A MINOX laboratory (at Siegen, Germany) copies pixel by pixel onto traditional chemical film
The long term storage (archiving) of digital images is under discussion as nobody really knows just how long the current media will last. So to be sure that valuable digital images may still be seen by future generations, Carsten Chadt of the MINOX laboratory LAB811 at Siegen has added another service to his portfolio. His answer to archiving digital photos is to copy them on either traditional chemical 35mm negative or positive slide film – the proven answer to prevent data loss.
Carsten Chadt explains: “Well maintained traditional film material is known to last for at least a century or two and reproduction is easy." Loss of data can be caused by many different means. The storage medium ages, they may get damaged or deleted by accident or another unknown and that is today’s standards may not be read by future hardware and software. Therefore, it should be common practice to regularly copy to the latest standards, but in practice this is becoming more and more complex as the number and size of the files grow. The answer is that pixel by pixel and basic colour by basic colour the information of digital photos will be transferred by cathode rays to conventional film material by a newly developed machine. This provides the ability to produce classic photos on demand on photo paper. Also, to the best of our knowledge today, every future scanner will be able to read films or transparencies as they are optical memories. Chadt is fully convinced by the quality of his service and says: “There are currently machines on the market which copy the digital photo from the monitor – but not this one! With our method the picture is systematically reproduced in colour and resolution to the analogue image.” The capability of the machine known as the CCG film recorder is eleven million pixels. Customers can supply their data via CD, DVD or storage card to have them professionally copied. It’s for sure that many photographers will use this service to safeguard special digital photos as memories for the future. Photo (c) Minox / LAB 811 - All rights reserved - http://www.lab811.com/
