Preventing Camera Card, Blu Ray, DVD, CD and USB Corruption

Hands up everyone who has experienced a problem with a computer - yes my hand is up too! How many people have experienced the dreaded "blue screen of death" or a floppy not working or a CD skipping or a hard drive failure or even just a straight power cut and losing their work? Now you will note that I am using long established technology as examples, so what about "newer" technology? The simple answer is there is no difference. Blu Ray disks fail just as easily as CD's and so do DVD's. Floppy disk failure to hard drive failure to solid state drive failure are all possible with the only difference being they fail in different ways but are more catastrophic due to the amount of information they can hold - newer tech holds a lot more information and so you can lose more if something breaks. Camera cards and USB sticks are no different - in fact they are virtually identical in construction. All solid state media has a chip for storing the data and one that "talks" to the camera / computer when accessing it. So what can be done to prevent corruption?

Well the most obvious and most patronising statement is to "back up your data", but just what exactly is a backup? Is a backup copying your photos from your camera card to your computer? Or is it copying your photos to disk? What about compatibility and lifespan? I mean I could have copied my photos to an Iomega Zip drive which was perfectly acceptable ten years ago but not now. Who still uses Zip drives? Or Syquest drives (yuk). Worse still this format war is getting worse - remember HD DVD? Yep RIP HD DVD as Blu Ray won that war - how old was that format before it died? Best to make sure that you move all that important data off those disks while you still can - I mean wax cylinders were once used to store music. Don't see many of those these days.

The simple answer is to go with the flow. CD and DVD are the most cost effective ways of storing data reliably at the minute. Given the fact that CD has been around for a long time and DVD is universally accepted they both get my vote. The jury is still out for Blu Ray at the minute. I know they hold more data but the cost of the disks is prohibitive (at the minute) and also I learned my lesson about being first in line with data storage a long time ago! Too many gigs of data down the pan if one of those babies gets a bad scratch....

“USB! USB! USB!” you all chant - yes, a great storage media. Fancy keychain this, cool necklace that and I hear you can even buy a well known sports car manufacturer’s USB stick as well. Wonderful! A pity then that they can suffer from virus attacks (Sports car backed or not). “A virus? How?” Autoplay in Windows is the single biggest stupid idea that Microsoft (and Apple) ever thought of. “Hmm, let's make things easy for inexperienced users to access data in a very user friendly way and at the same time allow easy exploitation by unscrupulous people to run malicious programs.” It's the equivalent of leaving the key under the mat for people who are unable to carry a set of keys with them, and then they wonder why they get burgled. Turn off autoplay - you'll thank me for it when you have an infected USB stick and it didn't infect your computer but completely trashed your friends P.C. when you tried to give them your latest must have "data". Phew, that was close, shame about their P.C. Not to worry though, eh! Your computer is safe. This is the single biggest downfall for solid state memory. As it can be written to exactly like a hard disk it means that it can be corrupted quite easily. Camera cards and USB sticks are all prone to virus attack. That said, they are the most useful medium for moving data around easily - just not for long term backups. "But they are so flexible!" everyone exclaims. Yes they are. I regularly use USB memory for moving data and they are easily and readily acceptable for supplying files to people. They're a fantastic short term media for storing and moving things. Just not ideal for long term storage. CD's and DVD's on the other hand are.

Apathy. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Yes the ability to convince yourself that everyone else's computer fails but somehow your computer was made using titanium chips and you are never going to do anything stupid that would possibly affect the way in which it runs. In fact your camera card is made from solid diamond and you are the cleverest person in the world. Hmmm, and then you woke up! Apathy is the single biggest problem with all backups - I do it myself. Too busy, too busy, oh another viral email to look at, cool! Look folks, you have to back up your data to disk. It is time consuming and very, very, very boring to do but remember the gremlins will join forces with the pixies and have a party with your data, completely trashing it in the process unless you do a back up!

