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This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Author
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Topic: Video's obsolescence - Film's ultimate saviour?
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Eric Lammes
Film Handler
Posts: 2
From: Guymon, OK / USA
Registered: Apr 2008
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posted 02-27-2009 11:06 PM
Here is a simple view. I am reopening a Drive In in Oklahoma. I am from Rochester, NY. Dad worked at Kodak. I am happy that film is still here at all. I watched Kodak downsize for the last 20 years. Reality. However, I believe we are in the golden age of film. I think all that can be done to restore, enhance, preserve (film) is at our disposal. But, I feel that until this discussion, I was looking at the simple, black and white, silent movie comparisons of digital, and comparing them to the golden age of film. Honestly, I cannot even concieve what digital will still do. I will always love film. Haven't seen a pixel yet, on film, except the date stamp... I respect the old, cherish it, but welcome the new. Besides, last time I checked, a 100 year old car still draws a crowd... And that's what I'm putting food on the table with. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 02-28-2009 12:27 AM
Film today is ALIVE and well, but it is NOT in the "uprise" or gaining market share, but declining. And somewhat quickly.
It will not be too long until digital can obtain similar (or even superior) quality/cost/convinience factors. Probably only a few years. When that happens, I hope nobody "roots" for film for other than specialized applications.
Nobody complains about an occassional Technicolor or black and white/analog sound/ektachrome reversal film if done for artistic purposes.
But anybody using but the "latest" fine-grain negatives or the best digital cameras with multitrack digital sound for new movies is, artistic-licenses aside, a fool.
Analog sound served as well. But not anymore in spite of nay-sayers.
Film is still serving us well. But NOT for long, I don't think. The only remaining question, again, being only in how long it will take to be dropped as a preferred method of image adquisition/exhibition. A few years? 20 years? even 50 years? Or just 10 years?
When it's "gone", like pretty much it is today for still photography applications (including shooting professional $7000/h models and medium/large formats or pro sports shoots), I hope only a few nostalgic will root for it the way a few still root for open-reel analog tape or Betamax or LaserDiscs.
Film is great, wonderful, and even today's top digital technology can but approximate it. But soon it will surpass it. That would be the beggining of the end. Super8, 16mm, 35mm still photography, all kept alive for small specific applications, but ALL OF THEM in a downward spiral that who knows how long can be kept alive after 35mm falls into little use and Imax etc going the same way.
If I had to shoot a feature film (or, rather, a feature motion picture) today, I wouldn't hesitate to use either film or the latest generation of digital cameras, whatever suited my needs best. 3-perf Super35mm cameras are but a rage today (like are digital counterparts). But if I had a saying in it, after I convert my film to digital intermediate like "ALL" films are done today (to edit it, colorize it, etc), I would have no desire to put it back into film (it would be "stupid" to add a lossy step back to analog) except as a "backup" archival method. From that point on, it better remains digital rather than putting it back to an analog "lossy" medium like film.
Those that say they've never "seen a pixel" (other than in their computer monitors, I'm guessing) either never watched TV or never watched 99% of movies in the past 5 years. Most have been fully digitized and that's the only way to see them, whether they are put back into film or straight into "DVD", they aren't but a collection of digital pixels (some would call it "video") and no longer a collection of film-grain and dyes. It's no longer "film". It's video put back into film. There is no "film" anymore just about anywhere to be seen.
The only reason they are put back into film is that exhibition business is not set up for straight digital exhibition at reasonable prices and quality levels, so the best "universal" solution so far has been (and remains to be) to put it into film. Cheap for the exhibitor, but expensive for the distributor, of course.
Whenever exhibition quality levels similar to Digital Intermediates can be cheaply obtained at the theaters, and some consider it "already there", we can all just save the "back to film" step and project a "perfect digital" copy straight away to the full specs (hopefully, one day).
Get over it. Virtually all "Film" TODAY is only (often) a 12 or 14 bits 2048xYYYY (YYYY=depending on flat or "spheric-scope", say 1080) 4:4:4 digital file.
