Safely storing images

[C.S.I.]

Hi again.....

In my previous post, I asked for selling points for digital for my police agency. I just realized a very important issue that could be a problem for me. Does a digital image degrade in quality over time if stored on a drive or CD? What is the best way to store the image? I hope that the images can be stored indefinately, due to the possiblity of appeals in the court system.....Im required to hold onto all evidence including photos forever in cases involving homicide and the like.

Another question, while I have your ear....if you are a criminal investigator of any capacity----what camera / equipment do you use (in the field), and could you specify if you use film or digital......Thanks

Regards,
Bill

[steven]

The image never degrades like file does.
The media that you have the image stored on can stop working.
The quality of CD/DVD makes a huge difference in how long the data written to it will last.
Gold and Silver class CD/DVDs are considered archival. Can't remember off the top of my head but I think Gold = 50years and Silver = 25years.

[Mike Panic]

redunency is your friend... store on at least 2 different mediums and keep them in 2 different locations

[pdrow]

I agree completely. I lost some photos that were stored on a certain brand of silver cd that will remane nameless. I lost lots of duplicates because they were saved on the same kind of cd. This was not just a few photos, this was a month with several very important events. When I called the cd company they said it was probably because of heat adn humidity. I told them they should put a warning not to buy if you live in Texas. Now, I use cds and dvds because it is what I have. However, I don't use that brand of cd.

pam

[Avalonthas]

Digital photos at there simplist form are just large chunks of raw data, and therefore they can not degrade as they are static and the elements have no effect on them. However the medium you carry them on can degrade from the elements and other technicalities.

There are some new DVD's on the market that I use which are called "Armour Plated" DVD's and they are extrmely archivable. (The main reason i buy armour plated DVD's over CD's is because down the road (25 years when a silver grade CD is expired) CD's will be history and the DVD and its successors will be mainstream, so its an investment in the future of technology. These Armor Plated DVD's are anywhere from 80 to 100 times more scratch resistant, and have archival lifes ranging from Gold (50 yrs) to Platinum (75+yrs).

These type of DVD's are very expensive (ranging from $2 to $4 each, compared to 35cents each for a regular recordable DVD) which is why i only use them for my best archives. Otherwise I used Gold rated CD's and DVD's because i dont plan to be around in that time lol.