In an All-Digital Future, It’s the New Movies That Will Be in Trouble

But when it comes to preserving movies for the long haul, the digital revolution may turn out to be something of a catastrophe. “At this time, the longevity of digital files of moving images is anybody’s guess,” says Paolo Cherchi Usai, senior curator at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography & Film, one of the nation's most significant motion-picture archives. “We do know that it is much, much shorter than the longevity of photochemical film.” If hard drives aren’t occasionally turned on, he notes, they start to become unusable. [...] The physical deterioration of drives and discs and chips isn’t the only thing digital filmmakers need to worry about. Digital files are also prone to become outdated, with software upgrades and new programs that render previous ones obsolete or unusable. [...] (Meanwhile, movie theaters that converted to digital are in a similar conundrum, with formats and industry standards changing and each new wave of very expensive projectors breathlessly touted at tech conventions. By contrast, a movie theater could, with proper upkeep, use the same film projector for decades.) - Bilge Ebiri,Vulture [via/web:http://streaming-tv.us]