Coders Edge
  
To Blue Ray or not 
to Blue Ray

Keeping Current

Every so often a technology falls out of
vouge in the stores. That doesn't mean
that it doesn't still work for everyone
in their homes and offices. Or, 
increasingly now, in their cars 
or from their backpacks.

DVD was a huge kick up from CD. 
Is Blue-ray that much of a kick up
from DVD? Clearly for commercial content
distributors Blue-ray is a format that
makes sense for large format media.
However, I am looking for long term.
My goals are archival. And while I know
that Blue-ray is the thing now,
just as I knew that DVD was the thing
then, I also know that Blue-ray
will go the way of the DVD, the CD,
the cassette tape, punch cards, paper
tape, all things that I used to use
or have to use to do my work (back in 
the day). 
the evolution of storage
media
    It's just the evolution of
storage media. The earliest known form
wasn't used for computers. That was
cuniform from Summaria where terms
of contracts were written on clay slabs
that were then sealed within a
clay pocket that laid out, on the outer surface,
the requirements of the folks involved if 
the contract was violated. Hence the term 
'breaking the contract' because that resulted
in the clay envelope being broken open 
to reveal the inner tablet one which are
inscribe the consequences of the contract
breech. 
Large Content Entities (LCE's)
Large Content Entities (LCE's) are aggrigates of
stored data in large hard-to-manage sizes, for
example as large, or larger,
than the storage media in common use.
So, over time, the size of an LCE increases.
And what used to be an LCE is now easily
manageable. In the meantime the landscapes
of data necessary, pools of sounds, forests
of photographs, thousands of cell phone videos,
all cateloged in a useful way . . . and useable
for investigations of many kinds . . . these
are the burdonsome LCE's that we can't 
easily get a handle on. (on which we can
not get a handle). 
LCE are those entities which don't easily
fit on the common media of the day. For example
as large as the largest drive, and then
make your entity bigger than that. Then you have
an LCE that needs special attention.
For me and LCE is my ocean of photographs.
Also, I have LCE's of the audio transfer 
from cassette tape to digital audio for
hundreds of hours of garage recordings from
the last 25 years. Not anything that
I share with the world yet. But I imagine that
these will some day be making an
appearance on this site and elsewhere
on the web.
Large Content Entities require significant
thought and resource to save them and know
where they are, that they are safe, that 
they are 'solid' and not prone to being
lost. Other special requirements are
that these entities can still be used for 
their intended purpose. For example a
cartridge from an antique video game
was a large content entity in it's
day, but now it is flingable piece of
floating river trash, of little or no
use unless you have a game machine that
takes that game. Uhh! Even if you can
save that data you'd need a full-blown
emulator and a system that is up-for-it
to use those old cartridges. No creative
person wants to archive their stuff 
onto media that will be obsolete in
a few short years.
Large Content Entities are a chore to archive because
LCE's need to exist in a format that allows for
the user to have them to use when he/she needs
to (use them). And those who seek to save and archive
their work which involves the creation of LCE's, 
those folks need to have a back-up and archive policy.
For example when a muscian lays down multiple
tracks, or a band does, the data produced is
stored within a well-thought-out scheme. The 
scheme is designed to allow for the user
to back-up. The scheme, as well, feeds the data
to the software about the project, loads
the various audio tracks and video clips that make up
the material. Has a save of a mixdown session with
varying levels of mix for different tracks. Has various
versions of mixed down audio in various formats for
use for what ever purpose is desired (sound track for
something, ring tone for something else, audio clip for
use on a social media page, practice tape to send to
auditioning muscians who will collaborate.
As an example imagine a film destributed on a 25 gig 
Blueray disk. There must be much more than 25 gigs of data
associated with the movie. All of that data
could be considered a Large Content Entity.
And so, we see, that LCE are also aggrigates of
LCE. 
For a major production there are likely multiple
LCE's. How do the producers and creative talent
sort through it all? How do investors get
assured that the material is being handled
properly and properly archived? This is new
ground for all involved. Most likely these
folks have large array storage of some kind or
another. They probably have multi-Tetra byte 
backup servers and a full-time IT department
to care and feed this beast.
my current strategy for storing
Large Content Entities (LCE's)
A harddrive stores so much more for
my archive. I just need to know that 
I have multiple copies. And so, for that
150 gigs of transfered audio (my own stuff)
It makes more sense to just copy the whole
damn thing over to a second harddrive than
to run out and buy a Blue-ray burner that
will be obsolete next year.

I'm waiting for the price of 32 gig flash to
be low and then I will use that do backups 
as well.
And for physical backups I have been using
flash on LCE's of about 1 gig. So, now, 
Blueray? for backup? 25 gig is just not
that high an amount of space for me to 
want to move all backup to Blueray. If I did
that then I would have to make sure
that I have a working Blueray for system on
which I seek to load the LCE's that I 
have backed up. 
That I buy in the future and it won't work
on a hand-held or mobile device but I'm
pretty sure that the flash, because 
everyone is using it, is the thing.

