Film preservation -- the digital crisis

[Fancyarcher]

What I was wondering is why they don't just store the home video version (DVD, Bluray, or 3D BluRay) save a player or a computer that can read them and then update them (say the next Bluray) when they come out, because honestly Bluray won't be totally replaced for a long time (even if a higher quality player comes out in the future). It's not necessarily the best way to preserve thing but it seems like an option.But again that seems to simple and so it's probably been thought of and discredited for whatever reason.Also, don't preserve every single film, preserve the critical and financial hits.

 

Nonsense! I think every film should be preserved, good or bad. Sure its a pipe dream, but even a bad movie can be influential for a filmmaker, specifically on how not to make a movie.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Fancyarcher

[The Panda]

Nonsense! I think every film should be preserved, good or bad. Sure its a pipe dream, but even a bad movie can be influential for a filmmaker, specifically on how not to make a movie.

Obviously it'd be preferential to preserve every film, but unless a workable solution is come up with the priority should be one preserving the historically important films, the influential films, and the critical and financial successes.It's kind of like people who hoard everything they've ever owned in their attic. While it would be ideal not to let anything go, it's just not possible to preserve everything. Save the valuable items and let the the forgettable junk be an afterthought only of there is room.As the article said, with film reels this isn't a problem, but with how expensive preserving digital films is long term, until a long term solution is made focus most of the effort on making sure the important films (cultural influence, financial success, and critical/academy success) are preserved Edited February 25, 2014 by The Panda

[RobinHood26]

Nonsense! I think every film should be preserved, good or bad. Sure its a pipe dream, but even a bad movie can be influential for a filmmaker, specifically on how not to make a movie.

 

Agreed.

 

Every movie out there is someones favorite. 

[BadAtGender]

Vulture weighs in: http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/perils-of-an-all-digital-movie-future.html

[BadAtGender]

Not for the same reasons as movies, but the nascent movement to archive video games is also facing a crisis: https://storify.com/8BitBecca/video-game-archiving-post-gamergate

 

(However, the issues surrounding movies are probably even more pronounced for video games, since they're all digital.)

[BK007]

Not for the same reasons as movies, but the nascent movement to archive video games is also facing a crisis: https://storify.com/8BitBecca/video-game-archiving-post-gamergate

 

(However, the issues surrounding movies are probably even more pronounced for video games, since they're all digital.)

 

 

Why the fuck is she typing that on Twitter?

 

That she is makes me lose hope in the world and re-emphasizes the pointlessness of Twitter for anything of substance. 

[terrestrial]

only to give some feel for storage size needs depending on the file version. To me it was then a bit of an eye-opener, but I am a learning better via charts person


examples 1920x1080:
AVI non-compressed 24 bit per pixel, 50p: 24*50*1920*1080: 2,32 GBit/s =. 17,4 GB/min or 1,02 TB/h
h.264 / AVCHD 50p: ~26 MBit/s = 195 MB/min = 11,4 GB/h
h.264 / AVCHD 25i: ~18 MBit/s = 135 MB/min = 7,9 GB/h
h.264 (x264) 50p: ~12 MBit/s = 90 MB/min = 5,3 GB/h
h.264 (Youtube) 30p: ~6 MBit/s = 45 MB/min = 2,6 GB/h



edit:
not meant as an example for film preservation, only prurely for people only used to YT and/or 'Full HD'... to show how a little looking change can change the needed store motr thrn 'little'.

Edited March 16, 2015 by terrestrial

[Dementeleus]

You would never want to archive things in h.264 -- that's a compressed playback format. You'd also want to use the original resolution, not just 1080p.

 

You'd archive the RAW camera files (RED's .r3d, etc), and possibly a more universal codec as well (for backup). And then you'd do backups as well.

 

The latest professional codecs are actually pretty efficient, but the total numbers still add up to a lot:

 

5K REDCODE at 5:1 compression is around 256 gigabytes/hour. That's not bad at all, but consider that a production will probably shoot anywhere from 70 hours to a couple hundred hours of total footage. That all needs to be backed up multiple times, and that's just for the camera "negative".

[BadAtGender]

Another more oblique connection, but there's also concerns about how much information just up on the web we could lose. When digital is gone, it's really gone.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/raiders-of-the-lost-web/409210/

 

Most of the films made in the United States between 1912 and 1929 have been lost. “And it’s not because we didn't know how to preserve them, it’s that we didn't think they were valuable,” Rumsey said.

[lab276]

^ I find that sort of thing quite scary.

[BadAtGender]

^ I find that sort of thing quite scary.

 

A bit, yeah. I mean in a sense it's not new. Archiving tends to be pretty quality agnostic, when done right, but that also means that it's really difficult to convince people that the actual practice is worthwhile. If you're preserving something they're emotionally attached to, so much the be better, but if it's one of those iffy things, they'll look askance at you.

 

To say nothing if there's some sort of massive regional hiccup that causes a problem (like a war), or a large group of people who are suddenly opposed to the idea of archiving anything.