Conversation began regarding Barbra Streisand's debut on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson in 1961 which many regard as the most breathtaking opening sets anyone ever did. The whole world fell in love with her as one that night and many with tears in their eyes after how she sang. In huge contrast to the way things happen in pop today, she was bringing out her first album which had the simple and unassuming title of "I'm Barbra."
Yesterday we were looking at some debut acts of various huge stars and Sam Kinison's first appearance on Letterman was a great one. Streisand also had one of the great debut acts of all time and I looked for video but did not find it. This is what led to discussion of archival of film, videotape, and long-term storage in general.
Although I'm advised now film is extremely reliable for long-term storage, it needs proper care or it will disintegrate and a great deal of Hollywood's art has been lost because the film was not properly stored.
My remark to that was regarding dissatisfaction with tape for any purpose on any platform (i.e. videotape, computer storage, etc) because it's not reliable enough to really be sure if I come back in ten years then it will still work.
The same applies to optical storage on CD, DVD, etc because that's not reliable for long-term storage either due to the same type of decay.
The conversation was with Kannafoot and he also has extensive experience with computers. We agreed the only hope with digital storage is multiple copies and you know how that goes in your own life with your own computers. Back up, back up, back up.
That conversation leads me back to thinking of eight millimeter movies filmed by my ol' Dad in the sixties when 8mm was the rage. Some may remember the click, click, click in watching them because most did not have an audio track. I distinctly remember watching an old B&W movie my ol' Dad bought for us and I saw it many times. He also showed me how to edit 8mm film and I strongly believe this was the foundation to my long-term passion for shooting video.
So ... time passes ... at least one member of the family found the 8mm movies my ol' Dad had filmed and those were transferred to videotape and this is where we come to tying the story back to the intro. Getting that content onto videotape was a strong movie for viewability but it does not provide the archival medium you may hope.
Therefore ... the recommendation is to digitize the material. Transferring videotape to computer can even be done by home users with relatively-inexpensive kit and I can't recommend strongly enough doing this.
Part of the intention in the recommendation is selfishness since I would like to see those old 8mm movies again and possibly even use some of that material in my current videos but the fundamental point is consistent throughout here: get that stuff digitized to preserve it for the really long term.
Yesterday we were looking at some debut acts of various huge stars and Sam Kinison's first appearance on Letterman was a great one. Streisand also had one of the great debut acts of all time and I looked for video but did not find it. This is what led to discussion of archival of film, videotape, and long-term storage in general.
Although I'm advised now film is extremely reliable for long-term storage, it needs proper care or it will disintegrate and a great deal of Hollywood's art has been lost because the film was not properly stored.
My remark to that was regarding dissatisfaction with tape for any purpose on any platform (i.e. videotape, computer storage, etc) because it's not reliable enough to really be sure if I come back in ten years then it will still work.
The same applies to optical storage on CD, DVD, etc because that's not reliable for long-term storage either due to the same type of decay.
The conversation was with Kannafoot and he also has extensive experience with computers. We agreed the only hope with digital storage is multiple copies and you know how that goes in your own life with your own computers. Back up, back up, back up.
That conversation leads me back to thinking of eight millimeter movies filmed by my ol' Dad in the sixties when 8mm was the rage. Some may remember the click, click, click in watching them because most did not have an audio track. I distinctly remember watching an old B&W movie my ol' Dad bought for us and I saw it many times. He also showed me how to edit 8mm film and I strongly believe this was the foundation to my long-term passion for shooting video.
So ... time passes ... at least one member of the family found the 8mm movies my ol' Dad had filmed and those were transferred to videotape and this is where we come to tying the story back to the intro. Getting that content onto videotape was a strong movie for viewability but it does not provide the archival medium you may hope.
Therefore ... the recommendation is to digitize the material. Transferring videotape to computer can even be done by home users with relatively-inexpensive kit and I can't recommend strongly enough doing this.
Part of the intention in the recommendation is selfishness since I would like to see those old 8mm movies again and possibly even use some of that material in my current videos but the fundamental point is consistent throughout here: get that stuff digitized to preserve it for the really long term.
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