Blueray is a good choice for copyright holders
now who want to do wide scale distribution of
their coaster media for the temporary spur of
the moment throw-away media. Watch once and
then it's a coaster kind of media. But for 
archives I'd think to use something that doesn't
drop bits when it gets scratched. Or if it's
cold and the disc gets mist on it because
it is put into a warm damp environment and
drops data like that too.

Blueray will soon go the way of the DVD.
It will be around for a while and then
it will be seen as a novelty. My take on
things is that flash is the clear winner
in the storage wars.

Oh, ya, you can use 'the cloud', which
is probably propriatory and not what you
want to do with such large amounts of 
data. And if you do use cloud storage
I'd gzip and tar it up with a secure 
password so that you stuff isn't out there
for the world to see.

You can believe whatever marketting folks
tell you if you want to. But if you store
your data out on a cloud you can be
assured that there will be people trying
to steal it. And they might not be able to
do it, but if it's there they will try.
When your data and backup is in a safe
in a secure location you don't need to
do this.

but if you are doing creative things
like music and video production you
kind of want to know that your data
is secure and that the data is archived
properly. For creative folks who make 
small packets of media, say all the data
from an audio recording session, they
want to have the data in a way that
it will be useful for all the members
of the team that needs it. And a band
or movie might want to have some
leaks as a way to generate buzz and
interest in their project.

It might make great sense to use
a cloud as an alternative
backup methodology. You put your
songs out in the cloud and you 
let the storage company handle
distribution of your copyrighted 
work. Seems like a data model to me
and essentially that is what you-tube
and folks like that are doing.
Content Management
Content management is a difficult
thing to get right. You need to own
your content or you will be trivialized
in the future as the 'look and feel'
becomes more and more customized.
A good thing to thing about when
considering content managment
methodologies is that you ought
to consider the special uses of
your content, what you think of
as special uses. For example if
you have a musical site don't you
care more what it sounds like?
How do the blind use a photo site?
How do the deaf use a music site?
So think about how a blind person 
would use your music site. How does
a deaf person use a music site?
Is it so outragous to think that
a person who is totally deaf might
want to learn about music by going
to a music website? And even though
that person won't be listening to
the music he/she might pipe the
music into software that produces
graphical effects just so that 
they can experience the music 
through the flashing of colors on
a screen. Or pipe it into a shake-
table so that they can feel that bass.
Or they may want to watch a
virtuouso in closeup (how their
hands and fingers move) to
try and comprehend the hypnotic
quality of music so they need 
a video feed.
And a blind person might be
very interested in hearing
descriptions of the photos 
that are content on a site.
Have you accomodated these folks
by cateloging your content in
a way that is useful for them?

Don't just do this because of the
fear of litigious busy-body 
lawyers. But someone might
think of that as a business model.
Are you prepared? Does your site
have those alternative uses
as an option?
anticipate and plan for
unintended uses of your
content
Content can be used in ways
that you least expect. So 
content managment would have
to include a way for folks to
get and use your content regardless
of how marketting and layout
think that it should be used.
One space or two
Recently there has been a
push by layout and typesetting
graphic art mavens that says
that anyone who uses two 
spaces at the end of a sentance,
as we were all taught to do in
typing class, is somehow evil.
And they won't compromise on this.

I see their point in the sense of
laying out the type on a page. 
But I don't see why there is such
a high level of vitrol from folks
who only want to see one space.
Basically anyone who does the
two space thing is someone who
has been doing it for years and
is probably doing it without thinking
about it. So if anyone gets copy 
that has two spaces after the
every period than it is simple enough
for the layout software to filter
this out. You globally replace 

    '.  '
     with
    '. '

What will this change in your
document? Might change something
unexpected. You may need to then
send the document out for proofing.
But you were going to do that anyway,
weren't you?

So all of you who rave about

one space = good
    and 
two spaces = evil

get over yourselves. It really is
just a subtle form of age descrimination.
All you who get all worked up over
the end of sentance spaces here is a point:
the pay you as a layout artist for their
content. One space, two space, red state, blue state,
what does it matter to your client, the
professor or lawyer or politician or
creative person who provides the content
for you if you layout with two or one spaces?
The layout is a separate thing anyway,
and, as you know, it really is a different
thing than creating a book length manuscript.
So, if the person persist in their two space
thing then just write a rule for your layout
that always finds that extra space and
then interprets it, for the purpose of your
layout, as a superfilous space. It is superfilous
and it thus can be elliminated and
that decision was made by you so that you
can get paid the big bucks by being such
a genius.

Another note on this issue: one space, two space,
red state, blue state.
Suppose that there were seemingly random use of
one space or two space. It could be some hidden
code that some spy or security maven has
put into the document unbeknownst to you.

Last thing on this: I have modified my typing
so that I only use one space at the end of a
sentance. It means less typing so I guess that
is a good thing.

  WP March 28, 2011

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