I think the problem with changing specifications on CD-R/RW drives, burning software and the disks themselves is a dirty little secret that the industry doesn't like to talk about.
I understand that some of the improvements in speed and such required changes of writing techniques, but I'm afraid some people are going to be very disappointed when they discover their disks no longer read in their newer equipment. With this occurring in literally a couple of years, what does the future hold in terms of being able to access archived materials? It has been one of the areas that made me nervous about the digital realm on image storage. I envision people coming upon stacks of unlabelled disks when settling estates with parents and such and having no idea what is on them (and maybe not even being able to access them). Are they letters, old emails, back up commercial software, dirty pictures and movies, family images, old web sites, etc. At least with film, you encountered a box of prints or negs or slides, and with a light source you could pretty much figure out what you were looking at. And the promise of the great digital archives are rapidly being put into question. The storage media doesn't hold up, the devices change, etc. The slides I took on Kodachrome film in 1974, kept in dark storage, look pretty nearly identical to the day they were processed, 30 years ago. I haven't needed to make triple copies, nor have to upgrade the storage media 20 times. And even if a neg was to get scratched or damaged, that is repairable. However, a slight scratch on a CD may make it completely unreadable. I suspect a lot of artwork, or all sorts, literature, poetry, images, drawings and graphics will be lost as it lingers of slowly degrading storage materials, or is swept away when hard drives are wiped clear or crushed for scrap metal. Yes, I do recognize that hundreds of Van Goghs were destroyed, cut and sued to patch holes in plastic at boarding houses he left them in, etc, but at least the people who did it knew they were paintings, even if they had no idea what their value would be in the not so distant future. If I were to "go ghost" today, I suspect a great deal of my digital artwork would be lost forever, although the files of prints, slides and negs would be immediately recognized. The same will hold true, maybe even more-so for family snaps taken with digital cameras. It's all a bit scary. Art Jim Couch wrote: > Brad and others, > > Your expereince points to a tip I have heard elsewhere - keep your older > CD drive on hand to read old discs. I did so and am very thankful I did. > I have about 20 archived discs at work that our new computers will not > read. I am in the process of recopying them to new discs. I read them on > the old drive and burn new discs on the newer drives so that I can > access them as needed. I think this may become a common task. The > information from you, Art, and others may help in makeing the new copies > more reliable and useable in the future. > > Jim Couch > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