Okay, I have made my point. So just how do I minimise the risks? Well there a lot of don'ts. Here are just some of them:

1) Yanking the USB stick / camera card out of the computer before it has finished writing to it. "Come on, hurry up. The T.V. program is starting and I want to watch that rather than a virtual piece of paper flying over a computer monitor." Yep, you guessed it's the number one stupid reason for losing all your data on both the USB cards or camera cards. Patience is a virtue and all that. In the early days there was write behind cache which meant that the computer would appear to have finished writing to the card well before it actually had. It was designed to free up the computer so that you could get on with work while it still wrote the data to the card / USB. The trouble was it was just too easy to pull the thing out of the computer before it finished doing the write. Now a days this doesn't exist but you can still harm the USB stick / camera card by doing this. Always use "safely remove hardware" to eject the card first.

2) Camera battery failure. "Okay I'm going to push this little baby to the limit. Let's stick a slow speed camera card in the camera and take a lot of photos in quick succession using flash on an almost empty battery. Yeah, let's live life on the edge." Then the battery fails in the middle of writing a photo to the card and a whole bunch of "Oh NO's” (or worse) start to happen. Do not use a camera on an empty battery - you are asking for it. Okay here comes the science bit - When you take a picture the camera looks for the nearest available space, writes to it and then updates the table of contents (TOC) on the card. If it fails half way through updating the TOC due to battery failure then your whole card is corrupt. Updating the TOC can take some time if you have a lot of information on the camera card.

3) Formatting the card. "I'm on holiday - lots of time to fiddle with things, let’s get to grips with this new camera. I wonder what format does?" Or, "I've just copied all these photos over, lets save some money by not buying another expensive card and re-use the one we have. Format card, yes do it, now where did those wedding photos go on my computer?" You get the picture (excuse the pun). Always back up your photos to CD / DVD. Then check they are backed up. And when I say check, don't look at the thumbnails - they can look perfectly fine and still have a corrupted photo. Open them up from the disk. Then, if you must, format the card. If you do accidentally format the card then STOP USING IT. You can usually get the photos back, but not if you then continue to take pictures after doing this. There is plenty of software out there to help.

4) Using the wrong size of card or speed rating of card. Look, the one thing that is certain about technology is that it is always getting faster and bigger but occupying the same space. Older cameras may not understand newer cards. If you put a card in your camera that is way bigger than the camera manual is quoting then you may run into problems. If the camera thinks the card is full but is constantly getting a "no I'm not full" signal it may start over writing existing data if it doesn't understand how to access data beyond a certain size. Likewise sticking a really slow card in your camera and then trying to use burst mode on the camera isn't a good idea....

5) Physically damaging the card. Stupid is as stupid does.... If you and your mates decide that some cool shots in the pool is a great idea and you take your precious camera into the pool to take some pictures then don't be surprised if it all ends in tears. If you are super jammy, mega lucky person then you might find that a quick wipe down of the camera and lens is all that is required. If you are just lucky then you might find that the camera has given up the ghost but the card is okay and if you are just like the rest of us then you will find that the card is corrupt. “Okay, it happened, now what?” Well first things first don't make a bad situation worse. Do not switch on the camera. The most important thing is to preserve the photos on the card. So wipe the card down, wrap it up in some tissue paper and leave it to dry in a warm place overnight. Next put the card into a computer using a card reader - if you are the semi lucky type you might be able to read the card. If not try another reader, and another. If it still fails, try drying it some more and repeat. Did I mention you really ought to backup your photos regularly onto CD / DVD? Oh well..... Squashing the card is another favourite: "I know lets put this really sensitive camera card in my back pocket and sit down on it. I'm sure it will be fine." Well folks, no! To understand you have to be aware of what is inside of the card - usually two chips. One for memory and one for communication between the memory and the camera / computer. Considering these chips are thin anyway they are easily cracked but the real weak spot is the pins that they are soldered onto the bread board. They are thin, spindly and don't have any strength in them. So, if you decide to sit on one then you are effectively crushing a piece of silicon between your butt cheeks and the bread board bending and snapping all those lovely spindly pins in the process. Mmmm, lovely. Lots of short circuits there and it cannot be repaired. Did I mention you should always keep unused camera cards in the cases that they came with?

