Project Silica - laser etched glass stores entire 1978 "Superman" movie

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Burticus

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Messages
5,099
Pros = digitally storing an entire movie in a chunk of glass is cool, lasts a billion years
Cons = don't drop it. won't work in your bluray player

I wish the article mentioned the resolution.... says size was around 75gb

Are we 1 step closer to holographic storage cubes? Holocrons, LOL


enjoy!


https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/ignite-project-silica-superman/

Project Silica proof of concept stores Warner Bros. ‘Superman’ movie on quartz glass

It was the first proof of concept test for Project Silica, a Microsoft Research project that uses recent discoveries in ultrafast laser optics and artificial intelligence to store data in quartz glass. A laser encodes data in glass by creating layers of three-dimensional nanoscale gratings and deformations at various depths and angles. Machine learning algorithms read the data back by decoding images and patterns that are created as polarized light shines through the glass.

The hard silica glass can withstand being boiled in hot water, baked in an oven, microwaved, flooded, scoured, demagnetized and other environmental threats that can destroy priceless historic archives or cultural treasures if things go wrong.
 
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I don't know why I can't paste an image on edit, sigh


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Right now, for theatrical releases that are shot digitally, the company creates an archival third copy by converting it back to analog film. It splits the final footage into three color components —cyan, magenta and yellow — and transfers each onto black-and-white film negatives that won’t fade like color film.
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That's just nuts.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Nonsensical.

Why not just store the original digital masters?
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Because studios don't treat films that aren't making money like historical gold. Thousands of classic films don't have original prints any more as they degraded, where lost in fires as film is highly flammable or where just flat out misplaced or thrown out at some point.

My point is there is no reason to believe they will treat modern digital films any better. We really don't have any perfect digital storage mediums. Its not like you could throw 500gbs of raw data for a modern film onto a thumb drive and store it for 200 years... it will be garbage after 20 years on even the best flash storage. We can burn it to plastic optical disks and we suspect they will last potentially up to 200 years if they are stored just right... and don't end up being subjected to any disasters natural or otherwise.

For projects like the Library of congress film preservation work... a medium that can be used to store digital movies in a way that is impervious to deterioration and even resistant to things like fires is pretty cool. Nothing we have now that is digital lasts.
 
Burticus said:
Are we 1 step closer to holographic storage cubes? Holocrons, LOL
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Been hearing and seeing attempts to do that for a number of years, then nothing as the company or group ceases to be. It seems that all these attempts are the real hologram. But who knows, maybe one day someone will figure it out.
 
ChadD said:
Because studios don't treat films that aren't making money like historical gold. Thousands of classic films don't have original prints any more as they degraded, where lost in fires as film is highly flammable or where just flat out misplaced or thrown out at some point.

My point is there is no reason to believe they will treat modern digital films any better. We really don't have any perfect digital storage mediums. Its not like you could throw 500gbs of raw data for a modern film onto a thumb drive and store it for 200 years... it will be garbage after 20 years on even the best flash storage. We can burn it to plastic optical disks and we suspect they will last potentially up to 200 years if they are stored just right... and don't end up being subjected to any disasters natural or otherwise.

For projects like the Library of congress film preservation work... a medium that can be used to store digital movies in a way that is impervious to deterioration and even resistant to things like fires is pretty cool. Nothing we have now that is digital lasts.
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Or you could just put them on a redundant hard drive based storage system that has an offsite backup....
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Nonsensical.

Why not just store the original digital masters?
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I'm sure they do, but this provides an alternative in case the digital copies become unavailable or unusable for whatever reason. All your eggs in one basket, and all that.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Nonsensical.

Why not just store the original digital masters?
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nerd
/nərd/
noun
informal
noun: nerd; plural noun: nerds; noun: nurd; plural noun: nurds
a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious.
 
Conman said:
Well... maybe less than 18?

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/16/18678447/9-11-ground-zero-world-trade-center-pictures-recovered
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They make higher grade archival quality discs. Agreed though no way those disks last anywhere close to the up to 200 years they claim. Its a best guess if kept at a perfect humidity and temp ect.

That is the problem with digital movies now days... Studios can't be trusted to keep backing up and creating parity data for recovery ect ect for every piece of shit they put out.

Its seems crazy but I would think newer films are actually more at risk of being lost then the old early films. Their are famous lost Lon Chaney, Marx bros, and John Wayne films... but I can imagine its possible some of the earliest full digital productions for the last 20 or so years are much more at risk. (ok perhaps its not all bad there is a lot of crap out there these days lol) Reminds me a bit of the situation with a lot of 90s Televisions shows like 90s Star Treks ect, can't really remaster them with no film to scan and the masters they have rot a little more every year. Digital is an upgrade over video... but long term storage is a major issue.

