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Bob Russell · 08-26-2005, 04:18 PM

In this electronic age, there's a growing number of collections of audio, video, ebooks, and other personal content on electronic media. It's stored in various compressed formats, often without concern for whether or not that format will be of any use in future years.

Some formats like text, mp3, pdf, etc are very likely to be useful even in a decade. Others like DRM'd proprietary ebook formats are much less likely to be useful. But how about something like DivX? And even our beloved iSilo format leaves us wondering about longevity of content availability. (But that wouldn't stop me from using it, because it's such a great program.)

If you have eReader or MobiPocket books, for example, how convinced are you that you'll be able to use them when you move to a linux handheld like the Nokia 770, for example? How confident are you if companies supporting the formats don't survive that long? Or will you be able to buy music players for your collection of ogg audio files in 20 years?

Fortunately, there are some mitigating factors. For example, in many cases there are already some practical ways to do batch conversions between formats. Also, if you have your content in some kind of very popular format, there are likely to be more readers/players in the future and ongoing support on future platforms, as well as new conversion help. If your content is DRM'd and in a less popular format, you might not really care if it's a book you intend to read once like a novel and throw away. That's what I do with most of my paperback reading, and I rarely visit the typical paperback more than once unless it's a reference work or a classic.

I'm interested to hear what formats you think will survive for another decade. I've listed a sampling of the most common formats, but feel free to reply with your thoughts and speculations on other formats not listed.

08-26-2005, 04:18 PM	#1
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Will your favorite file format last? In this electronic age, there's a growing number of collections of audio, video, ebooks, and other personal content on electronic media. It's stored in various compressed formats, often without concern for whether or not that format will be of any use in future years. Some formats like text, mp3, pdf, etc are very likely to be useful even in a decade. Others like DRM'd proprietary ebook formats are much less likely to be useful. But how about something like DivX? And even our beloved iSilo format leaves us wondering about longevity of content availability. (But that wouldn't stop me from using it, because it's such a great program.) If you have eReader or MobiPocket books, for example, how convinced are you that you'll be able to use them when you move to a linux handheld like the Nokia 770, for example? How confident are you if companies supporting the formats don't survive that long? Or will you be able to buy music players for your collection of ogg audio files in 20 years? Fortunately, there are some mitigating factors. For example, in many cases there are already some practical ways to do batch conversions between formats. Also, if you have your content in some kind of very popular format, there are likely to be more readers/players in the future and ongoing support on future platforms, as well as new conversion help. If your content is DRM'd and in a less popular format, you might not really care if it's a book you intend to read once like a novel and throw away. That's what I do with most of my paperback reading, and I rarely visit the typical paperback more than once unless it's a reference work or a classic. I'm interested to hear what formats you think will survive for another decade. I've listed a sampling of the most common formats, but feel free to reply with your thoughts and speculations on other formats not listed.