6) Okay what about CD's then? "I did what you said and copied all my photos to CD / DVD and now the disk won't read". Yes, this happens. Well first things first, keep all CD's and DVD's in the cases that they came with otherwise they will get scratched. Before trying any of the following solutions try the disk in lots of other drives – some work better than others, especially a Blu Ray drive which has a much finer laser. In the event of a scratch on the surface then you can get the data back with some elbow grease and some Brasso / toothpaste (no – not the minty blue kind, the white abrasive kind). Yes you read correct – shallow scratches can be removed by rubbing gently from the centre of the disk to the edge of the disk with a mild abrasive. DO NOT GO ROUND AND ROUND when trying to fix scratches on a disk as you are going in the same direction as the tracks on the disk and can make it even worse. If you still cannot read the disk then try some software to extract what it can. CD Roller, ISO Buster, DVD Data Rescue all spring to mind. Another trick is to try and apply some heat to the disk (D.J. trick). Skipping CD? Hold it over a hot light for a while and then try again. The theory is it partially melts the surface preventing a sharp scratch deflecting the laser making it readable again.

7) Mini DVD’s. This is a terrible format. Just don’t use it – there are far better storage media out there. Mini DVD’s were supposedly a great way to record video straight onto the disk and then whack it straight into your DVD player for instant playback and unless you are not normal then it will work perfectly. The trouble is a cheaply made camcorder using this format is trying to write to a spinning disk using batteries to power this which will run out quicker than you can say “unreadable”. As you wave the camcorder around the laser is trying to accurately hit the surface of the disk and record your video at the same time. Invariably it doesn’t. Add to this the simple fact that it has to keep the session open as it has no idea how much footage you would like to add before finalising the disk then it won’t read in the DVD player until it is finalised. If you cannot read a mini DVD then you probably have not finalised it. Did I mention that all camcorders do this differently and there is no universal way to close the disk? This means that if your camcorder stops working and you cannot buy a model identical to the one that is broken then you cannot close the session which means it is unreadable. Stupid system! Finalise all disks after you have finished using them and copy the data off onto a regular DVD straight away. If you are having problems reading them then CD Roller might be able to recover the data.

8) Memory. No, not your memory or the computer memory - plastic memory. This is debatable but the theory goes like this: When you burn a CD / DVD / Blu Ray disk a laser momentarily switches on and burns a hole in the disk as it spins round. This creates the ones and zeros on the disk. Some people argue that as the disks are spinning so fast that the laser makes a shallow hole. Then over time plastic memory starts to take place and the hole becomes more shallow. i.e. if you take a plastic mould and heat it up it returns to its previous shape. The same applies to your burned CD’s, DVD’s and Blu Ray disks. Over time the holes made by the laser start to become more shallow until they become less distinctive from non-holes. When this happens the disk is unreadable and it will fail. Regardless of whether you believe this or not the easiest solution is to copy the disk every so many years and prevent this from happening. This does not apply to commercially made disks as they are not burned into the disk. Personally I think you would only see this happening after many decades by which time CD, DVD and Blu Ray will be completely obsolete and all your data will be on a new format.

So some common sense: Your data is valuable so back it up onto CD or DVD. Make copies and store them in different locations. That way you ensure it will be preserved from even natures most deadly disasters.

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Storing Cine Films, Camcorder and Video Tapes

It is easy to forget that your most precious memories stored on film and tape can easily deteriorate over time. It is absolutely vital that they are stored correctly to ensure proper playback for conversion to DVD.

