In the January 20 issue of Daily Variety, David S. Cohen discusses the growing problem of preserving digital films.
(Above: Ironman2) While the film Hugo was a clarion call for preserving old analog films, it turns out that hanging onto digital film files may be an even bigger and more pressing problem.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sounded the alarm in a new report called "The Digital Dilemma." The problem stems from the cost of preserving files, the fate of independent productions that haven't yet found distribution, the rapid changeover of file formats and software applications, and the sheer volume of data. According to the Academy, the total content associated with a single digital movie is well above three petabytes. (Each petabyte is a thousand terabytes or a million gigabytes).
Cohen writes: "Digital storage, be it on hard drives, DVDs or solid state memory, simply isn't on a par for anything close to the 100-plus-year lifespan of film. The life of digital media is measured in years, not decades, and file formats can go obsolete in months."
"The best archiving solution today," says Cohen, "is to print out to film, ideally with a three-color separation printed onto black and white archival film. That's a very expensive solution."
The content at risk is not just the final film and the outtakes, but also the test footage, commentaries, auditions, and concept art. They all might suffer the same fate as the lost plays of Aeschylus, the paintings of Apelles, or the sand paintings of the Navajo.
The content at risk is not just the final film and the outtakes, but also the test footage, commentaries, auditions, and concept art. They all might suffer the same fate as the lost plays of Aeschylus, the paintings of Apelles, or the sand paintings of the Navajo.
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