Nothing more. If you do a 4K master, that's basically all the information that film contains. You could generate a CGI picture at 500K and 50bits if you wanted, far suparssing film, but there is no projector capable of that. Wherenever one is made, film will no longer have any advantages whatsoever, so it shouldn't be widely used just like Super8, which is also film, shouldn't be widely used today instead of HD camcorders.
You would be a fool to prefer Super8 (film) to HD camcorders today (for most uses) and you would be a fool to prefer 35mm motion picture film against digital cameras/display devices in the (far?) future.
With a camera like Red's announced Epic 645 or 617, images of up to about 14K (28K bayer) 12bits will be possible to obtain, surpassing what Imax prints can deliver in many measurements. Not even "film" can hold that much information in a sensible space, so another way to display it would have to be found (if such a format is deemed necessary, which is overkill, of course). LGV-laser projectors like E&S's can project 8K images on large screens at full film gamuth, if you wanted, today.
Digital is not "inferior". It's just not conviniently and cheaply enough a full replacement for film in some circunstances. Yet.
And unfortunately, with the "rush" to push digital into exhibition the industry has settled for a standard that is one notch below what it could easily be and a bit below what film can offer today, thus my full support to the nay-sayers to digital.
[ 02-28-2009, 01:39 AM: Message edited by: Julio Roberto ]
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 02-28-2009 08:02 AM
There is also a very important point regarding the film heritage. Other art expressions, which are considered “serious” are extremely careful in preserving art as close as possible as it was (i.e. universal principle in restorations to keep the original as close as possible as it was in terms of materials used for the restauration).
Unfortunately, people who are responsible for film heritage are not as careful or knowledgeable as those responsible in the painting world for instance, apart from people like Grover Crisp, who chose the revived dye transfer process in the 90s for Funny Girl. I see too many bad examples nowadays in the UK of museums and other film institutions deliberately choosing digital to show films that were never meant to enter the digital domain.
So, it is a pity that those of us who like the 7th art, have to rely on curators who do not care to preserve the original experience.
I mean, I would accept someone from a museum saying, look there is no money to get proper 35mm or 70mm new prints of old films because there is not enough interest, but to shamelessly promote the exhibition of old films in 2k digital and even say that it looks better is beyond belief.
I know that there are not that many of us who want to enjoy old pictures in their original format, but there are probably even less people interested in some obscure restorations in the first 6 art forms and still things are done properly there.
I see so much wealth of knowledge when reading this forum and then the ones who should know better, many films programmers, haven’t got a clue and have a very, very suspicious enthusiasm for anything digital. Look at the NFT in London and their very suspicious promotion of digital with superlatives used every time they show an old film “remastered” in digital, like their forthcoming showing of many Bond films in digital.
There should be an international association of proper film handlers showing old films as they were meant to be seen and trying to make those prints profitable by multiple screenings and get some governments funds (as many other art institutions get) to keep the tradition of film experience for future generations (even if film disappears for current films) and not the bastardisation of films into 2k digital.
And I saw the first reel of The Thin Red Line in dye transfer Technicolor and it was very beautiful, very pictorial and not video-like at all.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 02-28-2009 09:05 AM
Just butting in for a moment because I have the feeling the current capabilities of digital adquisition are not well known.
There are cameras capable of shooting 8K resolution, it's just that it's not practical or needed.
Since 2004 the japanese NHK has them:
http://www.nhk.or.jp/digital/en/technical/pdf/02_3.PDF
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/9/98/Uhdfuji0000.jpg
[picture of updated current version]
Arri estimates that a 65MM (5perf) modern NEGATIVE can hold a bit less than about (8746 x 3855). Now, such resolution will NEVER reach a release print. Say the release print was 6000x3000 (at best). Since digital doesn't lose information with each generation, all digital would need to do is obtain that 6000x3000 image from the beggining (i.e., scan the negative and don't resize it) to obtain the same resolution level as 65mm film.
Here is a lesser example:
http://www.visionresearch.com/index.cfm?sector=htm/files&page=camera_65_new
[link is to the phantom65 camera, available since quite a few years now]
There was also very hi-res russian cameras
http://www.kinor.ru/en/products/camera/dcx/
[link to manufacturer that puts up to 12 sensors together to offer HDR hi-ress recording, click on Kinor DC4K to actually see a camera built]
Panavision also has prototypes of super-hires cameras.
