Re: [AV Media Matters] let's talk about DV.

[amipa2@pobox.alaska.net]

Well Eleanor, I have no concrete evidence regarding DV durability,
but as an archivist who was (sometimes still is) a post-production
editor for 15 years, I have the same concerns about durability.
Hi-8mm got the same rabid endorsement from various producers when I
was editing in D.C. in the early '90's.  My problem is that one of
the chief reasons (besides price/performance) that folks pitch
digital formats is the duplication advantage- "clones" from one copy
to the next.  Well, they really aren't clones, thanks to digital
"advances" such as error-concealment.  In the larger formats, you
can track or turn off the error- concealment, but in DV no info will
come to you about how much data on any one frame is being altered.
So if the cloning is suspect, my concern about the fragility of the
tape itself rises in stature dramatically.  And what about
interchange issues?

I was pitching this concept to a group here at AMIPA last week for
the National conference of the Oral History Association.  My basic
statement is DV is too young to be considered a tried-n-true archive
format.  Not enough data!  Isn't that what we are finding here on
media matters?  So, I'll stick with the known quantity of BetaCamSP-
a proven standard (though yes, it has it's faults too).  There was
one fellow in the group who was shooting on DV and backing up on
BetaSP to archive- within the same year! If only everyone was
thinking like him..

Bob Curtis-Johnson
Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association