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Originally Posted by old_tv_nut
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It was a fascinating read.....I'm surprised the archive industry does not simply demand playback only support out to 10 generations. It would make a great solution. If new hardware can still play a tape up to near the guaranteed shelf life, then they can keep the tapes till near the end of their life then transfer them to the current generation recording method....Yeah the makers won't have as much leverage to force the sale of new tapes for upgrading, but to what extent?...The older tapes hold less data so theoretically there will become a point where any growing archive (or one of fixed size trying to cut costs) has to look at the old tapes and say "I can fit 5 movies on this single gen 15 tape or I can put those same 5 films on 5 gen 10 tapes, why am I wasting space with older gen tapes?". Shelf space has value so even if the makers no longer force archivists to upgrade the archivists will still do it on their own accord once the difference in shelf space consumption between generations financially merits an upgrade.