Beware the Changing Format

I mentioned recently that I've been converting 8mm videos to DVD and that these will be Christmas presents this year. Maybe you're thinking of doing the same thing and you're wondering if DVD is the right format to choose. If you're asking that question, let me tell you that it's a very good question.

A common problem, and one that can sneak up on us, is changing formats. I have some reel-to-reel audio recordings. Some are half-track, some are full-track, and a few are 4-track stereo. But I can't listen to them because I don't have a reel-to-reel recorder (at least not one that works) and neither does just about anybody else.

I also have some 78-RPM records. There's a turntable in my house. A good one, in fact, but no current audio gear has a turntable input. The audio level is so low that I'll need to install a preamp if I ever want to use it. I bought a couple of $100 broadcast-quality preamps a few years ago, but even then the audio quality is so poor that it's barely usable.

That's the usual story with media.

Maybe you bought 45-RPM records and albums. You might have replaced the albums with cassettes and maybe you replaced the cassettes with CDs. Now some oldies are being released on enhanced CDs. Or maybe you bought a digital version from one of the online sellers.

Did you buy movies on VHS tape and then buy them again as DVDs?

That's fine if you have the budget to keep buying new copies of your favorite commercial media, but what can you do with personal media?

I also have some Super-8 movies that I could have someone convert to video. The quality will be disappointing, but at least I'll have something. We also have a few 16mm movies that date back to the 1950s and I'm not sure that I'll be able to find anyone to convert those.

So wondering if DVD is the final solution to archiving your home movies is a reasonable question. The answer: Of course not. Something will replace DVDs. But the DVD (or Blu-Ray) format is probably the best stop-gap solution.

DVD players and DVD drives in computers can reasonably be expected to survive for the next 5 to 10 years. These formats are higher in quality than any of the formats that involve tape so converting to DVD is, in my opinion, the only logical choice.

But you'll need to watch for changes.

Something will replace DVDs and, when it becomes clear what that something will be, you'll need to once again convert from one format to another. That new format--whatever it is--will certainly be digital. DVDs are a digital format, so (unlike converting from VHS to 8mm video) converting from DVD to whatever replaces it won't have a quality cost associated with it. Whatever quality you encode on your DVDs will be available to the next generation, whatever it is.

That means you might want to retain all of your files in AVI format. I've decided not to do that because AVI files are huge. For home videos, the MPEG4 format is adequate because (and I should point out that I'm guessing here) whatever replaces DVDs will not further degrade the quality of the images.

In some cases, the best you can get isn't very good. One of my new DVDs came from a local-access channel (low quality) presentation of a program from Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center in the late 1990s. I didn't have access to the channel, so a friend recorded it on VHS tape (even lower quality) and I converted it to 8mm video (technically better quality, but worse because of the analog loss that's normal when converting formats). The final quality on DVD is lousy, but my choice was between "lousy" or "nothing".

The best news is that even lossy digital formats such as MP3 for audio for MP4 for video are far better than the full-quality analog systems they have replaced.

Ebook Update

Not too long ago, I bought a Kindle. I've explained previously that I sincerely dislike Amazon's policy that makes it difficult to read library books on the Kindle. There are ways around this, but it's annoying nonetheless. The Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and a handful of other electronic readers might save civilization as we know it.

You recognize the hyperbole, of course, but my reading habits have changed greatly.

I read quite a bit, but my reading has been limited to technical books and articles for the past several years. Very little fiction and non-fiction. That has changed. For example, I found a library book that was a critical analysis of The Diary of Anne Frank. Then I realized that I had never read the book itself, so I purchased it from Amazon and spent most of a weekend reading it.

What I thought would be a handy way to carry around technical references has turned out to be much more than that.

It's true that I can carry around reference manuals for hardware and software, along with manuals for the cameras that I use and the Tascam digital audio recorder that travels with me, but the Kindle also has fiction and non-fiction books. From Freakomomics and Where Good Ideas Come From to the Red Badge of Courage, Spy Killer, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I have access to whatever I want to read whenever I have time to read.

