Best format for the future?

[Kyle Peterson]

Hi, I'm just wondering if people could weigh in on which format is the most future-proof. In other words, which format (.bmp,tiff, etc.) will people still be able to view 20 years down the road? I'm wondering to which format I should store all archived family pictures.

Thank you very much for any help that can be offered.

Kyle

[YrbkMgr]

Tiff, no question.

[LenHewitt]

Kyle,

More of a problem is what media to use for archiving - Will there be CD or
DVD readers around in 20 years? Will HDD's as we now know them still be
around?

[Gustavo Sanchez]

"which format (.bmp,tiff, etc.) will people still be able to view 20 years
down the road"




My bet is that no format and no media will stand that timespan.

I'd try to devise a long term backup system replacement strategy that'd be lossless and low cost (DVD and TIFF seem to have the upper bet nowadays in that sense).

I think it's much better invest a bit more in that replacement plan, or just to have it into account, than discovering 12 years later that all the archive system is simply digital crap.

And I'd store it using as much data harvesting as possible. Storage is cheaper every day.

Just my 2cents of euro.

Gustavo Sánchez

(Posted from Spain)

[IRC]

Yep, hard copies do seem to be the most likely to survive depending on how they were made, etc.

What's Adobe's long term plan? Will they in the future continue to make programs backward compatible to run their old file formats? In other words will PS10 open a PSD made in PS7? Is there official word on the subject?

[dave milbut]

good question IRC. I've been saving all my stuff in psd. It'd be nice if I could access it in 10 years or so. :)

[Don McCahill]

Yeah Tony, but I would have said the same thing about the 3.5 floppy a few years back ... now Macs are shipped with no floppy drive.

I can see a switch from CD-ROM to DVD or something else ... not from foresight, but because I have seen so many other "invincible standards" bite the dust with little or no warning when something better came out. Remember Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect ... it could happen to anything.

[Carol Steele]

I doubt it Mr Spock :))
--

Carol
(Posted from the UK)

[YrbkMgr]

Only time will tell Dave, but since we also produce a product on CD-ROM, and are being asked to include more and more data on the CD, DVD has been proposed as a distribution medium. As a result, we have hired a couple of analysts and done some research (data). No one has a crystal ball, and anything can happen, but we're banking on CD-ROM for the foreseeable future.

Two salient points to be made: 1. if you are looking for a medium to archive your data, you will not lose using CD-ROM - using DVD, you run the risk of a "standards" issue sooner; 2. If you choose CD-ROM, there is PLENTY of time to migrate data in the event you need to - it's not going away overnight.

The floppy drive is a good example. It is only at this late date, that the industry is comfortable migrating systems to be without them. It's been around 10 years since the 1.44 was introduced, and it would be a STRETCH to say that they have completely gone by the wayside. It is only because of the adoption of CD-ROM as a standard distribution medium, and the lack of issues associated with it, that has allowed the industry to feel comfortable enough to stop shipping floppy drives automatically.

So the point I'm making is: anything *could* happen; if it does, there's PLENTY of time to migrate.

<shrug>

Peace,
Tony

[Greg Gaspard]

If you're talking CD-ROM, 10-15 years easily. CD-R, on the other hand, may not be as bulletproof as many think. Check out this article:
<http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/19908.html>

[YrbkMgr]

No, definately meant CD-ROM. Thanks for the link though Greg.

[Kyle Peterson]

Can the casual hobbyist burn photos to a CD-ROM, or does it take something special? Would I need special software, a pressing machine, etc.?

Thanks,
Kyle

[YrbkMgr]

Kyle,

Everybody burns to CD. Only the large volume CD replication houses press CD's. You basically get yourself a CD-RW drive and it usually comes bundled with idiot proof software. Pretty easy really, provided you can install it on your machine.

If you have more questions about this, don't hesitate to ask. Lots of folks here do this daily.

Peace,
Tony

[Bert Bigelow]

I'm a little late to this party, but I have thought a lot about Kyle's problem, as I am busily scanning thousands of slides and prints for my family photo archive.
The slides (35mm) are saved as TIFFs, each around 20 Mbytes. I can only get around 30 on a CD. So far, I have burned about 150 CDs.
I was thinking about going to DVDs but was concerned about the standards mess. I think, as Tony has said, that there will be plenty of time to migrate later. I'd like to wait until the DVD-Blues are out...30 GBytes each. That would really cut down the migration effort!
I decided to go with TIFFs...seemed the safest for now at least.
Bert

[Ho]

The life span of a consumer created CD-R may be as short as a few days or weeks, depending on the media used and the burner employed to do the job.

