Tweet Film Preservation in the Digital Age

Then fine, just archive the playback system along with the media and deal with it only every 100 years.

Just imagine if all of the films in all of the archives were in a digital format! Copyrights and quirks of the people running the archives aside, it would make access to those films much easier.

Here Fwtep,

i know most of the people here have read this before but here you go.
Some good information about the size of digital storage of films in
archives and how often they need to be moved about.

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article ... ive-system

Pookybear

I can't help but think that if anyone reads this discussion a couple of decades from now it will appear rather quaint.

Well we seem to have forgotten some of the basics of archiving materials
here. The original is never disposed! This means even if we went with
the 100% digital archive with your new cost saving numbers. One would
still have to maintain and store all those old reels of film.

Irrelevant. You'd have to maintain your original print either way. Except that for a great many of the original prints, how much longer will they last anyway?

As You have noted new technologies are being made everyday. So it does
go with saying that the digital copies may not be the best they can
be a present, but still the best we can do right now.

A high quality scan made today will be waaaaaayyyy better than any film dupe. Will scans get better in the future? Possibly. Doubtful though. I think it's more likely that they'll just get cheaper and faster to do.

The new tech I was talking about was just storage media.

So one needs to keep the original material just in case for this reason
alone. Let alone the fact that the digital copy may fail anyways. Again
keeping the original would be most helpful.

See above about the original. As for the digital copy failing, it's infinitely unlikely that ALL copies of the digital would fail. I think it's more likely that a film print would fail (color fade, decomp, whatever) before all X number of copies of a digital file. Even if the digital copies are all kept in the same place (which is unlikely).

Plus the whole word "compression" would never be used in an archive.
That is the whole point of an archival copy. Just think how good your
Bluray will look when projected to say a height of 30 to 50 feet.

Lossless compression can certainly be used in an archive. But even a mildly lossy compression will yield far better results than a multi-generation dupe of a film. You think copying a film gives you an exact copy? Even going only one or two generations down on a print would look far worse than a good scan and a little compression.

And I've actually seen HDV presented on the big screen, which which is 1440x1080 with non-square pixels (1.33:1) AND highly compressed. And it looked fantastic. Much clearer and with better contrast than 90% of any classic film presentation I've seen. I'm not saying it was better than what film is *capable* of, but it definitely would surprise you.

I also saw a digital presentation of the 1927 Jazz Singer at the Academy a few years ago. I'm not sure what resolution it was but it was stunning-- to the point of there being a collective gasp from the audience when the picture appeared. It was either a 2k or 4k presentation.

So I've seen consumer-level digital video projected on the big screen, and what could be called "archival-level" digital video (with compression though, I'm sure) projected on the big screen and both looked great. I'd have absolute confidence that the Jazz Singer presentation looked better than any film copy of that material could look.

I know one thing film still looks good.

How good do those countless films that have decomposed away look?

On a different note here and to give you another view of why digital is
not use more lets go to music.

You can't really compare the compression levels of consumer digital music with what an archive would do with a film. It's a complete failure as an analogy.

Digital will be a great tool but still will not be a replacement.

Um, it will definitely be a replacement. Film isn't sticking around forever. I'm curious if it'll even be made in 50 years.

The thing to remember is that it's not like no thought will go into digital archiving-- if archivists know what's necessary to maintain a movie it's not like they're suddenly going to give up all thoughts toward their ultimate mission and just run to Walmart and grab a few blank DVDs and call it a day. If you think they'll do that, then you shouldn't trust them with film prints either.

Also remember that even if you use a little compression it will be less detrimental than the lossiness of a film dupe. And more importantly, it won't add up: lossiness in film dupes adds up in each subsequent copy but the lossiness in digital doesn't. Each digital copy will be a perfect copy of the original file. So the lossiness doesn't get compounded. I don't think the files will need to be lossy, I'm just saying that if it were necessary it wouldn't be a tragedy. Not near to what would be lost if we kept with film.

fwtep


Ah yes I was most interested in your floating numbers on the cost
of digital pereservation of film. Just as thought it seems that you
like pulling numbers from the air. Here is the real cost of digital.