I also doubt anyone pays a fortune to write every turd onto a piece of quartz... still it will be nice to know some of the most important will be saved forever. I mean when our grand kids make some stupid Ferrell, James, Sandler, Hart or Chris Tucker movie a cult classic in 50 years someone is going to want to grab that master of the glass so the super AI in 2070 can upscale for a 48k true holo super green paradise version full of follies, lollies, and lick ’em lollies. And if that doesn't happen perhaps a thousand years past that visitors to what is left of the movie storage facility can wake up a friendly kid AI mess with its head trying to get it to show them how to decode some really terrible flicks etched on some crystal.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Or you could just put them on a redundant hard drive based storage system that has an offsite backup....
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You could do that... but you run into the same issue they ran into with Film cans.

Studio A creates 4 movies this year. Each is shot at 8k with tons of extra footage ect ect and we are not talking about a few TB we are talking about 100s.

10 years on Studio A goes out of business goes under... and its assets are sold to Studio B.

Studio B re releases 10% of Studio As back catalog.... and the rest. Perhaps they archive it well perhaps they don't. In the past studios have forgot 100s of cans of film in warehouses... that over the years turn to dust, burn, get lost / stolen what have you. Its why for instance the first Marx Bros movie is lost to history... changes stuodios a bunch of times got lost. Same thing with at least one John Wayne western... and one of Lon Chaneys last films.

Of course Disney is backing up the avengers... and in 50 years the masters will be no issue. Its all the smaller studio films that are most at risk. If something looses money today is anyone really paying thousands to keep off site backups of master quality stuff. Probably not... at least not forever. At some point someone says lets burn it to 10 Blu discs and put it in storage. If this tech works out, and doesn't cost an insane amount... I can see a higher end service using this tech selling archive services to studios big and small. To media companies, really to any company storing digital data. Beyond movies even financial information ect. As we create more data it gets more expensive to store long term on our current fail prone tech. Yes off site storage services are around but the costs add up. A pay once and have it forever on a chunk of glass you can store in a warehouse would be very attractive to a lot of industries beyond the film industry.
 
Conman said:
Well... maybe less than 18?
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Yeah, the lower quality CD-R discs have reached their half life by now.

And DVDs seem to degrade at an even faster rate. Even retail ones. I don't watch dvd movies anymore, but some of my games that are on DVD are trash by now, the installation just fails due to reading errors.

So much for having a physical copy meaning you can keep the game forever.
 
M76 said:
Yeah, the lower quality CD-R discs have reached their half life by now.

And DVDs seem to degrade at an even faster rate. Even retail ones. I don't watch dvd movies anymore, but some of my games that are on DVD are trash by now, the installation just fails due to reading errors.

So much for having a physical copy meaning you can keep the game forever.
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A physical copy is not a substitute for a backup. You still need to backup everything that is important. Even games.
 
ZodaEX said:
A physical copy is not a substitute for a backup. You still need to backup everything that is important. Even games.
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How do you back up games with copy protection?
 
Interesting. I don't care so much about archiving the recent holywood crap though....I'd rather see archiving of scientific, medical, engineering, literature, art, etc.

As much as the new tech goes...hopefully the format is readable moving forward. I'd hate to see all that work put in, then 100 years from now no-one can access it because the format died out like a dead language.
 
I wonder if this tech is immune to cosmic rays or a cme event. I guess since its a physical medium maybe so. I bet they choose Superman because of the Kryptonian's crystal technology. BTW what is up with the font used in that article, looks like shit.
 
PeaKr said:
I wonder if this tech is immune to cosmic rays or a cme event. I guess since its a physical medium maybe so. I bet they choose Superman because of the Kryptonian's crystal technology. BTW what is up with the font used in that article, looks like shit.
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We don't have storage media that's immaterial afaik. Everything made of atoms has a half-life, but I think quarts is pretty stable.
 
Milleniatta’s M-Disc dvd or bluray blanks last 1000 years or more... (require M-Disc compatible burner)

But it definitely sucks that dvd's etc are degrading. I have Stargate SG-1 on dvd and was watching them, some episodes refuse to play, or have errors at specific times in the playback. I sure as hell don't have backups... ugh.
 
GoodBoy said:
But it definitely sucks that dvd's etc are degrading. I have Stargate SG-1 on dvd and was watching them, some episodes refuse to play, or have errors at specific times in the playback. I sure as hell don't have backups... ugh.
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I've recovered disks with cd roller.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
You know the answer people will give.
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I actually don't.

I remember this was a point of contention when the first securom copy protections started cropping up, and people complained that they have a right to back up the software they purchased but they can't do it if securom interferes with copying the disc.
 
GoodBoy said:
But would that help on pressed DVD's? Mine are the dvd box sets for the seasons, not burned copies.
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Dunno if it will get past the copy protection, they have a trial version. Check ebay, you can get dvd's/bd's for pretty cheap these days.
 
sheesh, took long enough...

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we know some folks who would love to get the decryption key ;)
 
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