So maybe our concerns about becoming a "post-literate" society won't come to pass after all.

What Happens When the Lights Go Out?

As you may know from my semi-regular harping on the issue, my little section of Worthington (where electricity is provided by American Electric Power) has service that's about as reliable as what one might reasonbly expect to find in rural Uzbekistan. The threat of losing power is worse on days with severe weather: Severe calm. Severe lack of wind. Severely normal temperatures. Days like that. When the lights go out, the cable modem goes out. When the power is out for several days, I can visit a location where Wi-Fi is available but routine outages that last 4 hours or less leave me disconnected from the Internet.

Most of the time this isn't a serious problem, but sometimes I'm expecting an important message. Then it would be nice to have a backup. Maybe a dial-up account somewhere.

This won't work with my desktop computer. It needs electricity to run, of course, and my UPS unit provides just enough power to shut the computer down in an orderly fashion. Besides, it doesn't even have a built-in modem.

But what about the notebook computer? It could run for several hours on its batteries and of course it does have a modem. Some cable companies provide dial-up services that their customers can use. These are mainly intended for use when a subscriber is away from home, but they can be used locally, too, if cable service isn't available. Wide Open West has dial-up numbers, but I had never bothered to make note of the numbers. Time Warner recently discontinued its dial-up service.

If your broadband service doesn't offer a dial-up option, now would be a good time to visit NetZero (www.netzero.net) or Juno (www.juno.com) to obtain a local dial-up number that you can use. NetZero has plans that are free and others that cost $10 per month. Juno has free and $11-per-month plans.

Both are owned by the same company. You should be able to dial in and download what you need to get started but if that's not the case, check stores such as Kmart and Best Buy for starter disks.

Short Circuits

Calls from Santa

If you're old enough to remember when NORAD tracked Santa, you were probably also around when dirt was invented. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was founded in May of 1958. It provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and defense for the US and Canada. In an effort to put a friendly face on NORAD, the agency released tapes every December for use by radio stations. There was an unidentified flight, jets were scrambled, and (of course) it turned out to be Santa. Now Google is getting into the act.

Visit a special Google Voice website and you can have Santa call your friends.

Google is using the service to raise awareness about Google Voice. To use it, you'll need to provide information about who spoke with Santa about the recipient and the recpient. The messages are both clever and inventive.

Here's a message from Santa for one of my daughters:

What's Up Next Year?

In January, I'll be talking with some librarians. Among the topics we'll touch on are digital books, changes in libraries over the past decade, where things are headed, Wi-Fi access, censorship, and more.

To record the interview, I purchased a digital audio recorder to replace an aging digital voice recorder. The old digital voice recorder provided, at best, telephone quality but the new Tascam DR07 Portable Digital Recorder can record WAV files instead of MP3 files and studio quality on location is no longer just a wish. That's sure to be a topic early in the year. The ability to record 16-bit, 48K sampling rate audio on a sub-$100 device is simply mind boggling.

And for Christmas this year, I purchased a couple of digital cameras in the $100 price range. A decade ago, manufacturers said that they would be able to put forth $100 digital cameras before 2010 but that they would be low-end devices with CMOS sensors and resolutions around 1 Mpxl. They were right about CMOS technology, which has turned out to be far more robust than expected in 2001, but they missed a bit on the specifications for a $100 camera. It's now easy to find 10-Mpxl and 12-Mpxl cameras in the $100 range. Professional gear still hasn't dropped much below $1000 (and can easily approach $5000 or even $40,000), but for most of us digital cameras in the sub-$500 range are more than enough.

Last Show for 2010: Happy Holidays!

As is usually the case, I'll be taking Christmas week and New Year's week off, so the next program will be on January 9, 2011.

Peace!

Expect Two Small Presents from TechByter Worldwide

Although TechByter Worldwide is on holiday for the next two weeks, I'll be sending e-mails updated with links to the site. One will be a resource that could provide several hours of enjoyable browsing and the other will include links to some useful free products.