Best Way To Store Digital Video For 20 Years?

An anonymous reader writes "My kid is now 1 year old and I already have 100G of digital video (stored on DVDs, DVD quality) and photos. How should I store it so that it's still readable 10 to 20 years from now? Will DVDs stil be around, and readable, 10 years from now? Should I plan for technology changes every 5 to 10 years (DVD->Blue-ray->whatever)? Is optical storage better, or should I try to use hard drives (making technology changes automatic)? And, if the answer is optical, how do you store optical disks so that they last?"

Comments

Do what IT departments do

[morgan_greywolf]

Use multiple different media, with redudancy.

Store it on HDDs. Mirrored RAID like RAID 1 or RAID 10 is preferred. but even RAID 5 buys you some extra integrity protection.

Then back it up. CDs. DVDs. BluRay. Tape. Whatever. Multiple times, multiple ways. Every few years do some copies onto new media.

Keep at least one copy off of your premises. A safe deposit box might be good.

Still readable

[CastrTroy]

As the other guy mentioned, CDs are still readable, almost 20 years later. However, they didn't have a viable alternative until about 10 years ago. I think that you will easily be able to find a DVD drive for many years to come, at least the next 20. The problem becomes ensuring that the actual media doesn't get scratched. I wouldn't trust DVDs to last that long, even if you just leave them on a shelf, away from the sunlight. If I was really interested in saving the stuff, I would put it on hard disks with at least 1 redundant copy, if not 2, stored in different places, and transfer over every 3-4 years. Still, it's going to be a lot of data. Your kid is only 1, and you already have 100 GB of stuff. Just think about how much that will balloon to once the kid has an attention span of more than 43 seconds. The first hockey game, all the school plays, all the other junk you could record.

Personally, I just don't bother with recording much. My wife gets on my case for not taking a lot of pictures with the kids, but I'd rather be interacting and paying attention, rather than trying to ensure we have everything recorded. Sure sometimes like during school plays you can record and not miss anything, but a lot of times, I find when I'm trying to take videos, or photos, I end up missing out on the actual fun.

The strength of digital in archiving....

[Chyeld]

isn't long term storage, though it may have it. The strength is that you can reproduce it with high fidelity to the original numberous times.

The best way to store digital vidio for 20 years is to make numerous copies of it. 10Gigs is about 3 DVD's at the lowest density. Add a dvd of checksum files (something like a PAR) and you should still be able to make five sets for under $20 if you are shopping around for DVD media.

Once a year or three, load up one of the sets and run it through the checksums. Correct any errors discovered via the checksums and copies from the other sets, and make another five sets.

Volia. Repeatable as long as there is any sort of cheap digital recording media that can easily fit your files out there.

The real question is how you do this when you have 1,000 Gig to backup.

Re:CDs are still readable

[Darkness404]

On CDs, the rot becomes visually noticeable in two ways: 1. When the CD is held up to a strong light, light shines through several pin-prick sized holes.[1] 2. Discoloration of the disc, which looks like a coffee stain on the disc (see also CD bronzing).[1]

In audio CDs, the rot leads to decreased audio quality, chatter, scrambled audio, and static. A Philips press officer has declared CD rot to be an isolated problem affecting only an "absolute minority" of cases. PDO has offered to replace any discs affected by CD bronzing if supplied with the defective disk and proof of purchase. However, according to the website of one of the affected record companies, Hyperion, PDO's helpline was discontinued in 2006 after a change of ownership, and defective CDs are now no longer replaced by the manufacturer, even though some of the affected record labels continue to offer replacements.[2]

CD bronzing is a specific variant of CD rot, a type of corrosion that affects the reflective layer of audio CDs and renders them unreadable over time. The phenomenon was first reported by John McKelvey in the September/October 1994 issue of American Record Guide.[1][2] Affected discs will show a uneven brownish discoloring that usually starts at the edge of the disc and slowly works its way towards the center. The top layer is affected before the bottom layer. The disc will become progressively darker over time; tracks at the end of the disc will show an increasing number of audio problems due to disc read errors before becoming unplayable. CD bronzing seems to occur mostly with audio CDs manufactured by Philips and Dupont Optical (PDO) at their plant in Blackburn, Lancashire, UK, between the years 1988 and 1993. Most, but not all of these discs have "Made in U.K. by PDO" etched into them (see image). Discs manufactured by PDO in other countries do not seem to be affected. A similar, if considerably less widespread problem occurred with discs manufactured by Optical Media Storage (Opti.Me.S) in Italy. PDO acknowledged that the problem was due to a manufacturing error on its part, but gave different explanations for the problem. The most widely acknowledged explanation is that the lacquer used to coat the discs was not resistant to the sulphur content of the paper in the booklets, which led to the corrosion of the aluminium layer of the disc, even though PDO later said it was because "a silver coating had been used on its discs instead of the standard gold."[3] Peter Copeland of the British Library Sound Archive confirms that silver instead of aluminium in the reflective layer of the CD would react with sulpheriferous sleeves, forming silver sulphate, which has a bronze colour.[4] A combination of the two factors seems likely because, as Barbara Hirsch of the University of California points out, the oxidation could only have occurred if the protective lacquer did not seal the metal film and substrate well enough.[2]

Those were from Wikipedia, fact is, though CD rot can be a problem, it isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Re:Look at it this way:

[FroMan]

Sometimes that video isn't just for you, who is able to be there every day with your child. Grandparents who are unable to be there every day with the child really like to see videos also. Also, not every waking moment needs to be spent actively interacting with your child. Sometimes they need some time to play on their own or with other children. Some of the cutest moments with my son have been spent watching him explore the world around him on his own (and subsequently get stuck in the tupperware drawer).

Re:CDs are still readable

[Lumpy]

Low grade garbage consumer CD-R's do that. you can buy high end CD-R's that have a gold substrate and a permanent dye that are guarenteed to last decades. I have a couple of TDK archival quality CD-R's from the very early 90's that were burned on a god-awful-expensive 1X CD burner that are still readable.

Do I store them on my car's dashboard? nope. I store them in a cool climate controlled media safe. I can still buy high end archival quality CD-R and DVD-R disks that I am sure will last a long time.

And if the 3.5" floppy drive is any example, CD and DVD drives will be around for another 10 years at least.