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A comment on Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet. Parent comment

Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by Seenso on Friday February 28, 2020 @03:45PM (#22446179)
> They’re not too expensive, the writers are available, they’ll last, and they could be reverse engineered if discovered in the future.

IIRC, the writers for M-DISCs are special, but the reader can be any DVD or Blu-ray drive.

Honestly, I think the biggest consideration for digital archival media isn't so much the longevity of the media, but the future availability of equipment to read it.

That's one of the biggest benefits of paper, IMHO. Besides being very well-understood material, nearly everyone is born with the necessary reading equipment and the decoding software is very common.

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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by reificator on Friday February 28, 2020 @03:58PM (#22446306)
> the decoding software is very common.

[Citation needed]

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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by a1369209993 on Friday February 28, 2020 @04:49PM (#22446744)
> [Citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy

There you go.

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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by pmiller2 on Friday February 28, 2020 @04:36PM (#22446625)
You want a citation for the claim that many people are literate and/or can visually process images?
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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by aetherspawn on Friday February 28, 2020 @05:14PM (#22446907)
It’s a joke.

Because some people can’t read. Har har har :)

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