Technology offers more tools than ever to preserve treasured digital photos

In the digital era, consumers worry about the staying power of their possessions.

They fret about the permanence of computers and electronics gear. They read about “CD rot,” short-lived iPod batteries and pricey plasma TVs with traces of static images “burned into” the display. And they pray that the most prized digital treasures — family photographs — will last from one generation to the next.

But consumers may have less to worry about than they fear. While the possibility of “burn-in” on plasma screens underscores the risks early adopters assume, TVs have always included parts that ultimately gave way, notably bulbs and tubes.

Manufacturers are addressing the plasma problem. Anthony Fonzo of Philips Electronics says Philips’ digital TVs are rated to last 40,000 to 60,000 hours. Put in perspective, someone watching four hours a day for seven years would accumulate just over 10,000 hours.

Keeping obsolete formats current: The inherent strength behind the 1’s and 0’s that make up computer code is the ability to produce virtual clones of files. Back up the bits, and your documents, pictures or music files will always be easy to reach. But there’s a big if: You must have something to play or view them on.

Format obsolescence is the toughest challenge, says Rand Corp. senior computer scientist Jeff Rothenberg.

Rothenberg doesn’t believe migrating from one format to another is the answer, because data will inevitably be lost or corrupted. A better strategy, he says, is “emulation,” in which future machines impersonate obsolete ones. Not only are digital artifacts saved, but also the software used to interpret them.

When CD rot strikes: Dan Koster, Web content manager for Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina, became a minor celebrity after reporting in the spring that 15 percent to 20 percent of the 2,000 CDs in his properly stored collection suffered from what has loosely been called CD rot and would no longer play.

Jerry Hartke of Marlborough, Mass.-based Media Sciences, a company that tests the integrity of the discs, thinks the hysteria is overblown.

“I can take a CD and drill a 2-millimeter hole into it and still read it,” he says.

The Library of Congress and National Institute of Standards and Technology are running “accelerated aging” tests on CDs and DVDs. Though results are premature, Michele Youket, a preservation specialist, says the poorest-quality CDs may last only four or five years; the best, more than 100.

What can people do to preserve digital data?

Pictures stored only on a hard drive are toast if the drive becomes permanently corrupted.

“We don’t think that consumers realize how hard it will be to retrieve their digital photos in 10 or 20 years, much less 50 or more,” says Kristy Holch of InfoTrends.

Photographic prints are a tangible archive, at least.

But how well they endure depends on exposure to light, humidity, pollution and, most of all, by the combination of ink and paper used.