Archiving/preserving digital pics

CaffeineMeCaffeineMe Cedar Rapids, IA
edited July 2003 in Internet & Media
The wife just got into digital photography (Nikon CoolPix 3100), mostly taking pictures of the kids for scrapbooking. As the PC guy in the house, it becomes my job to preserve and backup all images.

She uploads from the camera to our server, I monitor the files. When they reach 650-700 MB in size, or are 2 months old, I backup to CD, twice. One CD stays with us either at home or in our safe deposit box, the other CD goes to her parent's house for image retrieval by them, or for simple storage.

Any other reasonable steps I should be taking for preservation of these images?

Comments

  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    As long as you're using quality CDs, that should be sufficient for your purposes. Magnetic mediums may degenerate over time I think, so optical is as good as it gets. Just don't use teh sucky ones that scratch easy, etc.

    (that was my amateurish 2cents anyway) :)
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    Yeah, you're okay with that backup plan, that's a very very good one. The one thing that is bad for optical media is light, so if you keep them in a dark place, they'll be good for (theoretically) 100 years or more.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited July 2003
    I need to do that. My digital photo archive is currently on my hard drive seperated into each month I took them.
  • MarkTAWMarkTAW Brooklyn, NY
    edited July 2003
    I thought that commercial CD's are different from CD-R's - the 1's and 0's are physical dots instead of little burn marks. So I don't know if that theoretical 100 year shelf life applies to CD-R's.

    Also, poor grade DVD's (I haven't heard this about CD's) degrade quickly. One of my friends said that he left his DVD out and then picked it up and saw physical holes in it as the ink shifted. So you definately want to buy high quality CD's for archival purposes.

    I propose you get a microscope and examine the surface of the CD-RW and then chisel the dots you see onto a giant stone wheel. That ought to last a lifetime, as long as you don't drop it or leave it out in the elements. Maybe store it in a cave somewhere and future civilizations can discover it and it will be the rosetta stone or dead sea scrolls of their day.

    Seriously though, I don't know that any digital storage element will last into your old age... This is a common discussion in the audio forums I hang out in. They feel that analog tape will last longer than digital simply because a tape machine can be built easily from parts, whereas a computer will be nearly impossible to build. The great thing about real photographs is that they don't require a reader. You may find yourself transferring your collection, and an image viewer and printer, to the next big archival storage format in 10 to 20 years, or keeping a computer around and hoping it continues to work.
  • CaffeineMeCaffeineMe Cedar Rapids, IA
    edited July 2003
    If there aren't computers around, I've got bigger problems then retrieving my pictures. I suspect I'll be too busy hunting food, chopping firewood, and fighting off mutants in the midst of nuclear winter if a computer is not around! :)
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    This may sound insane, but would optical media last longer if you kept them submerged in distilled water?

    NS
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    nightshade...it would make sense...but what would be the best idea would to have them airpacked
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    Ah, its just the idea came to me, that I clean my CD's with just water and dry them with one of those REALLY fluffy towels, works better than any agent, anyway, I thought that in water it wouldnt have anything from the air getting to it, and with distilled water, there is nothing in it really, oh well. Thanks for clarifying that.

    NS
  • maxanonmaxanon Montreal
    edited July 2003
    Nightshade: there's air in distilled water. Vacuum packing may be better.

    One thing to do is to check your CDs once in a while. You don't want to have this elaborate system just find that some disks are corrupt.

    I don't think CD-Rs are better than tape in terms in durability. The surface of a CD-R is organic and is much softer than the retail CDs. Scratches normally effect them more. Yamaha has this burner that when in high quality mode will actually make deeper divots (the capacity is reduced) which will be more resilient to scratches and stuff.

    I think the quality of CD-Rs are pretty std now. DVDs are more sensitive due to the way the write-layer is made and the amount of data being written.

    Another topic, I guess, but did you hear amount those disposable DVDs that Bolockbuster is considering. Essentially you rent the disk and when you open it to play, the surface degrades (become opaque) and within 2-3 days the disk is unreadable. You canthwart it by vacuum packing it. The idea is to not have to return to the store to return the disk.
  • CaffeineMeCaffeineMe Cedar Rapids, IA
    edited July 2003
    "Another topic, I guess, but did you hear amount those disposable DVDs that Bolockbuster is considering. Essentially you rent the disk and when you open it to play, the surface degrades (become opaque) and within 2-3 days the disk is unreadable. You canthwart it by vacuum packing it. The idea is to not have to return to the store to return the disk."

    Vacuum packing so that you can watch a movie again in a week, rather than:

    1. Buying it
    2. Re-renting it

    Seems like a lot of work. The disposable method bothers me, since do we REALLY need to start making and tossing disks by the millions into already overflowing landfills? I'm not an environmental nazi by any stretch, but this just doesn't seem necessary. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here, just a thought.
  • maxanonmaxanon Montreal
    edited July 2003
    I don't agree with it either. I think its crazy but its actually being done. The amount of waste will be nuts.


    http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58906,00.html

    Flexplay:

    http://www.flexplay.com/

    Its a technology, I guess.
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