14bits color, 13 stops latitude, 4K resolutions are no longer "dreams" but everyday realities TODAY. In a few years, even better. From then on, film will be the "inferior" format, as those cameras already closely matches 35mm film in most parameters and slightly surpass it in others.
Except, of course, film will remain reasonably competitive quality-wise and cheaper than hi-end digital for quite sometime, so it will still be used. Not to mention die-hard DOP who are masters in their art and will refuse to learn how to use gain, log scales and LUTS or digital filters
http://cinetaur.googlepages.com/hd24pdigitalcinematographylinks
[link is to a page showing some of the digital motion picture cameras (over-HD video?) being available today]
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 02-28-2009 10:55 AM
Aside from the all-to-frequent proclamations of film's iminent demise, I find it interesting that these digital vs film topics always seem to center around every conceivable reason for its failure to reach critical mass, except what probably means the most to 95% of the exhibition side of this industry.
Nope, it's not quality of presentation, or ease of transportation, or keeping up with the march of technological progress, whether someone has to go upstairs to watch the equipment or whether there's even an upstairs to go to.
It's simply, cost.
To many exhibitors, the booth is merely part of the 'package'... maybe not more important than how quiet the HVAC equipment is in the auditorium. Most around here wouldn't want to hear that, since we're all technically inclined, to one extent or the other.
If the average owner could write a comparable check for digital equipment, and not have two or three permanent hands in his pockets for recurrent maintenance and licensing fees, and if there was a reasonable expectation that the equipment would outlast its depreciation schedule, you'd probably find that digital would already be the standard, and film would only be found in the art houses still using arc lamps.
I've seen too many cases, where exhibitors put less-than-good projection and sound systems in their new theatres not to believe this.
And why can't/won't the cost of digital cinema equipment go down to that level? Beats me. 4 years ago, if you told me I could eventually buy a 65" flat screen for around a kilobuck, I wouldn't have believed that, either. Somehow, the manufacturing part of the chain thinks exhibitors' pockets are deep enough that they can charge a lot for the technology, then continue charging to make it run... or let it.
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Bill Enos
Film God
Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 02-28-2009 07:54 PM
As I noted in a post on Ground Level, a new theater opened here-15 film screens, 2 digital, asked why, my GM was told what we all know to be true---the equipment costs less than half as much, lasts 10 times longer, gives 1/100th the trouble can be repaired inexpensively, looks better on the screen at least half the time, and the problems are known, no mysteries, works when the switch is thrown, every time.
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Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God
Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted 02-28-2009 09:21 PM
quote: Bill Enos
As I noted in a post on Ground Level, a new theater opened here-15 film screens, 2 digital, asked why, my GM was told what we all know to be true---the equipment costs less than half as much, lasts 10 times longer, gives 1/100th the trouble can be repaired inexpensively, looks better on the screen at least half the time, and the problems are known, no mysteries, works when the switch is thrown, every time.
Take that, D-Crapema!! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Long live FILM!! (Or Filum if you prefer.)
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-28-2009 10:04 PM
quote: Mark Ogden
I wonder, Paul, if you could provide some qualification for that statement. Twelve times the archival costs? From what, exactly?
Here is a link to a Variety article... Variety Article And those are the pro digital people trying to figure it out.
quote: Mark Ogden
As opposed to the thousands of films lost over the years by improper film storage?
Really? You are going to throw that out? I ask because the reasons for the loss have nothing to do with archiving and that alone ends your arguement. The loss of such movies have to do with the previous use of Nitrate stock, the lack of understanding or, more importantly, the lack of appreciation for the asset value of older titles. The idea of previous features having modern value WAS a VERY RARE one. Disney being a notable exception...notice how their titles, by and large, are all here. Charlie Chaplin films too, if you want to go into the silent era. We even have sound movies from the 1800s. But more to the point, preservation is a matter of the owner's priority system. In the past, a movie's day was in the here and now and was deemed mostly worthless after that except for some rare titles. As strage as it may sound to the VCR era generations, that didn't really change until about the time that VCRs came into existance. Seriously...films were not stored well, separations were often not even QCed to verify they were good copies,
Most of the damage that has happened to the older titles HAS already happened...good vault conditions of today will not undo the poor conditions of yesteryear.
