Regarding the format of your archived photos: The photo industry believes that the highest quality version of an image is its RAW version, when available. The address this, and a global standard, the DNG format has been evolving and DNG format with the original RAW image embedded along the DNG conversion is supposedly going to be the most standard way of archiving images for the long term.
I don't recommend CDs or DVDs because none seem high enough quality for me. If you were to go that route and wanted "future compatibility", wouldn't you go with Blu-Ray? No physical media type (like CD-R) is going to remain in existence forever, but if you're concerned you should maybe store your images on SOLID STATE drives since they are probably the wave of the future... Maybe if you wait until the end of this year there will be a good sized solid-state drive out there. Toshiba is launching a 512gb solid state drive: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10125861-64.html Also, a drive used for archiving should be used and then set aside in a nice safe clean cool dry place and not used much- it will live more years that way. Acknowledge that even if a drive type does not become obsolete, its connector might- Apple is one of those impatient instigators of hardware upgrades and so they are killing FW400 and eventually there will be no FW800 nor USB 2.0. Hopefully the ISO/OSI Int'l standards people are thinking about a permanently backwards compatible connector type- if one develops to will probably be closer to USB or Sata I think, or FDDI, and not Firewire, since business/pc users aren't the biggest users of firewire (though Hollywood and Pixar may be big users, I don't know)... HOWEVER- My guess is that CABLES are going to finally become more obsolete because I'm seeing camera card flash-type drives with built in static wi-fi! See Eye-fi: http://www.eye.fi/ Get a storage medium that will have multiple ways to connect to over devices (or share with other devices) or will remain compatible with future enclosures or standards. I see wifi/wireless large-storage solid state drives as coming along very soon... I always store important files in two different ways, at least, to ensure useability of one over another. Another good idea is to always keep a computer around that will open the files you have now- if your current computer becomes obsolete instead of dying, store in in a clean cool dry place with keyboard and monitor and maybe it'll be there for you when you need to read a disk in 2025 that you made today. Peace, MIKO Miko's Support and Design in Seattle, WA --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
