Alan asks...
Where Have All Our Movies Gone?
One of the hardest things to bear about lockdown is not being able to visit my daughter and grandchildren. (That said, I did get to see them a couple of weeks ago. Two days later, three of them got their Covid 19 test results – all positive, so I’ve had to self-isolate. Yesterday – nine days after the local authority were informed – they contacted me).
Fortunately, I have been taking film of my own brood and of the grandchildren for many years, and lockdown prompted me to get out the old footage. It’s been great reminding myself of how they looked and behaved as toddlers, and through to adulthood. Why do I mention this? Well, it’s because I wonder whether future generations will be able to do the same. I happen to come from a family with quite an interesting photographic history, going back over 150 years.
The accompanying photos are of my great grandparents (my grandchildren’s great great, great grandparents) and were taken in about 1870. Apart from bring in monochrome, they look as good as new, and will probably last at least another 150 years. The 50-yearold 8mm film of my own children is in mint condition, and was was first transferred to VHS tape and then to DVDs. Videos of my grandkids are also now on DVDs (see above pic). The big question; for how long will we be able to watch them? There are plenty of opinions available, ranging from 30 to 100 years, if kept cool, in low humidity and away from sunlight. (That said, I hung some unwanted DVD discs up in my garden, to scare birds off fruit bushes and, after a year, they would still play. They had no effect at all on the birds, however).
Even one hundred years is much less than the photos of my great grandparents, of course. There is similar uncertainty about videos stored on USB Flash drives, something that we see being used more often. One complication is that there are several different types. The consensus seems to be that the durability of the video signals is similar to DVDs, provided that they are not used for re-writing too often. Similar storage conditions are recommended, with the additional warning about not getting them anywhere magnets (this includes loudspeakers and other electronic equipment) The IAC’s film collection is stored by the East Anglian Film Archive, in Norwich. They put everything onto computer hard drives, which are stored in special vaults close to zero degrees.
The Archive can only guess how long they will be playable. So, even if the video signals on our DVD’s themselves last for a few generations, what about equipment to play them? Nowadays, relatively few domestic computers have DVD players, and free-standing machines are becoming rarer. Can you imagine your descendants taking a DVD into an electronics shop (always assuming that we still have shops by then) and asking the bemused assistant what equipment is available for viewing films made by their ancestors, ie today’s generation? (OK, it’s a bit like that already in PC World) Where does this leave us? The answer seems to be re-record your videos every few decades, ideally onto whatever is the latest medium (‘the Cloud’, quantum computer??) and just hope that your precious footage will not be lost to the future. It would be a shame if we were the last generation to leave a visual heritage.
Photos:- Great grandfather, great grandmother and granddaughter (Jessica) at two years old
Comments