T3D Re: TECH-3D digest 531

[egoldste@xxxxxx (Eric Goldstein)]

Oliver Dean asks:

>Since a variant of Beta is still being used by professionals, might
>there be a professionally oriented Beta or Betamax society in existence?


The only common factor between the home tape format and the professional
tape format is the name! I don't know of a professional society clammering
for the professional Beta or Beta SP format, much less the home one...

With regard to John T's comment that collectors will diligently reformat
digital information from old unsupported media to new ones... I know of so
many examples of this NOT happening, resulting in important artistic and
professional works being lost in both the analogue and digitals worlds,
that I certainly would not rely upon this mechanism for any practical
preservation purposes...

For now, many analogue mediums so vastly outperform digital ones in terms
of archival characteristics, as well as "softer" presentation
characteristics, that I don't see any significant advantage in digitizing
for preservation purposes, and quite a few downsides in many instances.

YMMV.


Eric G.



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