How to Store Cine Film

Pink Fading

Pink Removed from Film

Cine films are extremely robust and will last decades providing you look after them. All cine films do not like light and should be stored in a sealed box to prevent the light from getting at them when they are not being used. Cine film exposed to long periods of light will fade with time – it usually starts with the film becoming pink and will end with the film becoming completely clear. This is down to the type of film used and also the processing of the film. If your films are taking on a rather pinkish look then you should get them transferred to DVD now. Depending on how bad they are you can usually adjust the colour to compensate for the pink tinge in the mid to dark tones of the film but the highlights will already be turning clear and are unrecoverable. As time goes by this progressively gets worse until it cannot be recovered.

Colour Kodachrome cine films tend to be the most robust and fortunately for most people they are also the most abundant cine films around. Other manufacturers vary greatly and it really depends on the quality of their films. Some are just as good as Kodachrome and others are not.

Practically all black and white cine films last an incredibly long length of time – over a hundred years if they are stored correctly. This is partly due to the amount of silver halides that have been used in the processing stage – no health and safety back then! Also the film base for black and white films is much more robust than colour cine films.

The processing stage of cine films also directly affects the length of time that they will last. The last step in all photographic processing (including paper prints) is a wash tank. The wash stage should consist of water and stabiliser. The key is stabiliser – it forms a barrier on the film that prevents grubby fingers harming the film and helps to wash off any residual chemicals from the developing stage. The trouble is stabiliser isn’t cheap and so many labs either diluted the stabiliser down more than they should have, or worse they didn’t bother and just used water. These people should be ashamed of themselves, as the result is a lot of the processing solution was left on the films. They all look great at the time the customer receives them and as time goes by they will fade because the residual chemicals are left on the film. When the film is exposed to light they carry on processing and then start fading.

Cine films do not like damp. I constantly hear of disaster stories from people who wrap up their films and return to them ten or twenty years later only to find that they are covered in fungus and it is literally eating the film. Fungus loves cine film and it is important to keep your films in a dry place.

Do not use rubber bands or sellotape on films. Rubber bands perish over time and stick to films leaving marks on them. The same is true with sellotape. The proper way to join cine is with film cement - not sellotape. Sellotape becomes brittle in time and falls off leaving you with two halves of the same film. It also marks the film where the joins were and can leave a sticky mess that can jam in the projector ruining part of you film. If some of the sticky gets into the projector then it will smear the whole film as you are viewing it and ruin a perfectly good film in the process.

Cine films like the cold but not freezing. All films are chemical based which means they react quicker as the temperature rises. By reducing the temperature you slow down any chemical reactions and thus preserve the films. Don’t go too cold though as the film can become brittle and break.

So, what is the best way to store cine films? Anywhere dark, dry and cool is great. The loft is a perfect place for cine films to be stored.

One last thing – label up your films with who is on them. Please! So many people “inherit” these films and most of the time they have no idea who is on them or where it is or when it was. What was the point in capturing a moment in time if you intend to let it disappear into obscurity?

How to Store VHS Videos, Betamax Videos and Camcorder Tapes

Magnetic tapes are not as robust as film. They are prone to drop outs and signal degradation as time goes by. Analogue magnetic tape will always give a signal of some sort but tends to result in a poor picture playback. Digital, on the other hand, will always give a much better picture playback right up until the tape degrades too much and then it won’t give any signal for playing at all, resulting is no picture at all. In many respects analogue will outlive digital recordings because of this. So if you have any mini DV tapes, digital 8 tapes or even dat audio cassettes then they should prioritised first.

Video and Camcorder Tapes should be kept away from anything magnetic. So if you are leaving your old videos lying around on top of the hi-fi speaker sitting in your living room (with large magnets inside) then you are asking for it!

Video players and camcorder players do not like dust. It is one of the single biggest reasons for poor playback as the video heads get compacted with dirt from the tapes, so store your video tapes and camcorder tapes in the boxes that they came with. Why risk ruining your precious memories for the sake of tidying up as you go?

