Film archives around the world have developed expertise in preserving film: many plan for their collections to last for 400 years, stored in carefully-controlled conditions. The old problems of inflammable nitrate film, of shrinking and decomposing acetate film, of fading colour dyes, are all understood and controlled. But how will we screen these prints in the future? And when will that future arrive? Why don’t we simply digitise everything? There are so many answers to this question. This report covers several aspects of digitisation such as issues of access, preservation, rights recovery and translation from one format to another.
