Retrospective: Historical Briefs From Past Issues

The October 1999 Journal published in: “Extending Video Content Survival Beyond 25 Years-When All Odds Seem Stacked Against It” by E. H. Zwaneveld: “Television programming worth producing is worth preserving, at least until the production investment has been recovered and fully exploited. Many teenaged tapes are orphaned when playback equipment support is discontinued and chemically challenged media no longer sustain them. It is feared that digital encoding dialects will no longer be understood, and decoding and re-encoding translators will be “out to lunch” when required. As with the human condition, the life of old folks is not extended by fresh air and fluffy pillows but by a wholesome lifestyle long before they become aged. The stages of creation, use, and preservation of digital production elements are and must remain interdependent. This paper identifies some principles that enable programming content perpetuation.”