Videos do not like excessive heat such as direct sunlight - they like room temperature for storage. They also do not like the cold. Analogue VHS video and camcorder tapes exposed to heat and cold start to have odd playback colours. Digital can fail completely to playback. It is not uncommon for shimmering light effects to start appearing on videos because of this. Once this has happened there is nothing you can do to resolve this other than some sophisticated (expensive) tinkering on the computer. Whatever you do – do not store video tapes or camcorder tapes in the loft where they will get exposed to cold temperatures.

All magnetic media stored on reels start to degrade from the outside of the tape inwards. So, if you have your precious wedding video sitting somewhere then it is best to leave the tape fully unwound to the end. i.e. do not store tapes rewound to the beginning. The reason for this is the tape in the middle is protected by the tape on the outside, and the more tape on the outside the better it is preserved. So if you are still using video for storage or camcorder tape then let the tape run for a bit at the start before you start recording and then store them fully unwound. That way they are more likely to be played in the future.

Moisture damaged Video - Fungus and Mould

Camcorder tapes and video tapes will be very badly affected by moisture. Inside the cassettes are metal pins where the tape runs around. If these rust then it will damage the tape as it goes past. Likewise the tape can stick to itself resulting in terrible playback and also the magnetic particles can completely come away from the tape base. A bad cassette can completely ruin a good film inside. If you suspect the tape has been exposed to moisture then try opening it *** carefully *** and look inside. You will see if there has been any damage. If you suspect the tape is faulty then you can “transplant” the tape into another cassette for playback.

In summary, keep your VHS videos, Betamax videos, Mini DV camcorder tapes, Hi 8 camcorder tapes, Digital 8 camcorder tapes and VHS-C tapes at room temperature in a dry, dark place and away from anything magnetic or electrical.

Playing Cine Film

Okay, here is the usual scenario: You go about your daily lives working, looking after the kids and a little bit of “me” time thrown in now and then. Most days the idea of checking or viewing your old cine and camcorder footage never even gets a look in until one day you decide that these would make a great Birthday present / Anniversary present as you haven’t seen them in ages. You then dig out the old cine projector / camcorder player / video player, bung in a film and start to play it to see what is on it and in the process completely wreck the film….

Before you do anything with the cine films, check the projector is running correctly. Then try a film that is not as important to you. Never put your precious film in without checking the projector.

Be ready to switch off the projector very quickly should a problem occur. i.e. Don’t set up the projector and the screen, load up a film and then sit down in a comfy chair away from the projector. By the time you have worked out there is a problem, reacted to it by walking to the projector, fiddled with the unfamiliar knobs and switched it off you could have mangled several feet of cine.

Film does not like grubby fingers - your sweaty fingers can leave horrible marks all over the film. So get yourself some cotton gloves to wear before handling the film.

Cine projectors require a certain amount of skill both to load the film and also when viewing it. If you try to load the film and the belts have deteriorated with age then the take up spool might not work properly and you could end up with a rat’s nest of film on the floor. This can be stood on and will definitely get dust and blobs of dirt all over the film, which will only make it worse for playback when transferring it to DVD.

Cine film can jam in the projector and unlike your modern day computers with the worst situation being a rude “beep” at you, if a film jams then the lamp will burn a hole in the film – it’s hot! It can even set fire to the film if left unattended. Likewise films that have bad sprockets can tear and split in two. Films that have been joined with sellotape that has come loose will jam in the projector and chew up the film. You can even scratch cine film by having grit in the projector which will drag right through your precious film top to bottom creating a lovely big scratch in the process. The bad news is this is difficult to remove effectively.