Let’s start here: Bargain CD-R’s aren’t. The common wisdom is to use the cheapest thing that works in your burner. That’s great for everyday stuff, but not for archival purposes. There are some media that should stand the test of time, and none of them sell for 5¢ apiece. I have used Verbatim DataLife and Kodak Ultima (discontinued) with success, but none of these discs have been around much longer than 2 years. Do your own research.

Burning speeds are climbing, and so are error rates. If you have a burner and media that zips along at whatever today’s fastest recording speed is, knock it down to about 12X for your archival burning. Lower speed burns are more accurate burns.

To label or not? Good question. Paper labels can create balance problems and the glue that makes them stick on may or may not cause problems. The special pens that are made for writing on CDs are suspect in my book too. If you really want to play it safe, don’t use either one.

The choice of the burner itself is something to consider carefully. Look for comparisons that quantify errors written to disk; obviously, lower is better. In the past, Teac and Plextor were among the leaders in this department but I have not done any recent research and do not endorse any particular model or manufacturer now.

Storage, or, Now that I’ve burned it, how do I hang onto it? Well, I keep all my valuable discs in a safe deposit box at my bank. Really. Of course I have dupes at home, but the bottom line is that you should make dupes and store them anywhere BUT your home or office. Why? Ever hear of fire or theft? Thought so.

If you follow all these (or anyone else's guidelines) can you be guaranteed that your data is going to last 100 years, or even 5? No. But you stand a better chance than you did before.

Good luck,
Ho

[Kyle Peterson]

Thank you, everyone. I greatly appreciate all the help. Does anyone know how to create a CD-ROM, not a CD-R or CD-RW? Also, if I were going to scan someone's pictures and put them onto CD, does anyone have any suggestions as far as a fair price to charge for that? I am worried about people who might bring me a photo done at a studio. Would I have to get that photographer's permission before I scanned?

Thanks for all the help.

Kyle

[YrbkMgr]

See:

Thee_DarkOverLord "Ethical Question" 7/31/03 8:47am </cgi-bin/webx?50@@.1dea186c/63>

For your photographers images question.

Does anyone know how to create a CD-ROM, not a CD-R or CD-RW?




CD-RW drives (vs CD-ROM drives) burn to all those different media. It is the media that makes the difference, really, and the capabilities of the software.

CD-R defines a blank medium, CD-ROM is what it becomes.

[Bert Bigelow]

Ho,
I have used some low-cost CD-Rs for some of my archive. The label is "GQ" (stands for Great Quality) sold by a local store here in southern Calif. called Fry's. So far, I have not experienced any problems with them. I burn at 8x, and always verify the burn. I have spot-checked the files and have never lost any data that I know of. I use a software package called NTI CD Maker.
To be safe, I switched recently to Memorex Blacks, but I have no data to indicate that they are any better or longer-lived.
I am not concerned about the data for the long term...more than five years. I figure I'll be migrating to a different medium before then anyway.
Bert

[YrbkMgr]

I think good media is cheap insurance




Well said. Most CD-ROM manufacturers have a list of preferred media manufacturers.

In regards to the labeling issue, if you buy CD's that have a writable label on them you are in the best of all worlds, since the coating is protective.

On my desktop systems we use Yamaha 24x burners; they've just come out with 52x, and we'll be migrating to those later.

Our burners shipped with Nero. It turns out that at the Nero website, there are great utilities for verifying the integrity of your discs, including a ScanDisk. Food for thought.

Peace,
Tony

[r_harvey]

I have used some low-cost CD-Rs for some of my archive. The label is "GQ"
(stands for Great Quality) sold by a local store here in southern Calif.
called Fry's.




I've used lots of GQ discs (8X on a Yamaha 8x4x24). The only thing I've found wrong is they scratch easily. Some scratched audio CDRs 3 years old are now getting unreadable. Now, I'm using better media when it matters.

I took a GQ, recorded 700MB of data, and placed it shiny side up on a South-facing window sill, in Arizona, in July. After 15 days in the desert, an inexpensive CD/DVD drive (a LiteOn) was beginning to take a little longer to read the disc, but a high-quality CD drive has no trouble at all.

Finally, after three months on the window sill, the CD is unreadable by the innexpensive drive. But it's still readable by the quality drive. The disc's surface is scratched from dust-bunny attacks. The half of the disc that had faced the sun is markedly faded.