As for negative loss...well back not very long ago...the OCN actually stuck release prints. This made the prints back then MUCH better...but at the cost of killing the OCN.
I find it to this day a poor trade off...in the name of preserving the negative for its longest life, we deliberately show an inferior movie for the current audience. This is something that I hope digital rectifies once it is worthy.
quote: Julio Roberto
If Technicolor was so superior that only an idiot would ever doubt it, with perhaps only cost being a negative aspect of it, at least a significant number of $200m productions, for which cost of stock/prints is not such a huge issue due to the investment, would be shot/released in Technicolor.
Really Julio? Really...that is your arguement...that if something was better, the studios spending big money would do it at some level? WRONG. 65mm is a clear case in point...any idiot can see an improved image in 65mm over any digital currently showing and any 35mm currently showing. Yet, 65mm photography is, shall we say, VERY limited. If if the title was to be released digitally or on 35mm film, sourcing it on 65mm would have a superior image to start with. The bottom line is the bottom line...it costs more to shoot in 65mm or to process in Technicolor...the studios don't seem to think in terms of return on investment. In fact, by and large, they are devoid of ideas all together. They are remaking movies that are less than 30-years old...are all the good stories really gone that we need to remake good films or even remake bad ones again?
quote: Julio Roberto
Fuji closed a plant or two recently and are downsizing.
Okay, TI cut their DLP staff in 1/2 in 2008...this year they halved it again. So which technology is shrinking faster? For the large scale projector...you have 37,000 US screens...about 135,000 screens world wide. That is it...that is the whole market...so lets say tomorrow we all buy DLP projectors...we are 100% converted...now what? The market is then dead and can't support itself.
Another thing you can't escape...digital projection, in and of itself, does not sell one extra ticket...as others here, who own theatres, have abtly pointed out...if it doesn't sell more tickets, it can't cost more. The current 3D model isn't about selling more tickets, it is about distribution of tickets. That is, if a number of tickets are potentially to be sold for a title, if you don't have 3D some of the tickets you would normally sell will go to the 3D theatre. Therefore, buying into 3D just lets you retain what you already had in the 2D world. If every theatre has a 3D set up, the distribution returns to no extra ticket sales.
From an exhibitors perspective, film equipment is currently, a cheaper method of displaying equal or higher quality presentations.
quote: Julio Roberto
And the number of release prints in 35mm are not INCREASING but DECREASING. Slightly, as digital exhibition is slightly moving forward while the number of new theaters is not growing much and most that open new are digital.
Kodak is always boast about the increase in film stock production...someone is getting more prints because it sure isn't going to still film.
quote: Julio Roberto
I hope, at least, nobody needs a reality check with still chemical (film) photography being a dying art as oppossed to a thriving industry in the uprise.
A stupid comparison. The majority of consumers use still photography as a convience item. They didn't buy 110 film in the '70s because it was better. It was smaller. They didn't have a problem with the quality of film...it was the whole processing and distribution. Lets face it...not all images are created equal. I was an early adopter of digital stills. I document most every booth I work in with them (Right from my handy camera phone). They are not the greatest pictures but they suffice for what I want them for. For other pictures, I like others have a digital camera that does better than the phone. I also make a point of still shooting with my Nikon F2 on film to document my son's aging. I know those will always be viewable and will survive...just as all of pictures when I was young have survived (home movies too). When it comes to digital versus film in stills...it is all a matter of what you want in the image, and what you want to do with the image. Digital manipulation is certainly easier/faster than photochemical with much less waste.
But in comparison to a release print? Manipulation has already occurred...we are just concerned about getting it on the screen in the best form possible.
As for Nikon to stop making MOST film cameras...well yeah. As it has become more of a niche format, one need not have many varied varieties of something to support. Wise business move, in my opinion.
That would be like a newsflash..."Simplex to stop making MOST film projectors." Well, they only have a couple...because there are but only so many varients that the market EVER needed.
quote: Julio Roberto
If someone thinks that film will continue to be mainstream use in domestic, motion picture and TV 20 years from now, I guess he still shops for vinyl records, rents VHS tapes (or better yet, Betamax), buys music cassette, and shoots his kid's sport events on Super8 home movies.