"While a theater can purchase a film projector for US$50,000 and expect an average life of 30–40 years, a digital cinema playback system including server/media block/and projector can cost 3–4 times as much, and is at higher risk for component failures and technological obsolescence. Experience with computer-based media systems show that average economic lifetimes are only on the order of 5 years with some units lasting until about 10 years before they are replaced.

Archiving digital material is also turning out to be both tricky and costly. In a 2007 study, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences found the cost of storing 4K digital masters to be "enormously higher - 1100% higher - than the cost of storing film masters." Furthermore, digital archiving faces challenges due to the insufficient temporal qualities of today's digital storage: no current media, be it optical discs, magnetic hard drives or digital tape, can reliably store a film for a hundred years, something that properly stored and handled film can do."

Further more the same study put real numbers down for you as well

"a report recently released by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, digital film storage costs $12,510 per year, compared with $1,059 for celluloid. More dramatically, source materials -- those outtakes and audio recordings that often make up bonus content for special edition products -- cost 429 times as much to store, a whopping $208,500 per year for digital materials vs. $486 for film."

I have not found yet the cost of taking film stock to a digital format
but I am sure either of your figures would not cover the costs.

But do not worry you can just write a larger check to the Library of
Congress. Just make sure to add lots more zeros to the original 30,000,000. Nothing like more zeros we all love them.

Pookybear

I'm well aware of that inaccurate and outdated information. In fact, I think it's already been mentioned on this thread.

Digital media is such a poor long-term storage media, that digital files are probably going to be stored in an analog medium in the future. A few months ago I read that a group of computer scientists are developing an analog method to store digital files. Their idea is to print out something like barcodes, and then lock 'em in a closet and forget about them. The most amusing part of the article was when they said they were considering microfiche, since it has a proven track record of lasting!

The problem with this is that it's not a standard, and therefore you'll have to hope that the information can be retrieved in the far future. The issue isn't digital or analog, the issue is being able to use the data.

Of course it's not a standard, it doesn't yet exist!

The is beginning to remind me of the Arthur C. Clarke story in which aliens land on earth several millions years in the future and find an old movie. Anxious to see what the inhabitants of tis planet look like, they rig up a projector and watch .... Mickey Mouse!

Bob

I think you're misunderstanding the digital medium. When film is about to decompose, there are all sorts of warning signs that tell the archive that they have a clock running down on their opportunity to rescue the information. With digital media, the first time you know there's a problem is when it's failed. And when it's failed, you are going to be extremely fortunate to rescue anything. Rumour has it - from impeccable sources - that the DVD versions currently available of some very high profile, award winning, computer animation features are not the originals, but partial remakes; when they went back to recover the data for the domestic releases, great chunks were inaccessible and had to be remade at huge cost. It was only because it wasn't live action that this could be done at all....

Multiple digital copies are very unlikely to all fail. And most digital failures (hard drives) are recoverable.

As for the animated films, your point is invalidated (if it was even true-- I haven't heard that and I know several people at Pixar) by the fact that the data to re-create the segments was stored digitally too, and was available for use. However, as I understand it, the films were re-rendered for better resolution and for re-formatting to 16:9 aspect ratio. Toy Story 1 was originally rendered at half-res, then uprezzed for filmout. When it came out on home video it was reformatted to 4:3. When it came to DVD and Blu-ray I think it was re-rendered again, but I'm not sure.

Of course it's not a standard, it doesn't yet exist!

I don't know if you're kidding or not (I assume so though) but I'll answer anyway, just in case.

It never will be a standard, or adopted enough to provide any kind of longevity. It's a great idea though. It reminds me of a 21st century version of the paper prints that the LOC has.

Someone's a little insecure, aren't they?

fwtep,

Dude you are just unreal. You truely amaze me I have seen the digital light. Now all we have to do is just get rid of all this old stinky film! Yeah right, as you clutch your soon to be fragmented
and non working DVDs and Bluray discs, I have done the right thing.
Got myself a Century 35mm film projector. WOOT as they say.

Also I am begining to think you sell digital hardware or something!

Come on man you just dont have a clue. You still have not provided any
resources to back up anything you have rubutted in this whole thread.
It is all just your word.

If my information is out dated, PROVE IT! Just dont say it. That is a
bigger fail than the current generation of digital archiving. Yeah I went
there.

