My question is whether I am gambling by archiving hundreds of HD movies on multiple external hard drives, only to have them not work on future set top boxes once I've upgraded or if they break down and I wind up on my 4th STB, whereby the unit won't allow the use of a hard drive past 3 moves as it currently states. I am just worried about spending all this money on multiple hard drives only to later regret it and be stuck with useless, unplayable content. If I knew they lifted the 3 box limit, I would know that I can always hook it up to any STB in my house or new, replacement unit, but this makes me slightly uneasy. Any thoughts?
Is this External HD really safe for archiving?
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You know, I really don't think it's meant for saving movies for a lifetime.
Technology marches on. There is not a single storage mechanism in use today that will still be readable 20 years from now, except paper. And no guarantees there, either, if it's not acid free. Even NASA has lost data because they had some tapes, but could no longer find any equipment to read them. In the world.
Be happy with a few years, if that's your goal, and maybe you'll get the chance to move the content to another, future storage medium. But I doubt it. External storage, IMHO, is just for extended time shifting, not permanent retention.
But I expect the 3 box limit to be fixed this year.
Technology marches on. There is not a single storage mechanism in use today that will still be readable 20 years from now, except paper. And no guarantees there, either, if it's not acid free. Even NASA has lost data because they had some tapes, but could no longer find any equipment to read them. In the world.
Be happy with a few years, if that's your goal, and maybe you'll get the chance to move the content to another, future storage medium. But I doubt it. External storage, IMHO, is just for extended time shifting, not permanent retention.
But I expect the 3 box limit to be fixed this year.
If you care about your movies, get a DVD burner and burn those suckers! Then you'll be set there boss.
Great response, Navychop. So true. It is maddening how we have to switch to the latest media every 6 months (hyperbole). I just saw a scene of the "old" film Hackers where the 1.44 MB diskette was lovingly photographed as the ultimate (now penultimate) in cutting-edge micro-media technology. One has to laugh!
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Sounds like you plan on recording every movie that comes on. Betting that you are not, start with a single drive and see what your true archival habits are/will be.
OS change
For them to obsolete the ext HDD they would have to switch the OS in most cases. I don't think they will drop lynix anytime soon.
For them to obsolete the ext HDD they would have to switch the OS in most cases. I don't think they will drop lynix anytime soon.
Will you be able to preserve HD that way though??
I record quite a few to my DVD recorder, which look pretty good though certainly not true HD (as far as I know, there are no HD/Blue Ray HD recorders on the market yet).
Just internal computer ones. You would need a true HD video capture card for your computer and a PC Blue Ray recorder.
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Perfect response.
Hopefully, within 10 years, HD VOD (streaming), will eliminate any need for home-based content storage.
But, for now, this does the job nicely (here comes 20 hours of Painkiller Jane).
David...are you a Pain Killer Jane fan?
I just happen to be good friends with the Executive Producer.
What can I do for you ? (no you cant date Christina)
I just happen to be good friends with the Executive Producer.
What can I do for you ? (no you cant date Christina)
Well, if you can't do the date....
Actually, I don't know. I've been marathon watching shows during the summer (including stuff from last season). I have all the Painkiller sitting on my HDD.
Having it in Hi-Def will automatically bump it higher in my queue.
I just formated my third 320 gig drive... #2 still has about 85 gigs left, but I am putting only Csi Miami and Cold Case episodes on it.. (the fire has put a kink in my archiving) moving my BSG episodes to the new My Book right now...
