Digital BW, The Print

Peter,

You are correct all the way through and express it much better than I tried to in my previous post.
Of course big companies or institutions digitilise their negs, for the sake of immediate use only, when they need it, they cannot afford to do it for all of their negs, far too expensive and time consumming. 
Sure enough data storage is a big challenge and the ideal solution is not here yet but between silver gelatine and digital the more reliable and the cheapest is surely the first one.


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peter Nelson 
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 5:35 PM
  Subject: [Digital BW] Re: how many REALLY do store digital copies elsewhere



  --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, The Wogster 
  <wogsterca@y...> wrote:>  So we need a 
  > storage method that either uses more stable dyes, or a completely 
  > dye-less process.

  The problem with this whole discussion is that it focusses on the 
  technology - whether it's dyes, file formats, magnetic -vs- optical, 
  holographic -vs- linear, etc.    I'm going to guess that 95% of the 
  people in this forum are geeks and nerds of one sort or another (I'm 
  a hw/sw engineer), and human nature is a common geek/nerd blind spot.

  But the PROBLEM isn't TECHNOlogical, it's PSYCHOlogical.   It has 
  little to do with technology and lots to do with human nature.   Any 
  archival solution that depends on active maintenance or intervention 
  on a regular basis will fail because someone will lose interest or 
  forget or will hand off a shoebox to someone without telling them 
  they have to update it every once in awhile, or they won't have the 
  technical skill, or they will dutifully DO the conversion but there 
  will be a bug in the conversion program that no one will realize 
  until 10 years later when someone else tries to do the NEXT 
  conversion, or they will guess wrong about what the next standard 
  format will be and convert it to something dead-end. 

  Christer thinks someone will be "in charge" of doing this stuff.   
  But we're talking FAMILIES here, not banks or hospitals or government 
  agencies where there are specialists and bureaucrats to be in charge 
  of things.   NO ONE will be in charge.  Someone will inherit an old 
  trunk with lots of memorabilia and it will get broken up and 
  distributed and stashed away and moved around.     
    




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