OT: Digital crisis: Motion pictures may fade to bl

birdcat wrote on 2/8/2008, 4:41 AM

Digital crisis: Motion pictures may fade to black

February 08, 2008 (Computerworld) Current storage technologies may have a reputation for being plentiful and cheap, but not necessarily in Hollywood, where a recent study warns that the annual cost of archiving a digital film is 11 times that of storing celluloid film.

According to "The Digital Dilemma," a report recently released by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, digital film storage costs $12,510 per year, compared with $1,059 for celluloid. More dramatically, source materials -- those outtakes and audio recordings that often make up bonus content for special edition products -- cost 429 times as much to store, a whopping $208,500 per year for digital materials vs. $486 for film.

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Full article at: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9061099&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 2/8/2008, 11:07 AM

While some of the facts in that story are probably true, many are typical of so many media stories, where they take one apocryphal story and extrapolate from that in order to manufacture a "crisis." Much of the "problem" comes from trying to archive ALL the raw digital footage. The movie itself doesn't consume that much space. Also, they are trying to archive the original uncompressed data used during editing. This would be like trying to preserve your own work by archiving uncompressed HD files rather than archiving the file you would put on a Blu-Ray disc. Since the film has been cut and is finalized, it is of dubious value to archive the material in a form that permits further editing, although I guess as other formats are created there might be ways in the future to provide more pristine transfers to those new formats if the uncompressed formats are available.

The article also has the usual nonsense about: While manufacturers of CD-Rs claim media "lifetimes up to 100 years ... actual lifetimes may be only two to five years." If you buy off-brand media and store it in the sun in Jamaica, then that's true. If instead you purchase MAM-A gold media and store it in the same salt mines used for film, that media will last as long (or longer) than film. As for media obsolescence, that is true for media that never gained wide acceptance, such as various tape formats, but I can still easily find equipment that will play 78 rpm records; floppy discs (cited in the article as obsolete) are easily read (although 8" floppy drives are scarce). Given the huge volume of CD and DVD drives, and the backward compatibility of HD-DVD with both these formats, it will be a LONG time before it will be difficult to read these.

So, I don't think there is a crisis at all, other than the one created by the studios themselves by thinking that they need to archive all the original source material in uncompressed format.

That basically amounts to archiving the director's ego, and we all know how expensive that can be.

kmr wrote on 2/8/2008, 12:57 PM

johnmeyer said: "Since the film has been cut and is finalized, it is of dubious value to archive the material in a form that permits further editing, although I guess as other formats are created there might be ways in the future to provide more pristine transfers to those new formats if the uncompressed formats are available."

Archiving the raw digital data is "of dubious value" only as much as archiving the original film elements has been "of dubious value". So are you saying that it's OK to just archive the printing master of a film, instead of the original camera negative? Horrors!

johnmeyer wrote on 2/8/2008, 2:03 PM

So are you saying that it's OK to just archive the printing master of a film, instead of the original camera negative? Horrors!

In a way, yes I am. The differences between a negative and film print are substantial; the differences between uncompressed and a delivery format are quite real, but definitely more subtle. Also, while it is fun to see outtakes, etc., I am not sure I see the value in having all of those in the ultimate format.

I do archiving and restoration all the time and very much appreciate the difference between the ultimate source (film negatives, etc.) and copies, but I also understand that in the digital world those differences can get to be very small. In particular, there are all sorts of ways to archive HD material that involve frame-based compression (MJPEG comes to mind) where you can use very low compression rates (i.e., very high quality) and the difference from the original can be close to negligible, but the storage savings still quite high. For instance, if you take a RAW or TIFF still photo, save it using various JPEG settings, and then compare to the original, you will find that it becomes increasingly difficult to find differences. If you use wavelet compression, it becomes virtually impossible. If you then compare these infinitesimal differences to the huge differences in contrast, color, and detail between using a film print and using a film negative, you will understand why I think it would be possible to archive using something other than uncompressed and not have anyone notice.

BTW, while it could just be sloppy writing, the author of that article doesn't appear to understand the difference between nitrate and acetate stocks:

"Many early titles, produced on flammable film, have simply been burned in warehouse fires or turned to vinegar in uncontrolled storage environments."

Nitrate film (used for "early titles") doesn't have vinegar syndrome; only acetate stock has that problem.

farss wrote on 2/8/2008, 2:56 PM

While I agree with most of what you're saying I think you're short changing the role of archiving. No doubt the original of the Declaration Of Independance is sitting somewhere carefully preserved in the USA. Maybe it's even on public display, under thick glass and with lots of security. Imagine the money that could be saved by just scanning it onto a CD and throwing away the original? Significant money could be saved on the armed guards too, just hand out copies of the CD to the visitors.

A large part of the cost of archiving is in cataloguing and checking originals. And the task grows over time. Today archiving a 4K digital release print to LTO3 tape does not seem overly expensive and the tapes will be readable for say 10 years. After that the media format is nearing obsolescence. No great sweat you might think, copy it to LTO7. But how many tapes have to be copied ten years from now?
What happens 20 years from now when it has to be copied to LTO10?
That's a large part of the digital connundrum. Assuming a roll of film would survive 100 years it's a no brainer to get the 'data' back off it. Even if there wasn't a film scanner left on the planet it'd be a trivial task to build one, the content is self explainatory. I'd argue perhaps much the same for 1/4" audio tapes. Imagine though you're 100 years in the future, trying to build a device to get the video back off a digital betacam tape would be quite a daunting task.

I've recently been taken aback by how much material is still on quad tape that has never been transferred and suddenly a market has been found for the content. Worse still there's a large catalogue of content that was transferred from 2" to 1" and then to digital betacam. The quality loss was significant. We're now considering going back to the 2" tapes to transfer directly to DB. Keeping a 2" machine running in top condition is becoming difficult.

Bob.

ushere wrote on 2/8/2008, 3:02 PM

johnmeyer wrote on 2/8/2008, 4:22 PM

does this mean we wont have to suffer 'directors cut' releases ten years after the initial release, compiled on a special 2 dvd pack with every out-take and endless commentary from everyone from director to tea boy?

Don't forget the caterer.

I just got through watching one of the best W.C. Fields films (Man on the Flying Trapeze). Finally came out on DVD. Exactly one screen of credits at the end.

I kept looking for the credit for the caterers, but never saw it ...