Bob - I don't see the time or cost of format conversion as different than the investment I'm making in scanning slides and prints into digital formats. And digital files are much easier and cheaper to convert to new formats than film and paper.
Usually these conversions can be performed over a relatively long period of time. It's rare that everything must be converted on short notice. I see the situation as better than that of film conversion. As far as cheap on-line storage is concerned, I mentioned one current partial solution for photos earlier in the this thread. Others cannot be far behind. But US$ 40 per year for unlimited storage of jpg files is extremely cheap. Given that four copies of the files are stored in three locations in different regions of the country I feel pretty secure in using this as one part of my backup strategy. See you later, gs <http://georgesphotos.net> On 4/30/06, Bob W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > <snip>
the problem is, though, that you will probably have to maintain an unbroken chain of conversions for however long you want to keep the files. This involves cost, either as work or as money, for each conversion. <snip> The only other possibility that might have a viable future is online storage similar to that that Google offer (or may offer soon). If storage online is cheap enough and secure enough, some company will offer it as a long-term archive for things like photos. They will take care of conversions transparently to the user, and economies of scale will make it profitable. Bob
