kaplan

jarhfive: All good points. Some of the horror stories I've read recently (here and elsewhere) may have me feeling overly pessimistic at the moment. But no doubt all the factors you mentioned play into it. I do question the probability of currently-unreadable DVDs being usable in the future, though. Even if it's possible, once the next technology takes over a few years from now, there's not likely to be much development on software for the old format. But hey, I've been wrong before. Burnable CDs have been around for about a decade now, right? There must be some fairly good, real-world information on their shelf life, at least.

I realize that there's no permanent solution. Part of the reason I got my DVD burner was to archive old videotapes (some 15+ years old) that I knew wouldn't be playable very much longer. Many of them were already unusable. I guess I'm a little frustrated because, even as someone who tries to follow this sort of technology, I didn't realize just how fragile DVD+/-R discs apparantly are. Part of the selling point when DVD first came out was its longevity. I never quite expected the same degree of that with the recordable formats, but I don't recall seeing their relative lifespan discussed much at all, either. Heck, when Blu-Ray or HD-DVD becomes the new standard, I'll willingly copy my 500 old discs onto 100 new ones to save storage space (assuming they're playable that way). But with how fast the technology is changing, it would be nice if the old media would at least last long enough to become obsolete before it disintegrates. VHS actually seems to have an advantage in this aspect.

I've been storing my burned DVDs in wallets too, but I'm starting to become concerned about doing that. I'm still a little unclear on exactly why labels damage the discs, but if a paper label can make a disc unreadable, it seems like the pressure on the DVDs when they're stuffed next to each other in a case can't be any better for them. And then there's this article: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124312,00.asp It's specifically about the lifespans of burned CDs, which are given as between 2 and 5 years (!). Everything I've read indicates that burned DVDs are even less stable than CDs are. So now I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time? I've easily burned 500-600 discs of TCM movies, old videotapes and data in the last year or so. If I'm going to have to copy everything every couple of years to keep it from degrading and becoming unreadable ... is it even worth the effort?

Just, Your situation sounds familiar. Most of the discs I burn will work on my DVD player, but once in a while I'll get one (same media brand, same format, and same recording process as the others) that won't play smoothly (if at all) in the player, but will on the drive that burned them. (I don't have another player handy to test them on.) I could be wrong, but I'm guessing they're just bad discs.

> Do you think TCM can now schedule "Every Great > Western...Including Shane"? > > Rusty > > BTW: Reference November 2002. I wasn't watching in 2002, so I kind of hope they do.

From lzcutter: I wonder if TCM can then rent the more modern films to other Turner channels such as TNT and TBS as well as othr movie channels? I hadn't thought of that, but it seems like it would make sense for the Turner networks to make that arrangement in the licensing deal. From bollywood101: As far as a year-oriented analysis of the movies, bear in mind that Paramount does not now own the movies it produced between about 1929 and 1949. These were all sold off to Universal, more than 50 years ago. So a chronological arrangement will be very definitely skewed. Ah. I thought I'd read that on one of these boards, but I wasn't sure of the details. I figured if that was the case, someone would come along soon enough to clarify. Thanks!

While searching for something else, I stumbled across the Turner press release site and found this. The release date is Feb. 6, 2006: http://www.turnerinfo.com/newsitem.aspx?P=TCM&CID01=5ee12b36-3a9d-4e9a-829b-bfe30978b98a Turner Classic Movies Acquires More Than 100 Paramount Pictures Titles The Stepford Wives, Shane, Breakfast at Tiffany?s and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Among Titles Obtained by TCM Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has obtained rights to more than 100 Paramount Pictures films, including The Stepford Wives, Barbarella, Shane, Breakfast at Tiffany?s, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Warriors and the first Best Picture Oscar winner, Wings, it was announced today by Tom Karsch, executive vice president and general manager of TCM and Turner South. The titles from this deal will begin airing in 2008 in the United States and Canada. Other films included in the agreement are Ferris Bueller?s Day Off, Days of Heaven, Airplane!, Atlantic City, Bang the Drum Slowly, Barbarella, Downhill Racer, The Fabulous Dorseys, The File on Thelma Jordan, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Gunfight at the OK Corral, High School Confidential, Li?l Abner, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Red Pony, Save the Tiger, Targets, Union Station, Zulu and several movies starring Elvis Presley. The deal also secured re-licensing of several films, including Sunset Boulevard, The Devil and Miss Jones and The African Queen. ?Viewers know they can rely on TCM to provide the best features and best performances from cinematic history,? said Karsch. ?This deal represents another important step in our ongoing commitment to secure the widest variety of classic movie programming available.? Turner Classic Movies, currently seen in more than 70 million homes, is a 24-hour cable network from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company. TCM presents the greatest motion pictures of all time from the largest film library in the world, the combined Time Warner and Turner film libraries, from the ?20s through the ?80s, commercial-free and without interruption. More information is available at the TCM Web site at www.turnerclassicmovies.com. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, is a major producer of news and entertainment product around the world and the leading provider of programming for the basic cable industry. ************ The press release mentions 25 of the 100 new titles, which range from 1927 to 1986. (The oldest title after Wings [1927] is from 1947.) The median production year for the named titles is 1964. I'm sure everyone can quibble with specific titles (The Warriors? Seriously?). And I'm sure this will be seen as evidence of the movies getting more and more modern. But surely this is only one part of the TCM programming strategy -- to automatically assume that this purchase is exactly typical of where TCM is headed would be like if I assumed that you ate nothing but ice cream because I saw you at Baskin Robbins once. However, there does seem to be plenty of evidence here that TCM has long-term plans that -- while everyone may not agree with them -- are quite different from what AMC or anyone else is doing.

Quick personal background: I only "discovered" TCM about a year ago, so I can't say that I know firsthand what the programming looked like then. But I have no particular axe to grind in this discussion. Out of curiosity, I decided to see what percentage of the TCM schedules posted here so far consisted of "modern" movies (defining "modern" as either 1970 and later, or 1980 and later). I also counted up the schedules for January and March 2006 (excluding the first three days for March, as it's part of the Oscar programming), and I discounted documentaries when they were identified. Obviously, there aren't enough samples to draw completely solid conclusions, but here are the percentages I came up with: ..........1970 1980 Jan 97:....2.7%....0.5% Jul 01:....3.9%....2.0% Jan 03:....6.6%....4.3% Sep 03:....7.8%....2.5% Oct 03:....4.3%....1.0% Nov 03:....8.4%....3.0% Jan 04:....7.7%....2.8% Jan 06:....8.9%*...5.2%* Mar 06:....5.7%....0.8% Apr 06:....4.2%....2.1% *The January 2006 numbers are obviously skewed upwards by the anime theme that month. Each movie aired twice on the same night, and I counted each airing seperately. If you subtract the second airings from the "modern" movie counts and from the total for the month, the figures are 6.8% and 3.0%. So far in 2006, movies from 1980 or later have consisted of 2.8% of the regular (non-Oscar themed) programming schedule. If we assume that the January 1997 schedule was typical (0.5% was 1980+) and that the average rate of increase remains constant, then "modern" movies will, indeed, completely take over the TCM schedule .... in the year 2384.