More permanent than a sand painting, but not much else
April 26, 2007
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Variety has an interesting article about how to preserve movies that were captured digitally. The news is not so good.
Sony’s Vice President of asset management and film restoration says Sony’s archiving program includes migrating every two to three years. Great idea, but keep in mind that the amount of data to be migrated is growing constantly. There’s no way Sony’s gonna keep doubling their IT staff to meet that growing need. The article argues that it will all be outsourced soon. Elektrofilm is mentioned, but when I visited the website I didn’t see anything about digital preservation beyond DVDs.
- Bottom line: The old school method of “store and ignore” simply doesn’t work with digital.
- Scary statistic: 40% of backup tapes have frames missing or corrupted after being stored for as little as 9 months.
- My favorite ironic solution: Transforming digital intermediates into three-color separation negatives. Ya heard me! Someone got a grant to study how to turn digital originals into “good old-fashioned film.”
Read the entire Variety article on digital film preservation here.
Link via slashdot.