I heard a story - don't know if it's an urban myth - that one NY ad agency went back to film for stills photography because of the cost of archiving the digital data was so high.

Could be - on the other hand, the cost of medium format digital backs is in the $30k each range so that might have something to do with it - as well as the 500mb images.

Although the cost of film and processing can be pretty astronomical these days as well

Most technology takes three or more steps forward and one step backwards. Look at the Vynl LP crowd, convincing themselves that Vynl disks are the ultimate in sound quality - so good you can hear every click, crackle and pop. Film is also great, I liked the convenience of having several cups of coffee whilst waiting for film to be processed.

As for storage, I can see the point of a NY agency wanting some method that is cheaper to store images, at least you can see where the filing cabinet is in a room. I'm all for it, bring back the good old days, dust and fingerprints on film and all.

I forgot all about the fingerprints. Sometimes they were the most interesting part

Look at the Vynl LP crowd, convincing themselves that Vynl disks are the ultimate in sound quality - so good you can hear every click, crackle and pop.

Although, from an archive viewpoint they'd last pretty well, just keep them away from the radiator.

Yes, LP's would last well, but were susceptible to damage, which in turn could destroy a track or entire album. Go to your local music store and see if you can get a replacement stylus!. Audio tape (cassettes) were also prone to stretching and oxide deterioration - can't remember how often I had to clean and de-magnetise the heads.

I guess the bottom line is that no media is without its faults, I just wish some Association of film makers would agree on a standardised media storage that could be future proof, i.e. tomorrows hardware should still be able to read today's data. I know things will progress in terms of speed and capacity. Hopefully it will be some form of Solid State memory.

Although a stylus is easy to manufacture compared to other systems.

Voyager - The Interstellar Mission (http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html)

Interesting item on Voyager, I have seen this before. Supposing this craft landed on a similar planet to earth and a Chimp found it.

The mind boggles at the thought of what if?

ps. I sold my collection of LP's a few years back, but I still have a very large collection of 78rpm disks and a wind up player which still works. The George Formbie disks are great fun as are many of the trad jazz disks. The only problem is that you can only drop the disks once.

Anybody know anything about holographic storage?

This is interesting:

Optical media longevity (http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/opticalmedialongevity.html)


stelios