But lets do it your way to see how silly you really are.

fwtep
"Irrelevant. You'd have to maintain your original print either way. Except that for a great many of the original prints, how much longer will they last anyway?"

You did not read the whole the article.

fwtep
"A high quality scan made today will be waaaaaayyyy better than any film dupe. Will scans get better in the future? Possibly. Doubtful though. I think it's more likely that they'll just get cheaper and faster to do."

A Duh its called a fine grain master print.

fwtep
"See above about the original. As for the digital copy failing, it's infinitely unlikely that ALL copies of the digital would fail. I think it's more likely that a film print would fail (color fade, decomp, whatever) before all X number of copies of a digital file. Even if the digital copies are all kept in the same place (which is unlikely)."

Again you did not read the entire article as just one film requires 5 to 10
tetrabits of storage information. That amount of space is neither small or
cheap. So how many copies do we need? 10 20 1000?

ftwep
"Lossless compression can certainly be used in an archive. But even a mildly lossy compression will yield far better results than a multi-generation dupe of a film. You think copying a film gives you an exact copy? Even going only one or two generations down on a print would look far worse than a good scan and a little compression."

Again, its called a fine grain master.

Ftwep
"And I've actually seen HDV presented on the big screen, which which is 1440x1080 with non-square pixels (1.33:1) AND highly compressed. And it looked fantastic. Much clearer and with better contrast than 90% of any classic film presentation I've seen. I'm not saying it was better than what film is *capable* of, but it definitely would surprise you."

Still have not seen a single HDV presented on a big screen that I have
like. They look like shit!

ftwep
"I also saw a digital presentation of the 1927 Jazz Singer at the Academy a few years ago. I'm not sure what resolution it was but it was stunning-- to the point of there being a collective gasp from the audience when the picture appeared. It was either a 2k or 4k presentation."

The original was better as I remember.

ftwep
"
So I've seen consumer-level digital video projected on the big screen, and what could be called "archival-level" digital video (with compression though, I'm sure) projected on the big screen and both looked great. I'd have absolute confidence that the Jazz Singer presentation looked better than any film copy of that material could look."

just a flat out lie here.

ftwep
"How good do those countless films that have decomposed away look?"

how good do those blue squares look on a digital file?

ftwep
"Um, it will definitely be a replacement. Film isn't sticking around forever. I'm curious if it'll even be made in 50 years."

it will as digital is not up to the task right now.

ftwep
"Also remember that even if you use a little compression it will be less detrimental than the lossiness of a film dupe. And more importantly, it won't add up: lossiness in film dupes adds up in each subsequent copy but the lossiness in digital doesn't. Each digital copy will be a perfect copy of the original file. So the lossiness doesn't get compounded. I don't think the files will need to be lossy, I'm just saying that if it were necessary it wouldn't be a tragedy. Not near to what would be lost if we kept with film."

Lossiness can completely colapse a digital file to an unreadable state.

ftwep
"Multiple digital copies are very unlikely to all fail. And most digital failures (hard drives) are recoverable."

Then why do we all end up getting new computers when the last one
crashes to the blue screen of death!

ftwep,

you see a group of baseless retorts that mean just about squat! just like
all the arguments you have given so far. Totally useless.

pookybear













Pookybear

[Mike Gebert]

All right, I think this one has gone back and forth enough without new information from people working in the field. Let's call it a day.

I agree. Just one thing: 5 terabytes costs about $240 on Amazon right now. That's two 2tb drives and a 1tb drive. Buying in bulk would be even less. I'd call that cheap and physically small. And it's only getting cheaper and smaller.

Other than that, we'll see what the future brings.

I see no mention of the cost of spinning those discs, investing in the infrastructure or any myriad other costs that are involved with data archiving...

Oh and I DO disagree with you about a scan being superior to a film copy.

Unless you can show me some film lab credentials, and I can show you mine, I will just write this off as yet another digital prophet who speaks from faith and not experience.

I am probably not the most experienced lab person on here, but as a digital film restoration professional AND a former Motion Picture Lab Supervisor, I think I have at least an informed opinion of the matter.


Sorry to revive this old dead horse; he's already pulpy and no one's mind will likely be changed anyway...

Back to my cave.

I must remind myself to stay away.