Watch Compressed Video In The Future

[Persecutor2000]

Hello,

I’m not using Divx to backup DVDs or things like that. I use it to backup my selfmade DV-videos. What do you think, will we be able to watch your Divx, Xvid (or whatever) compressed movies in the future (in 30 or even 60 years)?

[Teegedeck]

Nope, we'll all have augmented brains and spinal implants to feed streams that merge with our own memories and phantasies and thus create the feeling we've all had fantastic lives. :D

I.e. we won't be able to watch our old encodings, but we'll re-create them from our memory and they will look better than ever before... ;)

[Acaila]

Will they have B-frames as well? Otherwise my brain will be full in notime...

:D :D :D

[Teegedeck]

Don't worry about that, we'll be able to buy larger brains at bargain prices.

[DSPguru]

imho. Persecutor2000's question is pretty important.
we must archive our 'memory' films in a standard we know for sure that will be supported in the future.
i, for instance, had encoded 650mb of WMA songs, but now moved to Ogg. and that didn't take me 30yrs, that took me 0.5year :).
i'm planning to buy a portable audio player, and now Ogg became a must-feature for it, but it's hard to believe i'll find a player that supports both wma & ogg (& mp3??).

so, back to the original question, what would be the most advanced, yet reliable, video compression standard we should use for our archives ?

[trbarry]

I guess the reliability of an archive format depends mostly upon its ability to be reliably converted to the next unknown format.

The best back-ups are those that can be copied to many places and forms.

That's why I sometimes rant about the idea of copy protecting our culture and history.

- Tom

[movmasty]

what about next 1000 years?

[diji1]

30 years ... hope y'all is buying high quality cd-rs then ..... :)

[buba king]

Originally posted by diji1
30 years ... hope y'all is buying high quality cd-rs then ..... :)

yah.. todays good cdrs last about 6 years.. :/

[Persecutor2000]

I think: For long time archiving it is important to use open source standards. If there’s no drastic change in the way computer systems are designed we will be able to port these open source compression algorithms to other (operating) systems. The problem of open source is that the development of such an algorithm takes a lot of time and is very complicated -> hence open source programmers may become unable to do this (very hard) job. Another thing is that software patents maybe make it impossible to include certain functionalities in an open source codec.

So I think it is very important to support projects like ogg or xvid (and not to forget doom9).

[theReal]

I think there is so much stuff encoded in DivX 3, we will still be able to get filters in 10 or 20 years to play DivX 3 movies.

I also encode DV stuff with Gknot/Nandub, but only for watching. I still keep all the DV movies on mini-DV tapes. Right now no format is as good as DV, not even DVD, so I keep the DV tapes at a dark and dry place until I can record them to other (reliable) media in full size, without re-encoding.

btw. any CDR that is supposed to be readable for more than a year should at least be a Mitsui SG, if not Mitsui Gold...

[chemmajik]

I agreed on 3.11 alpha I have to much stored in it to think it wont be compatible in 10yrs. Then there is the older format of mpeg it will be still here for awhile. As for divx 4 now 5 we will have to see if divx networks screws it up for themself. The pro5 issue may come back & bite them.

[Taric25]

First of all the medium must be high quality. I would suggest Mitsui Gold CD-Rs. Many tests have been done on them and they are #1 for archiving. Also, I would use 74 min. CD-Rs instead of 80 min. because you would want to be ultra compatible for the future. Mitsui Gold CD-Rs should last 100 years.

As far as audio, I would say that one should store it as WAV because compression technology keeps getting better and better, but uncompressed still can't be beat. Until there is such a compressor that IMPROVES quality, archived media should stay uncompressed. I could only too easily imagine one kicking themselves for not saving their music as WAV instead of MP3 because some future compression algorithim is better at storing audio, and that one's audio quality would be lost to MPEG artifacts.

As far as video, I would say the same thing, yet only if one has the money to buy a lot of medium to back up uncompressed AVI. Otherwise, I would store it as a more universal, yet loss minimal CODEC, like MJPEG.

As far as DivX goes, let's face it: DivX 3.11 will be dead in about 5 years. Think about it: who still uses Windows 3.11? And Windows is an OS: an essential part to computer system, unlike a video CODEC.

To conclude, store your multimedia completly uncompressed on dependible medium if you want it to last into the future.

[theReal]

Also, I would use 74 min. CD-Rs instead of 80 min. because you would want to be ultra compatible for the future.

I don't think this is necessary anymore. You can buy Mitsui Gold Ultra 700MB, 24x certified.
I think when Mitsui writes "Gold Ultra" on the label, these CDRS must be as good and as compatible as the 650MB Gold Ultra.
"Mitsui Gold Ultra" stands for "this is the best you can get" - they wouldn't slap that label onto a cdr that's not near to perfect...