Digital Imaging (i.e. working with your pictures on the computer) has grown to the point that it’s now completely taken over the world of photography, and the days of film are now just a fond memory. We started teaching digital imaging classes at the SHF Computer Lab way back in 1998, mainly because I’m a photography nut and thought it might be fun to do so. At first, we didn’t get a lot of students in those classes, but as more powerful computers became less expensive, and digital cameras hit the scene, our classes grew and now they are some of the most popular that we offer.
But what about home video? Has it followed the same popularity path? In a funny way, it has and yet hasn’t.
On the “has” side, video itself has become the mainstay of media on the Internet (see my blog from a few weeks ago entitled “Watching Online Videos: There’s a Lot to See”). The combination of inexpensive digital video cameras, inexpensive powerful computers, cheap video editing software and broadband access to the Internet has spawned the phenomenalgrowth of video sharing sites such as YouTube, as amateur film-makers of all ages rush to upload their creations (some of which are GREAT, but many of which are… well, NOT great).
But on the “hasn’t” side, it seems that everyone still has a box-full of either old Super or Regular-8 movies (for you young folks, that’s actually a type of movie film), or VHS/Beta video tapes that they KNOW they should “digitalize”, but just aren’t quite sure how. Oh, there’s a few who have done it, but not without a lot of agonizing and teeth gnashing as they tried to figure it out and make everything work.
That’s where the dichotomy lies…. it’s not too tough to take a modern digital video camera and turn it into a YouTube video, but it takes a bit more know-how to take an older “analog” movie and turn it digital.
Ok, so why do we even care about all this?
The fact is, if you have home movies in any form other than “digital”, they are slowly deteriorating as we speak. Just as it’s important to “digitalize” (scan in) our old photo prints, slides, and negatives, it’s just as important that we “capture” our old movies and turn them into clips on our computer or DVDs we can play on our TV. Here’s why…. when you turn photos or movies “digital”, you are turning the information that makes up the photo/movie into a bunch of 1’s and 0’s. The great thing is, you can copy those 1’s and 0’s with NO quality loss as many times as you want, and store them on media that slows less aging over time. And as time does progress, you can take your photos/movies and recopy them to new media just to keep them preserved.
So it’s important to digitalize so that your precious photos/movies are saved for posterity.
But there’s even a side benefit. When you digitalize, you are creating photo/movie computer “files” that you can easily share with others by copying CD/DVD discs, or even just emailing them. You can even share those digital memories online through FREE photo sharing and video sharing services.
Ok, so now we know there are a lot of good reasons to get those movies digital… but we still have the issue of “how to best do it”.
Well, that’s where the Senior Health Foundation can help. Next week we are starting a 3-part series simply called Digital Video. The class goal is to teach you what’s going on with digital video (i.e. the jargon and technology you need to know), and to show you the best ways to take your old, or even new movies and get them on the computer so you can work with them, or even just copy them directly to DVD for sharing with others.
Right now we’re looking for a few more students to make the class go, so if you are interested, drop me a note (jlortz@shf.org) or give the SHF phone a call at (402) 827.6090 (Omaha) and tell us you want to sign up.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Properly cared for, old VHS and Super 8 tapes can outlast digital by decades (or longer). With proper equipment, you can still play well-cared for home videos from the 1920s today. Try playing our files today in 2080. Digital files crash, file types change, and digital media is more fragile (e.g., CDs have an average lifespan of 5-10 years).
Digital video is great to share and backup your videos. You can backup old VHS and Super 8s and share with family, or put a copy online to backup in case of house fire/flood. But, you should always keep the VHS and Super 8s, as the quality is better (as good as it was when filmed) and will long outlast the digital files we have today. Digital files must be constantly babysat and rearchived. You have to backup, move them to new drives, convert file types as software and video encoding changes.
Digital is for sharing, editing, and enjoying (in preservation terms, digital is your “access” copy). Source files (VHS, 8, etc.) are your original, longevity archive and backup copy.
It’s been said that the data life on CD’s DVD’s CDR’s and so forth run from 20 years to 50 years. I have photos in my grandmothers photo albums that are over 90 years old.
So ,, digital is great ,, but it doesn’t mean it will outlast actual photo’s or film.
David: Very true… in fact, I’d be really surprised if CD/DVD’s last that long. Although the newer ones are better quality, I have CD’s from the late 1990’s that are suffering from “disk rot”, so I’m just not very trusting when it comes to that type of media.
But I think the real point is… although film/print images can last a very long time, as your grandmother’s have, at some point the media will fade, crack, etc. If you duplicate film/prints using non-digital technology, those 2nd generation copies will have lost some quality. If, on the other hand, we digitalize the images, and then re-copy them every 10 to 15 years, we can preserve them indefinitely since a digital copy is a perfect copy. The big thing is…. not to trust the digital media beyond 10 years or so, even if “they” say the discs will last 40 to 50 years.