Do not try to clean cine film – get a professional to do it. Not only do you run the risk of making it worse by introducing more dirt than it had previously, but more importantly if you don’t do it correctly you can lift the emulsion layer completely of the film and then you have a perfectly clean but completely blank film. Cine film will stick to itself when it gets wet. Once it has stuck to itself it will not come away from the film it is stuck on without lifting the emulsion off from the part it is stuck to. This will result in some freaky playback with weird “ghosts” appearing momentarily from nowhere.

Playing Videos and Camcorder Tapes

When was the last time you used your video and camcorder? Still think it is in pristine condition? After all it went into the loft in perfect working order so it should be perfectly fine for playing video tapes / camcorder tapes now, shouldn’t it? Wrong! You need to appreciate that despite its perfect working order when you last used it there is a probability that it won’t be in perfect working order now.

Snapped Camcorder Tape

There is grease applied to the playback mechanism in camcorders and vcr’s which can harden with age, especially if it has been stored in a cold loft. This can cause things to stick and stop working properly.  When a tape is inserted into a camcorder or video player the flap at the front is lifted and the tape is pulled out into a big loop which goes around a metal drum where the heads for recording and playback are situated. If any one of these mechanisms fails and jams then the tape will snag and become twisted in the player. You then have a tape jammed in the player. Test the player first with a tape that is not important, and not just once – insert and eject it a few times to be certain.

IMPORTANT: If you have a jammed tape in a camcorder or video then seek professional help. If you try to release it yourself then the flap can close crushing the tape or the tape can snag on a part in the player and result in stretching when removed or worse snap. Snapped tape is not easy to repair.

Bad capacitors in old camcorders fail with age and everything from the screen to view the playback to the actual electronics controlling playback can break. Still want to bung your old camcorder tape in to view it? Use a blank tape first to see if it is in working order before putting that precious tape in. Try recording something and then playing it back. If it is fine then put the tape in that you want to view.

Some camcorders have batteries in them to remember the date and time. If these batteries leak they can damage the electronics – check carefully.

Dirty heads are also a big no-no. This mostly applies to video players as they tend to play the most tapes but it can also apply to camcorders as well. If your video player has dirty heads and you put a perfectly good recording into the video player then some of the dirt from the heads can transfer onto the tape which will mean it will not play back as well. Test the player first and if necessary get either a cleaning tape or carefully clean the heads with some isopropyl alcohol.

Click here for more information on video, camcorder, and cine film to DVD transfers

Triptych Canvas Prints

Triptych Canvas Prints

Triptych canvas prints are a fun and eye catching way to decorate your home or office. They work best with pictures of places and abstract images as the picture is split over three or more separate canvas panels. As some of the image is lost between the panels it is better to choose photos and images that won’t lose any important detail because of this. They are ideal for larger wall spaces and can be as creative as your imagination allows.

It is best to have the photo wrapping around the edges of the stretcher bars and if they are done properly the “missing part” that you see from viewing from the front is seen on the right side of the first panel and also on the left side of the middle panel. The reason for this is when you enter a room from an angle this helps to see the photo as if there are no gaps between them and as you swing around to see them from the front then this disappears and your eye fills in the detail between the gaps in an aesthetically pleasing way. The same is true on the right side of the middle panel and the left side of the right panel.

There is virtually no restriction in sizes. You can have same area sized panels or different area sized panels, such as one larger panel in the middle and smaller ones either side or even a steadily decreasing or increasing size. They can be rectangular or square panels – as long as your photo will cover the area of all the panels and has sufficient resolution to do so.

The heights of Triptych canvas prints can also be varied. Some people prefer to keep all the panels the same size while others prefer to vary the heights. A popular configuration is having the tallest canvas in the middle with shorter canvas prints either side. Alternatively you could have the shortest canvas in the middle and the taller ones either side. You could even do ascending heights from left to right or vice versa.

The number of panels is only limited by your imagination. Three, five and even seven panels are popular but the number of panels is only restricted by the sharpness and resolution of the image. They can be next to each other left to right or stacked vertically or even diagonally.

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