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Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

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Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#21

Post by Seenso »

quag wrote: post #14
allovernow wrote: post #3

How does one archive data for long term storage in 2020? From what little I've read, all of the media accessable to the layman has an archive lifetime of less than 30 years before physical degradation- NAND, tape, disc, whatever. That makes for a brittle civilization when the vast majority of our knowledge is stored on media and would be unrecoverable just 3 decades after a global calamity.

After going down this rabbit hole, I concluded that M-Disc is the right trade off at the moment. They’re not too expensive, the writers are available, they’ll last, and they could be reverse engineered if discovered in the future. The second choice is using hard drives (easily available) and every so often power them up and copy data to new drives. If you have a small quantity of data, then encode and laser print ont…

> They’re not too expensive, the writers are available, they’ll last, and they could be reverse engineered if discovered in the future.

IIRC, the writers for M-DISCs are special, but the reader can be any DVD or Blu-ray drive.

Honestly, I think the biggest consideration for digital archival media isn't so much the longevity of the media, but the future availability of equipment to read it.

That's one of the biggest benefits of paper, IMHO. Besides being very well-understood material, nearly everyone is born with the necessary reading equipment and the decoding software is very common.

Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#22

Post by iamphilrae »

aglavine wrote: post #13
allovernow wrote: post #3

How does one archive data for long term storage in 2020? From what little I've read, all of the media accessable to the layman has an archive lifetime of less than 30 years before physical degradation- NAND, tape, disc, whatever. That makes for a brittle civilization when the vast majority of our knowledge is stored on media and would be unrecoverable just 3 decades after a global calamity.

I have 30 year old CDs that play as good as the first time, as well as older vinyl discs. I'm sure I own 20 year old DVDs in same condition.

Audio CDs can survive a bit of degradation to the odd data bits here or there; the music will just skip the millisecond of missing data and your ears won’t notice. Likewise with vinyl. Data discs on the other hand have the issue that if a single data bit is lost, a whole file could be corrupted, especially if it’s a zipped file.

In addition, printed audio CDs are of a different build than CD-Rs which have been found to not be as resistant to moisture and light.

Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#23

Post by sigstoat »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #16
aglavine wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 30 year old CDs that play as good as the first time, as well as older vinyl discs. I'm sure I own 20 year old DVDs in same condition.

same, but I've also seen some cheaper makes of CDRs break down after 20 years and the storage layer crack etc.

quite. the writable discs don't last nearly as long. i had a pile of writable DVDs that were unreadable 8 years later when i went back to fetch the data from them.

Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#25

Post by crmrc114 »

tialaramex wrote: post #7
allovernow wrote: post #3

How does one archive data for long term storage in 2020? From what little I've read, all of the media accessable to the layman has an archive lifetime of less than 30 years before physical degradation- NAND, tape, disc, whatever. That makes for a brittle civilization when the vast majority of our knowledge is stored on media and would be unrecoverable just 3 decades after a global calamity.

If you want data to survive you've always needed to copy it. Digital storage just makes that easier to do in bulk. Copying Bibles was a full time task for huge teams of monks but you can (and should) make backups routinely on a daily or weekly basis with barely a thought.

This is a huge problem for any data- https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/02/how-t...

Even communication of a simple warning message for yucca mountain and WIPP proved how hard it was going to be to communicate danger over 10000 years from now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warnin...

Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#26

Post by jandrese »

iamphilrae wrote: post #22
aglavine wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 30 year old CDs that play as good as the first time, as well as older vinyl discs. I'm sure I own 20 year old DVDs in same condition.

Audio CDs can survive a bit of degradation to the odd data bits here or there; the music will just skip the millisecond of missing data and your ears won’t notice. Likewise with vinyl. Data discs on the other hand have the issue that if a single data bit is lost, a whole file could be corrupted, especially if it’s a zipped file. In addition, printed audio CDs are of a different build than CD-Rs which have been found…

It takes more than a single bit--there are Huffman codes built into the spec, but it is certainly possible for the bits to degrade enough to render a sector or even the whole disc unreadable.

Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#27

Post by reificator »

Seenso wrote: post #21
quag wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After going down this rabbit hole, I concluded that M-Disc is the right trade off at the moment. They’re not too expensive, the writers are available, they’ll last, and they could be reverse engineered if discovered in the future. The second choice is using hard drives (easily available) and every so often power them up and copy data to new drives. If you have a small quantity of data, then encode and laser print ont…

> They’re not too expensive, the writers are available, they’ll last, and they could be reverse engineered if discovered in the future. IIRC, the writers for M-DISCs are special, but the reader can be any DVD or Blu-ray drive. Honestly, I think the biggest consideration for digital archival media isn't so much the longevity of the media, but the future availability of equipment to read it. That's one of the biggest b…

> the decoding software is very common.

[Citation needed]

Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#28

Post by smhenderson »

pkroll wrote: post #18
smhenderson wrote: post #5

I'm almost afraid to write this as I fear it will be removed soon and am surprised it hasn't been already but this was the first thing I looked for... https://archive.org/details/star-wars-ONTV-Early-80s/Star+Wa...

To hell with that ugliness, go all-out and look for a torrent of Star Wars Despecialized Editions. As good as you can get the originals, these days.

Oh, I agree, but it's still a nice blast from the past watching it this way. I was 10 when this came on TV and I still remember the thrill of watching it. I was five when it came out in theaters. I had an older brother who got to go see it there and he kept telling me how awesome it was but I had to wait five years to see it!

So this is more of a "oh yeah, that's what TV used to look like" moment than an actual "I want to watch the original Star Wars" again...

I have a friend at work who actually scored a pristine, never opened VHS copy and of course we ripped that sucker open and watched the day he got it. And we go back once in a while and watch it again, sometimes running it along side the new ones so we can spot and discuss the differences. Fun stuff on a Saturday night!

Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#29

Post by Seenso »

aglavine wrote: post #13
allovernow wrote: post #3

How does one archive data for long term storage in 2020? From what little I've read, all of the media accessable to the layman has an archive lifetime of less than 30 years before physical degradation- NAND, tape, disc, whatever. That makes for a brittle civilization when the vast majority of our knowledge is stored on media and would be unrecoverable just 3 decades after a global calamity.

I have 30 year old CDs that play as good as the first time, as well as older vinyl discs. I'm sure I own 20 year old DVDs in same condition.

> I have 30 year old CDs that play as good as the first time, as well as older vinyl discs.

Mass produced CDs are produced using a different process than the one consumer CDR writers use, and they are thus a much more stable storage medium. The data-containing layer is literally formed out of metal using a kind of mold: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_manufacturing#Ele...

CDRs are written by altering a layer of dye with a laser, and that dye is very vulnerable to chemical breakdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R#Physical_characteristics

Re: Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet

#30

Post by Seenso »

pkroll wrote: post #18
smhenderson wrote: post #5

I'm almost afraid to write this as I fear it will be removed soon and am surprised it hasn't been already but this was the first thing I looked for... https://archive.org/details/star-wars-ONTV-Early-80s/Star+Wa...

To hell with that ugliness, go all-out and look for a torrent of Star Wars Despecialized Editions. As good as you can get the originals, these days.

> To hell with that ugliness, go all-out and look for a torrent of Star Wars Despecialized Editions. As good as you can get the originals, these days.

The true original is the one my parents taped off of TV when I was a kid, commercials and all.

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