindle.

<BR>

Imagine what would happen if I left a spindle of CD-Rs to my descendents, or boxes upon boxes of jewel cases!

[peter nelson]

Ake H Olsson says, <I>And spend less and less time creating and more and more copying :-)</I><P>

 

Unfortunately, yes. It's too bad the DVD standards wars never came to an end - it would take a lot less time to copy one or two big DVD's than a bunch of little CD-R's. I currently have over 11GB of images (and growing!) and that's 15 or 16 CD-R's. I make multiple backup copies, and I'm constantly going back into old folders and adding new scans or Photoshopping existing ones in different ways, so I burn updated backup CD-R's constantly.<P>

 

David F. Stein says <I>Hard drives can fail but we are at the cost/benefit/quality point where it just makes more sense to archive on high capacity ATA drives-accessed with the latest USB 2.0/1.1 - Firewire external cases. GOOD LUCK ........</I><P>

 

I don't think so. Magnetic media has a VERY short shelf life. Most magnetic media <U>stored under ideal conditions</U> lose over half their flux density in 10 years. Optical media is far more robust. Portable (USB-2) hard drives make great BACKUP solutions, and I highly recommend them, but it's important to distinguish archiving solutions from backup solutions.

[kevin_hundsnurscher]

Eventually, you'll have to store your data on the internet to be able to keep it archived for a long period of time.<br>

The trick would be to find a good host.

[leonard_richmond7]

"why not just keep the negatives in the first place?"

 

Well, Cole, you missed the placement of my question. It came after the story of my mom giving away her prints. Those negs disappeared decades ago. For my negs - change "print scan" to "neg scan", of which I've done plenty (now I'm 100% digital). I still say the same - I'd rather deal with digital files than negs. CD's take less space, are easier to index, easier to find what I want, easier to show, easier to distribute copies, easier to backup (Do you backup your negs or slides? What happens if your one and only neg or slide gets damaged or destroyed? My digital backup CDs are spread around multiple households in 3 different states across the country!), and easier to get prints done the way I want.

 

"A negative is analog and physically simpler than a CD. Therefore it will keep both its physical integrity and usability longer."

 

Guess you haven't looked at the number of layers in a neg, or seen the results of forced aging tests on color negs. And I guess you've never scratched a neg (and yet you scratch your CDs "within two months"? At least you could've had a backup of your CD - how do you backup your negs?

 

"With a CD, you're using the archive every day, unless you make lots of copies, which gets very space-consuming."

 

If you're using a CD everyday, it's NOT your archive, no matter what you say. An archive is another copy, filed away and only used to make another copy when needed.

 

I keep the original RAW, a full size high quality JPEG (Photoshop quality 11), screensize and thumbnail sizes along with html files on a web page CD - about 4 MB per picture (from my digital camera), or 175 pictures per CD, equivalent to 5 rolls of 36 exposures. You're telling me 5 rolls of negs or slides takes less space to store than a CD?

 

I keep CDs in wallet cases. One that holds 128 CDs (equivalent to 640 rolls of film for me) is 2.5" thick. I guarantee that's many times more than the number of neg pages that will fit in a 2.5" ringbinder! And much cheaper, too ($18.94 vs. $114.88+ringbinder), $100 cheaper!

 

"I can't seem to keep a CD more than a year or two without getting scratches in the foil. Scratches on the bottom side appear within two months."

 

Well I guess YOU have a problem. I haven't scratched a single CD. But then, that's why you should have an archive CD or 2, to replace the results of your clumsiness.

 

"Imagine what would happen if I left a spindle of CD-Rs to my descendents, or boxes upon boxes of jewel cases!"

 

I've already talked to my kids, grandkids and siblings. Every single one said that if I leave ringbinders of neg pages, they'll probably never go through them. However, they've already got CD copies of my digital images (in jewel cases) that they've watched numerous times and know how to get prints made of the ones that they want.

 

While not all of them are computer savvy enough to do the update to the next advance in storage technology, half of them are, and they will get passed along to the others and the next generation down.

 

So I'm not worried about my digital images getting passed along. On the other hand, my slides may get viewed by a couple of them somewhere down the line, my (unscanned) prints may be gone through and divvied up among the kids like my mom was starting to do. But my negs? Forget about it - none of them will bother.

 

I guess you and I just live in different families in different worlds.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Optical Media does corrode; here the reflectance can drop with time. A surface coating problem allows the reflective surface to be harmed. I have Gold premium CD's that are unreadable; that are 5 years old. They were the best brand; premium CD's. Now after 5 years; a few percentage are unreadable in parts. One needs to sample ones libary of CD's DVD's; magnetic tapes; to see if they are going south; ie degrading; turning to crap. <BR><BR>In the late 1970's; prototype Optical medias lasted only days; we would write on the media; and measure the reflectance versus time. Today the gold Kodak and Mitsui Cd's are long lasting; they will give a free one if they poop out! I am currently rewriting many 5 year old "gold Cd's" ; that were claimed to be long lasting. They cost 5 dollars each then. <BR><BR>Today the average consumer buys the cheapest CD's; in ammo packs of 50 disks; and often doesnt even use sleeves. Accountants use well proven tape backup and rewrite after several years. The government and space probe data is still rerecorded about every 5 to 7 years; because magnetic media gets alot of print thru and adhesion to itself/brittleness problems after 10 years. <BR><BR>I have an old IBM PC with a cassette port; which still is able to read my almost 20 year old Radio Shack cassette data tapes. It is interesting that some of the special high end 5 dollar gold CD's of mine that are 5 years old are getting flakey to read; while Micronta data cassettes; 2 decade old are still readable. <BR><BR>

