Physical media isn’t the ultimate format people like to make it out to be. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with digital media as long as it’s files on a hard drive. Honestly, it’s probably a better format for preservation than a disc that’s locked into whatever video format it was published in. In 1000 years, it’s pretty unlikely anyone will be able to read files from a DVD or Blu-Ray. But a file that’s been reformatted to keep up with modern technology? That’ll be useful.
CDs themselves only last 100 years at most. Hard drives also fail. There really isn’t a great solution for something permanent unless you are changing its form/format every so often
CDs don’t last that long. I had a buddy that worked for a radio program tell me that the tapes lasted a lot longer. This was mid 2000s and he was already seeing failures. I think they were fairly early adopters, but still it couldn’t have been that long.
I think DRM free digital media is viable as well. A hard drive doesn’t have the lifespan of a blu-ray, but modern drives are good about warning of catastrophic failure, and I suspect most people that have digital media libraries migrate them to new storage as wanted/needed.
There’s something satisfying about physical media that digital lacks. I get that appeal. But I don’t think it’s superior for media preservation.
Physical media isn’t the ultimate format people like to make it out to be. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with digital media as long as it’s files on a hard drive. Honestly, it’s probably a better format for preservation than a disc that’s locked into whatever video format it was published in. In 1000 years, it’s pretty unlikely anyone will be able to read files from a DVD or Blu-Ray. But a file that’s been reformatted to keep up with modern technology? That’ll be useful.
CDs themselves only last 100 years at most. Hard drives also fail. There really isn’t a great solution for something permanent unless you are changing its form/format every so often
Right, that is what I meant by “reformatted to keep up with technology”, including copying it to new hardware that’s less likely to fail.
CDs don’t last that long. I had a buddy that worked for a radio program tell me that the tapes lasted a lot longer. This was mid 2000s and he was already seeing failures. I think they were fairly early adopters, but still it couldn’t have been that long.
I think DRM free digital media is viable as well. A hard drive doesn’t have the lifespan of a blu-ray, but modern drives are good about warning of catastrophic failure, and I suspect most people that have digital media libraries migrate them to new storage as wanted/needed.
There’s something satisfying about physical media that digital lacks. I get that appeal. But I don’t think it’s superior for media preservation.