Eastman Kodak: Strong increasing demand for movie film

[JWMster]

Drew: Special Effects have been the crutch for story telling. It's all about super powers and crap. Not a think about dialog, or (perish the thought) actual acting. Fortunately there is plenty, but the average film is meant to be dubbed into a number of languages and the story telling... has to fit a marketing package. Not all this is new. Just more so, and genres have disappeared.
Cinematography where the lighting is just amazing? Hmmmm.... color is wonderful, but such a crutch. Cinema used to describe color as "flat lighting" relative to the dramatic lighting favored by B&W. I wonder how much that has changed our tastes today... EVEN in B&W? Mid tones? Nah. Old B&W films weren't afraid of blacks and whites, high contrast.

 

[Luckless]

Film is archival. I heard a podcast where they told that Fuji's has a machine for running prints and archiving with one film for each color (three passes) and this is better preservation than digital. In fact, in an odd twist, this is how digital is being preserved because the continual changes in format have meant that old digital format is inaccessible.

Can you name one highly popular file format from the last 20 years that is currently inaccessible on modern systems?

Even one that could have been described as 'only mildly popular'?

 

[dabsond]

It's not the file format that has been changing significantly it is the physical medium it is stored on. Floppy drives, zip disks, CD Roms and not to mention all the older parallel scsci formats from years past. If I found 5 1/4 floppy disk with photos on it, I would have to send it somewhere to be read and rewritten.

 

[twelvetone12]

It is also the file formats, particularly with high end professional software, which many times are completely proprietary or modified incompatibile version of standard formats.
Recently I had to open a scan of a microfilm bi did some 10 years ago, using a high end scanner. It is a PDF file with embedded TIFF images. Pretty standard right? Wrong, as the images are compressed with with a proprietary algorithm, which is not supported anymore in recent versions of the software. The old software works only on Windows XP but turns on only if you have the scanner attached. The scanner is scsi and it works with a handful or cards on old hardware and the list goes on.
I made a new scan of the microfilm.

 

[GLS]

It is also the file formats, particularly with high end professional software, which many times are completely proprietary or modified incompatibile version of standard formats.
Recently I had to open a scan of a microfilm bi did some 10 years ago, using a high end scanner. It is a PDF file with embedded TIFF images. Pretty standard right? Wrong, as the images are compressed with with a proprietary algorithm, which is not supported anymore in recent versions of the software. The old software works only on Windows XP but turns on only if you have the scanner attached. The scanner is scsi and it works with a handful or cards on old hardware and the list goes on.
I made a new scan of the microfilm.

Things like this are one of the best arguments for using cloud based storage as long term backup for digital files. Of course that is still at the mercy of those storage providers staying in business (although any serious provider would presumably allow fair warning in order for customers to perform data dumps), and you need a well thought out archiving system in order to find things easily years later, but nonetheless.

 

[twelvetone12]

I used Wuala for cloud backups, when they went out of business they basically said "adieu" and turned everything off.

 

[Luckless]

I used Wuala for cloud backups, when they went out of business they basically said "adieu" and turned everything off.

And we all know that storing physical media is completely [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire] immune to sudden disappearance. Not to mention how trivial it is to 100% perfect copies to store in multiple locations...

 

[GLS]

I used Wuala for cloud backups, when they went out of business they basically said "adieu" and turned everything off.

Looking at their Wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuala) they gave their customers 3 months notice to get their files before shutting down. That's not unreasonable IMO.

Regardless, if I ever opted for cloud storage it would probably be with one of the giants like Microsoft or Google, as then the chances of that ever happening are exceedingly slim.

 

[twelvetone12]

Well for me it was no problem, since I just used them as secondary backup. But for a bigger organization, 3 months can be quite a short notice, as you can have any sorts of weird setups, bottlenecks, undocumented stuff, etc. And also the time it would take to re-upload huge collections of data, which can seem trivial in 2019 but should not be discounted!
I personally trust Google even less, since they have a history of arbitrarily shutting down their services. At the end, many local backup copies will save you (preferably, in different locations).

 

[radiant]

Can you name one highly popular file format from the last 20 years that is currently inaccessible on modern systems?

I don't think that is the right question. It is not about being inaccessible, it's about how hard it is to access. Yes, humans can still access old floppy disks but take a average human and think how hard it is for them after 5, 10, 20 years? Will they bother to try to access the data or just dump the old medias?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Discs can be repurposed for skeet shooting, or perhaps playing Frisbee.

 

[jrhilton]

I don't think that is the right question. It is not about being inaccessible, it's about how hard it is to access. Yes, humans can still access old floppy disks but take a average human and think how hard it is for them after 5, 10, 20 years? Will they bother to try to access the data or just dump the old medias?

