Digital BW, The Print

On Nov 24, 2004, at 6:48 AM, Peter Nelson wrote:

>
>
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Michaels"
> <bob@b...> wrote:
>>  Except I swear by
>> external hard drives. When they're nearing the end of their
> technical
>> life cycle, you just copy the ENTIRE thing at one time over to
>> whatever media is being used in the future.
>
> Who do you mean by "you"?
>
> Almost everyone is thi discussion is overlooking the first poster's
> PREMISE:
>
> He wants something to leave behind when he's gone so it will
> be "easy" for people in the future to see his images.

And I would agree that if all one wants to leave are impressions of the 
original works, then your suggestions are extremely viable - there is 
loss when migrating to analog, but it will be imperceptible to a family 
member just happy to have your images. Since most people appreciate 
photographs simply as final images, then a quality, archival print is 
hard to beat.

> I'm saying that any solution requires that someone with technical
> skill have to actively convert his files on a regular basis to some
> new format (AND guess right about what the new format should be!)
> fails the "easy" test.   And what if that custodian huesses WRONG?
> Suppose ha had converted it to a Travan-3 tape or an Iomega Jazz
> drive?   The next person to inherit the data would have to go to a
> computer museum (or at least have nontrivial technical skill) to
> recover it.

Again, I agree that digital preservation is a complex discipline right 
now; my responses were to the larger picture issues that were raised by 
others, either doubting or promoting digital preservation.

> Also N.B. that magnetic media such as tape, hard drives, floppies,
> etc, lose half their flux strength every 10 years, if they are stored
> under ideal conditions.   So it's not archival.  (from a published
> study by 3M)

And no one should be recommending offline (unpowered) magnetic media as 
a long term "cold" archival medium. Period.

Best regards,

Roger