People have been predicting film's demise for some time. The reasons for shooting on film or digital are often creative ones...I suspect that will remain the case. Technology will certainly affect those creative decisions as they have in other industries. Could film cease being the mainstream medium in 20-years...sure, I could see that. I don't think it is a given though.
As for vinyl...it has shown it is not a loss cause but will never regain mainstream use. That said, I think many people that jumped on MP3 have discovered that it is crap as far as the audio goes and that for serious listening, there are better choices. I and others are finding that the vinyl records often are far superior to their CD counterparts.
But lets get back to exhibition and film/digital. Digital exhibition has a BIG issue...who makes digital projection equipment? Two...Sony and TI. The market, as DCinema goes, is not big enough for either of them. Where does digital exhibition go if TI (and think it is more the case of when TI) pulls the plug on DLP? Do you think Hollywood will talk out of the other side of their mouths and say SXRD is IT and everyone buy that? Are there any other large venue projection technologies on the horizon? Anyone that has worked with semiconductors knows it is HUGE risk to single-source anything. That is just what DLP is....a huge risk.
Back to archiving. My clients include the Library of Congress and the National Archives...put simply by both...they feel they have archiving methods that should keep film for 1000-years now. They do not believe that there is an archival digital method yet though they are working on it. This does not mean they are not preserving Born-digital media (audio, motion picture...etc)...just that HOW to archive it with that sort of life-span is the problem. As Scott said, they feel that if in 1000-years someone digs up one of their archives...odds are, that future society can figure out how to show it...it is almost self explanitory. With digital...depending on the medium...one would have to figure out how to get the data off...and then how to decode it from the perspective of that future society after we are long gone. As its name implies...analog is just that analogus to what it is recording.
I can certainly see film being used for far longer than 20-year in the archiving business...regardless of how it is used in the rest of the industry.
As for digital being inferior to film...it is all a matter of what one is looking for and hoping to achieve. I Julio's link to one that quotes Arri stating that digital can have that 65mm look with just what amounts to a 4K camera...a 4K camera, at best, has a similar resolution to 35mm...what a joke. Personally, I've not seen any digital compare favorably to film when it comes to the image. There are aspects of digital that I prefer. I'm also certainly willing to prefer digital, when it truly is better. I'm painfully aware of the DIs used in most movies today...it ruins their look...hopefully this horrible 2K DI thing will continue to go away in favor of higher resolution, bit depth and the whole thing...DIs suck at this point.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-01-2009 03:50 PM
I'm not sure that 2" quad videotape is comparable to LTO-4. Quad was a standard professional broadcast format for 25+ years and the machines were built very well and designed to be able to be maintaned for many years. At one point, nearly every TV station in the US (and many other countries) had a machine; many still have the ability to play older tapes. By contrast, data storage formats come and go and are generally made technologically obsolete within a few years. Backwards compatibility might be maintained for a decade or two. Has anyone here tried to restore from a QIC tape from the 1980s lately? (Actually, I did this recently from an early '90s tape and it was fine. Fortunately, I had access to an old tape drive and a machine which would talk to its not-quite-standard SCSI interface.)
In any case, a projector or optical printer can be built in a good machine shop. An LTO drive, along with a computer, operating system, and software are a bit more difficult (though open-source software and operating systems are most likely to survive, due to wide distribution and lack of DRM).
Remember, too, that not all films are owned by well-financed corporations and not all of those will continue to stay in business for another fifty years. I can't possibly be the only one here who has occasionally discovered one-of-a-kind film elements in old theatre attics that have simply been sitting there for decades (in one case, I found some excellent 1930s nitrate of the dedication of a local monument; the theatre owner donated it to the local historical society). Will anyone be able to have this experience in fifty years?
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-01-2009 07:07 PM
quote: Steve Guttag
Here is a link to a Variety article... Variety Article And those are the pro digital people trying to figure it out.
Ok, so I read the article. Very interesting, except that it lacks the one thing I was asking for: a qualification. $104.28 a running minute for 4K? Stored on what exactly? Drives? Who in their right mind does such a thing? And why is it an annualized cost? What is being amortized here, and for how long?
