Newsletter Archives

• White specks — They’re eating your CD/DVD archive

  Posted on January 15, 2024 at 02:42 CST by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums

  FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  Find an old CD or DVD on which you have precious things stored, such as family movies, pictures, or genealogy files. Hold the bottom side up to the light. See any white specks or bronze-colored dark areas?

  That is “disc rot.”

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.03.0, 2024-01-15).

  Freeware Spotlight CD, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Duplication, DVD, Imaging, Media, Newsletters

• Saving history

  Posted on January 16, 2023 at 02:43 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  PERSONAL MEDIA

  

  By Will Fastie

  Nothing lasts forever. Or does it?

  The readership of this newsletter is old enough to have used, if not embraced, a host of analog technologies for documenting memories. Today we’re taking photos and videos using our omnipresent “phones,” but as recently as two decades ago magnetic tape and film were our primary tools.

  We know this to be true because in our attics, basements, and closets we have trays of 35mm and Instamatic (127) slides. We have strips of black-and-white negatives, and perhaps strips of color negatives. We have boxes of video tapes in Sony Video8, Hi8, Betamax, VHS, VHS-C, and the crossover format MiniDV. We have albums of printed photos. We have quarter-inch audio tapes, cassette tapes, and maybe even the elusive 8-track cartridge format. We may even have vinyl LPs, and older 45s and 78s.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.03.0, 2023-01-16).

  Personal Media Audio, Media, Media Conversion, Newsletters, Photo, Video