I think how hard to access is a valid point. For example without the right equipment a cinema release print is pretty hard to access! Without a projector you could look at some still frames in your front room, but you couldn't watch the film, yet alone hear any sound. I would even go as far as to say a 35mm film negative from a camera that took a family snap a decade or two is pretty hard to access for a lot of people these days. You have to find a lab, or someone with a scanner or darkroom.The equipment or services needed are no longer ubiquitous.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yet a color chrome is a tangible object, as is any remaining photographic print. Even negatives give a visual clue. Someone sorting through an old box in an attic can almost instantly recognize if there is sometimes interesting to them or not. If it were a box of discs, there would be no incentive unless there was writing on the disc stipulating, Forgotten secret Swiss bank accounts. But among the other uses for such discs might be disposable tires on lightweight electric vehicles, equally disposable. Direction visual information is accessible over tens of thousand of years; cave paintings, sculpted objects. Every disc or thumb-drive looks almost the same : seen enough of em, move on. Who keeps punch cards anymore? Or tape reels of raw data? Dinosaur bones are coveted and collected far more than those.

 

[ph]

Is super8 as well as its developmnent available?

p.

 

[Nodda Duma]

@Agulliver my pleasure! Doing my bit

 

[Agulliver]

In the 1980s the BBC did a project they called the "Domesday Project". They used the then ubiquitous (in British schools) BBC MIcro computer and the best mass storage of the day - Laservision ROM discs.

Under 20 years later in the early 2000s, maybe 15 years after the project was finished....the equipment to read the discs was totally obsolete. And the file formats were no longer in use. Another big project of "digital archeology" was needed to retrieve the data. The first problem was actually finding a working LV-ROM drive. Then retro-engineering the file system and file formats...since the BBC micro was by then obsolete.

The data tapes from many NASA missions of the 60s through to the 80s are now being painstakingly retrieved and archived. This is proving very difficult with custom made tape drives required and more digital archaeology to decipher the once common data formats and unlock what's on the tapes.

Just try sourcing the hardware to access 5.25" floppies today...once omnipresent for PC owners in the 80s and early 90s. And the files on them? JPEG was a new-fangled thing...there were many competing non-standard file formats just for photos. As for other documents....well...can modern MS office parse Lotus 123 files? Or Frameworks documents? How about Wordstar?

I do have 8-bit computer data on cassette tapes now almost 39 years old which work fine but most users have found that their cassette tapes have not been stored well and the data has "holes" in it caused by dropouts. Windows emulators exist for the most popular 8-bit machines, which can be a boon though often the original hardware works better with old tapes. Even 3.5" floppies are difficult to use now. Though at least there is a modern USB drive available unlike 5.25 and 3" floppies. But what if you used a non-standard format to squeeze more data than the 1.4Mb? And if it's not MS-DOS but something like a MAC or Commodore disc...or an Atari ST single sided disc...good luck!

But film.....a negative can be held up to the light and the naked eye in combination with the human brain knows there's an image there. Reversing it isn't difficult optically or electronically. A slide or strip of reversal film reveals it's image just being held to the light. It will never require any "archaeology" to regain the images. As long as it's not abused the film will last many decades and even centuries. It won't even matter if civilisation goes, and comes again....surviving pieces of films will be decipherable....in a way that digital data will not.

I am unsure how this is all relevant. Umm...hopefully it will mean Kodak will sell more movie film. And it reminds me I have a couple of super 8 cartridges of Ektachrome 100 in the freezer.

 

[Lee Rust]

Yet a color chrome is a tangible object, as is any remaining photographic print. Even negatives give a visual clue. Someone sorting through an old box in an attic can almost instantly recognize if there is sometimes interesting to them or not. If it were a box of discs, there would be no incentive unless there was writing on the disc stipulating, Forgotten secret Swiss bank accounts. But among the other uses for such discs might be disposable tires on lightweight electric vehicles, equally disposable. Direction visual information is accessible over tens of thousand of years; cave paintings, sculpted objects. Every disc or thumb-drive looks almost the same : seen enough of em, move on. Who keeps punch cards anymore? Or tape reels of raw data? Dinosaur bones are coveted and collected far more than those.

I've experimented with copying digicam photos from my Mac laptop Retina screen onto medium format chrome film. With careful exposure, the results aren't half bad and well worth considering for archiving significant digital images as transparencies. Of course, the simplest approach is still just to print out your best pictures on paper from whatever source using whatever print method you like, and then put them in a box or album in a safe place with plenty of names, places and dates attached... it's a time-tested method that's worked quite well for almost two centuries.

 

[Luckless]

I don't think that is the right question. It is not about being inaccessible, it's about how hard it is to access. Yes, humans can still access old floppy disks but take a average human and think how hard it is for them after 5, 10, 20 years? Will they bother to try to access the data or just dump the old medias?

