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Can Videos Fade?


Gekko_uk

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Hi,

I am a bit of a digital keeper!

I would buy bigger Hard drives before deleting a "maybe" file.

I have built quiet a collection of MPEG's/AVI's/WMV's of old concerts/TV appearences of fave bands.

Now recently while browsing my collection I have found many of the videos to have corruption/jumping playback.

Now these clips were perfect before, but on looking at them recently they seem to have "Degraded".

Can anyone offer an explenation to this and a way of stopping it from happening?

Cheers

Gekko

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i can't really give you a really good answer on that, however, unless someone can prove me wrong, i do think its the same concept as how CD-RW's have corrupt data if left sitting around for too long. data simply doesn't last forever.

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i have a beat up old drive with ancient videos and they're fine.

you probably need to defrag your files. also make sure any antivirus is disabled before playing video.

if you're paranoid you can RAR the more important ones, then you'll know if they degrade at all, because if they do the files will fail the CRC check on extraction.

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Have you rebuilt your workstation or moved to a new one? This could be a perceived difference in quality due to changing codecs, video drivers, output/overlay settings, etc.

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Have you rebuilt your workstation or moved to a new one? This could be a perceived difference in quality due to changing codecs, video drivers, output/overlay settings, etc.

The question would have to be, "How can a digital recording fade?"

One's and Zero's can't FADE. If a drive gets old and cannot read the disks properly, then there may be problems that come up in the replay of old disks. The life expectancy of most CD's that are burned at home is about 20+ years.

I doubt you have any that old.

But what could have well happened, is that the laser diode in your reader is getting old and the frequency of the light it emits has drifted off center. A new drive would probably play those older disks just fine.

Skipping is usually caused by a PC that's just too "Busy" to play a CD/DVD without interruptions. Shut down all running programs on your PC before trying to play a CD/DVD.

A PC that's in good condition and not just too "Busy", should NEVER skip while playing a disk.

Cheers mates!

B)

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Although Andromeda43 has very accurate information, I believe he's missing the point.

Life expectancy of digital media IS measured in decades. Even so, most people usually begin to have problems with their CD/DVD's MUCH earlier, mainly due to scratches, smudges, fingerprints, heat exposure, etc... Unless you own a Hollywood studio with an expensive vault to preserve all of your disks, it's nearly impossible to prevent this.

Sh*t happens.

However, I think Gekko_uk was referring to video files on his hard drive, not CD/DVD's.

There are lots of good suggestions above, but I think the best thing to do would be to simply 'slave' the hard drive with the AVI/MPEG files to another computer, preferably one that's been recently formatted and has all the proper codecs (I recommend ffdshow.) That way, you'll know whether the problem lies with the files on your HDD, or your Windows installation.

If they still won't play right on another PC, then I suggest a defrag. If they do play fine on a friend's PC, but not your own, then your Windows is hosed. ;)

Edited by RaGhul
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HDs store information digitally just like optical media, so Andromeda's assertion that 1s and 0s don't fade is still valid.

However, i don't think the OP meant literal fading in the sense of a faded photograph...but if he did think that then Andromeda's post is the most important one in this topic ;)

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