[ahaohio]

That the media deteriorates is just one side of the pronlem. To simply copy the files from one disk to another ever nn months is a thing the computer can do without my interference.

 

Another problem is the issue with file formats. How can one be assured that the jpg, tif or raw file i record on a CD-R, DVD-R or "something else" can be decoded by whatever software is readily available twenty years from now?

[leonard_richmond7]

You can't, Ake ('be assured that the jpg, tif or raw file i record on a CD-R, DVD-R or "something else" can be decoded by whatever software is readily available twenty years from now'). BUT IT'S OK.

 

Unless, of course, you don't plan on you or anyone else ever thinking about your files for 20 years. (Are you going into hibernation, or perhaps getting abducted into outer space? And leaving no one behind that cares the least about your pictures?)

 

Long before it's a problem, you (or someone who cares about your files - or is THAT the problem: no one cares about your files?) will see the writing on the wall. And decide to convert the files to the new format (if they're even worth bothering with - is THAT your problem?) And like the rest of us, procrastinate for months.

 

BUT IT'S STILL OK! It's not like one day we'll all wake up and without any warning the old file formats will be illegal, or there won't be any software around to convert from the old to the new. So you procrastinate a year. JPG, TIFF, and I bet even the Canon RAW that I use, won't disappear that quickly. You'll have PLENTY of time to finally get around to doing it - years.

 

Unless you ARE planning on doing the Rip Van Winkle thing...

[ahaohio]

So: According to Leonard all photographs taken can be safely obsoleted way before even the modest period of twenty years have passed. Thus no need to worry about file formats (or even disk formats). Just trash them. Nobody cares.

 

In my opinion the photographs taken today, as well as those taken fifty, one hundred or one hundred and fifty years ago are a message to future generations about our times and life. Some may even have some value as objects of art.

 

But - apparently - when it comes to the digital "glass plates" of today there is no hope. They will not be converted so as to be readable in even the pretty close future so in fact it may not even matter whether the media deteriorates or not.

 

And of course - there you may be perfectly correct Leonard - in this day and age photography is more and more being regarded as a very suspicious activity that the administration may well decide to outlaw one day.....

 

What a brave new world we live in.

[leonard_richmond7]

Well, Ake, I do totally agree with your 2nd paragraph ("photographs taken today...are a message to future generations...Some may even have some value as objects of art.")

 

But the other paragraphs not only do not represent my expressed opinions, I vehemently disagree with them, and I resent your implying that I in any way agree with the sentiments expressed in them.

 

JPEG & TIFF aren't going away any time soon. Given the huge number of such files, do you think the marketplace will blindly ignore its customers and abandon them? If and when a better format comes along, there will be years of opportunity to convert them, but that may not even be necessary. And if you're worried about really far future, the specifications are printed in enough books that they'll be able to write their own converters. That's at least as likely as someone finding negs in the far future and wondering how to get an image from them if no has done anything similar for hundreds of years. And certainly a lot easier than the effort we exert today dealing with archeological artifacts.

 

And your last paragraph, implying that I in any way agree with the sentiments expressed. NOT!

 

Sorry if my earlier reply was curt enough to elicit your venomous response, but I thought your first comments were a thinly veiled "digital is bad/unsafe" scare tactic. I'm tired of such garbage because too many people don't research enough to find out what truth, if any, lies behind such scare tactics, whether on this topic or what medicine to use, or whether it's OK to get it from another country.

 

If you disagree with any of this, shall we just call a truce? I'll not dump gargage on your side if you won't dump garbage on mine. (And sorry for the garbage I've already dumped - that was out of line.)

 

After all, I really do seem to agree with your apparent sentiments on these matters except the worry about JPEG and TIFF formats being a significant problem (or at least a bigger problem than any other we face in hoping that our images get passed on and enjoyed in some fashion by our posterity.)

[ahaohio]

I am sorry if I found your earlier response impying that images do not matter after say 20 years. I am glad that we agree on that note.

 

If jpegs and tiffs can be safely passed on to future generations that is also a very good thing. (But there have already been other image file formats that have been obsoleted).

 

Maybe it would be good to stick to either of these two for long term archiving rather than PSD or other proprietory formats?

 

Also I am not a complete Luddite - no one can be thoroughly complete at anything can we? :-) For many - especially older transarencies and color negatives digital storage may be just about the only practical method of preservation. At least it will stop the colors from further fading and microorganisms from merrily eating away the emulsion.