On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 10:56:41 GMT, "Rus" wrote:

[JB post deleted...]

>Thank you for this valuable experiental information. Your post has caused
>me to give serious considerations toward the benefits of various video
>formats in terms of longevity.
>
>You've made me realize how important it will be to back up my DV home video
>into MPEG 2 format.
>
>3 years from now, or 10 years from now, after my DV cam is wasted, I may
>encounter real difficulties finding another camera or playback device that
>can render the source without distortions. (The gremlins of the technical
>world seem to hover around me.)
>
>But, my guess is: Even in 100 years, people will be able to recover my
>"ancient" MPEG 2 stuff with some sort of computer and software. (Providing
>the disks I burn are truly stable after some period of time.)
>
>But, it looks like as time goes on, and specs change, it may be more and
>more difficult to find some DV playback device that can render DV tapes
>recorded on another device.
>
>Once again, thank you very much.
>
>If this kind of thing has happened to you--it would happen to me--and it
>would meann that all I've tried to perserve for generations to come could be
>lost
>
>You've also rekindled my appreciation for analog formats. They may get
>dingy, but, they still render video information without the obliterations of
>flashing blocks of artifact every few frames.

Sigh, the analogue vs. digital considerations, or, is info
recorded to an "LP" disk a more permanent recording of
music than is a CD...? ;-) I suspect that MPEG2 (digital,
BTW...) will die far sooner than will the Mini-DV format,
and anything transcribed to it (which would be at lower
quality than the original...) will be unreadable before
Mini-DV tapes will be... BTW, I've owned maybe 15 different
Mini-DV camcorders (plus one head/transport replacement),
and have had virtually no compatibility issues (most were
Sony, though...) in either SP *or* LP modes (I also
carefully use only one brand of commonly-available tape...).