Posted by William Sommerwerck on 01/11/28 11:45

> Still think it will be much easier to resurrect a codec in the future than
> to reglue oxide to it's base. With all of the virtualization capabilities
> that are upon us it shouldn't be too difficult to be able to run any OS or
> software in the future on any existing platform. It's much more difficult
to
> play a wire recording on a 1/4 tape deck. Maybe one should choose a codec
> for archival purposes that is a little more mainstream than something from
> Matrox. While many might disagree with me, I've ripped all of my 1000+
CD's
> to WMA Lossless and feel pretty assured that if any codec is to be around
in
> 15 or 20 years it will be the one that had an encoder and player on
millions
> of PC's.

As long as a codec is clearly documented, it's a straight-forward matter to
write code that implements it. And if the code is written in a standard
language (such as C), it's simple enough to re-compile it.

Furthermore, it looks as if CD-sized optical media will remain the standard
for the indefinite future. The tendency has been for most optical-media
players to play all (or almost all) preceding formats. This is possible
because the chips to do this are cheap. And if a new player can handle all
your old disks, you're more likely to buy it.

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