Correction: An Urgent Need for Files

“Most of the industry participants agreed that over time,
digital data will inevitably experience bits that flip (0 becomes
1, or vice versa). Over time, a bit or two or even more will flip
or be read incorrectly, and the file might become unreadable or
corrupted to a point where it is not usable. It is one thing to
lose a single bit in a file, but if you lost a bit in the wrong
part of a file definition, often called an application header or
file header because it is at the beginning of the file, if that was
lost or unreadable, the whole file might be lost.

“A participant from the film industry mentioned that even film
that is 100 years old and not perfect can usually be displayed, and
most of the film is viewable and clear enough to the average
person. The participant asked why digital file formats (jpg,
mpeg-3, mpeg-4, jpeg2000, and so on) can’t allow the same
degradation and remain viewable. A great question, and one that no
one had an answer for.”

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