Gregory writes:
>I did a show recently about another topic. One of the guests talked >about CD archival storage and that the Library of Congress had >found some data being lost on CDs after 15 years. I'm talking about >two years ago, and that at that time gold plated CDs were >considered the best for archival storage.
The Kodak gold CDs (no longer made), according to Kodak had an archival life of 100+ years if stored in darkness, not played, and at
40 degrees. People are reporting lost data now within that 15 yr
interval as Gregory's guest reported, and some cheap "bargain"
disks (the kind most people buy) are losing data much sooner than that Then there's loss through damage from handling (scratches, etc) and accidents.
But it really wouldn't matter anyway, what *are* you going to play that Kodak Gold CD on 100 years from now ? Using what software ?
This is not the (present) nature of digital storage. One simply will be
forced to migrate all the images into the next storage medium. Of course, at some point, the JPEG/TIFF standard may become history.
Of course, people who shot on Kodachrome and archivally processed B&W film will still have their original matrices to work from
a long time from now (as long as there are scanners, anyway).
From another list, where a discussion very similar to this one was recently held, the Matsui company still makes the Gold CDs that were
sold under the Kodak brand. Don't forget the ideal storage temps, relative humidity and total darkeness part.
If nothing else, get hard prints made on Fuji Crystal paper, and at least your great-grandchildren will know what you looked like.
--- Luis
