Home Videos - Why Do We Make Them?

"I can't open some of the musical scores I prepared for Broadway shows in the 1980's, because the sheet-music software company went out of business. I know a film editor who can't see the first movie she ever made, because it uses a Sony videotape format that disappeared ages ago. And I routinely hear from readers who can't open their Microsoft Word documents from the early days, because, incredibly, today's Word can't open those early-version files."

Image courtesy of Toms Hardware

David Pogue of The New York Times has blogged about the dliemna he faced with media becoming obsolete. As an example he talks about a film editor who can no longer view a film she made years ago because the Sony videotape format has disappeared.  No doubt many of us have experienced this issue with the loss of media such as floppy discs over the years.  This leads on to David discussing why we even keep home movies, if the media we save them to now, will be obsolete by the time our children grow up.  Will our children even care about those movies when they are adults, will their children care?  It's a nice thought provoking article that really raises the issue of how to keep media we treasure as the formats continue to evolve and progress.