Do you realize how many hard copies of old family photos I've scanned for friends and family, because they can keep 'moving' said photos across the country with the drag of a mouse, while the shoe box of originals had gotten dumped in the trash? - They didn't want them, and I didn't have the space to keep the physical copies. Yet I have a few hundred shoe boxes worth of photos and home movies sitting on an external drive array [that's about the size of a shoe box...]

No one who is remotely familiar with computers is going to be trying to recover important files off 20 year old hard drives in two decades simply because those important files migrate to newer storage right along with the new computers, and these files are even kept in redundant storage on top of that.

It is not the 1990's anymore, and the modern world has learned its lessons about data migration: Stay on top of it, and many any new tool trivially easy to pull old data forward.


If you are going to put effort into making physical copies of anything you expect to 'leave behind' - Make sure you curate it very well. Attics full of old stuff 'waiting to be found' aren't exceedingly common among the younger generations, even those of us who are getting to the point of not being all that young anymore, and "Uncle Bob's Big Boxes of Mostly Random Photos" probably isn't high on the list of things to pack when jetting off to the far side of the country for a new job...

 

[BSP]

Just a random blurb: anyone know where in Europe I can order a 400ft roll of Kodak 5222 Double-X? Shipping + duty from the US makes this VERY expensive.

If such a source exists I would personally increase the demand by one can per year

Bill

 

[StepheKoontz]

Can you name one highly popular file format from the last 20 years that is currently inaccessible on modern systems?

Even one that could have been described as 'only mildly popular'?

zip drive

 

[Kino]

Here's a little light reading for those who think digital files can easily be archived and retrieved...

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/intro/resources.shtml

Also: http://dotwhat.net/

has an extensive listing of many known file extensions. 288 alone for image file formats. I'd be interested to see just how many of those can be read by a casual user in this day and age...

 

[DREW WILEY]

Like I already suggested .... the entire history of digital records has been within a comparative blink of an eye, with things risking become obsolete multiple times within even a single lifetime, and each needing is special devices and software etc, as each in turn goes rapidly extinct. But the function of the human eye has never changed. We still see red ocher handprints on a cave wall the same way their makers did tens of thousands of years ago. We might not always interpret this kind of thing correctly; but there is no denying it is there, and how instantly intriguing it is to us. Visual recording is inherent to the human species and many many others. Digital recording is perceptible to nothing other than a dedicated machine, which requires a great deal of complexity to make available to us what it contains. And machines themselves keep changing, so there you have it. How can anyone in good faith realistically speak of "digital archiving" when the entire technology is less old than I am? It's like talking about the stabilty of a rendition of Washinton's Monument made of paper mache. Just wait for it to rain,
and then see if you still have the same opinion.

 

[Luckless]

zip drive

Not a file format, and was already rather unpopular by the early 2000s. But also didn't require more than a minor hoop jump to get a USB Zip Drive running on my Win 10 machine last time I tried it [a few years back at this point]

Here's a little light reading for those who think digital files can easily be archived and retrieved...

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/intro/resources.shtml

Also: http://dotwhat.net/

has an extensive listing of many known file extensions. 288 alone for image file formats. I'd be interested to see just how many of those can be read by a casual user in this day and age...

How many of those are in both common usage and at any risk of being 'abandoned' with no publicly accessible data specification?

 

[Kino]

Not a file format, and was already rather unpopular by the early 2000s. But also didn't require more than a minor hoop jump to get a USB Zip Drive running on my Win 10 machine last time I tried it [a few years back at this point]
How many of those are in both common usage and at any risk of being 'abandoned' with no publicly accessible data specification?

All were once. All in use now, will join them...

Just the Silicon Graphics extension .sgi files that were predominant in the early digital cinema transition are virtually unsupported in modern graphics software. Early variations of Cineon and DPX (such as the monochrome standard) are not much better.

The earliest "method" of archiving digital files on any one film made during the initial Digital Intermediate phase (DI) was to simply unplug the entire workstation and shove it into a corner with the data on the system because upgrades would make the data unreadable.

Silicon Graphics was the Apple of CGI "back in the day". Things change fast and all file formats will become obsolete unless you migrate and preserve the core essence of that data in a universally readable fashion.

Film rots, files die.

So it goes...

 

[Lee Rust]

I don't think there's any denying that digital media are superior in most ways to physical media in terms of economy and flexibility of form, display, distribution and duplicability. However, digital archiving is an active management process that must be methodically and reliably sustained for as long as the encoded information is deemed interesting.

Human indifference or incompetence being what they are, over long periods of time there will be plenty of opportunities for any digital data chain to be broken, while a well-preserved physical archive may sit forgotten and neglected for years or centuries, yet still be in perfectly visible form whenever and if ever it is suddenly re-discovered.