DCI spec 4K video, at 24p and 12 bits, runs about 5TB per hour, that’s uncompressed. At a very mild 2 to 1 compression, you could store a two-hour feature at the same rate. Lets say that you have an average feature, plus you want to store all your trims, trailers, tests and whatnot, say a very reasonable 12 to 1 shooting ratio, about 24 hours of material, or 60TB. You could do this on the aforementioned LTO-4 media for about $3000, palette cost. This works out to, let’s see, divide by twenty-four . . . divide by sixty . . . carry the one . . . $2.08 a minute. If you’re going uncompressed, $4.16 a minute. After everything is transferred, you can take the boxes of tape and store them on a shelf for an annual cost of exactly zero.
Of course, you could take a couple racks of drives, box them up and send them off site, to an Iron Mountain facility or the like, and I imagine it would run into money. Or you could apply typical Hollywood accounting principles (the same principles that said that Titanic never made a domestic profit), and try to lay off studio overhead, the cost of the shelf space, the cost of the latest dud and whatnot to your box of drives, which seems very clear what they are trying to do here. But that by no means equals the reality of the cost of digital storage any more than the Pentagon paying $50,000 for a socket wrench equals the real cost of that. You’re more than welcome to point out the error in my math or reasoning, but until I hear a better explanation for the $100 price difference, pro digital people or not, I ain’t buying it.
quote:
I ask because the reasons for the loss have nothing to do with archiving and that alone ends your arguement. The loss of such movies have to do with the previous use of Nitrate stock,
That alone ends my argument? My face laughs at you, especially since in your next sentence you seem to be implying that problems with film storage and loss ended with the nitrate era. What was that, early, mid-fifties? Yeah, nitrate blew up in your face, yet issues with film deterioration and loss continued long after that, well into the triacetate age. That Disney kept their stuff together, I salute (although come to think of it, I remember that Fantasia and Bambi were both in bad shape the last time they went to be printed for release and had to be massively restored). I’m sure that there are dandy dye-process Technicolor prints still in existence that have retained all their glory. But you and I both have heard more than enough anecdotal evidence about people who have gone back to their stored material and found a mess to believe that the problem ended with nitrate. How many times in recent memory have I heard “We went back to the vault print, but it had been wound too tightly and covered with cinch marks/was covered with little bubbles/exhibited too much shrinkage/was faded to magenta/had color shifted/was filthy/was scratched/had missing scenes/was unusable and so on, and again, these were vault copies. Off the top of my head, I recall major restoration efforts within the last 25 years or so for: Vertigo, Rear Window, My Fair Lady, Spartacus, Yellow Submarine, Playtime, Superman, The Seven Samurai, Carousel, Tom Jones (which I think they gave up on) and others. And these aren’t nitrate or slouch titles by any means; while they were not all box-office winners, they were films that had clear long-term value.
The bottom line of what I am trying to get at: film guarantees nothing. No thing. Yeah, yeah, polyester, stable dyes, strong base, archive it at sixty two degeres, print a copy and never touch it again because we understand the long term value of our film assets now, no really, we do, swear-to-God, no shit this time. Who the hell knows what’s going to happen to this stuff? That’s why I am unmoved by statements like
quote: Steve Guttag
they feel they have archiving methods that should keep film for 1000-years now
They feel? That should? Classic weasel words. I guess you and I will have to dig ourselves up in 1000 years or so to see if the archive print of The Hottie and The Nottie made it OK.
quote: Scott Norwood
I'm not sure that 2" quad videotape is comparable to LTO-4.
Oh, I'm not saying that it is, technically. It's just that there still machines available for playing it, because of the 25 years or so of television history that is still on reels. The point being, any media company that archives onto a data format, LTO or what have you, is then obliged by common sense to maintain a working way to retrieve the data from same, for as long as it's needed. After that? Frankly, I don't lose a lot of sleep wondering if the people 500 years from now will be able to watch an episode of Married With Children off a data tape. Fact is, I hope they wouldn't want to.
By the way, I can think of at least ten working quad machines in the New York City area, and a like number in L.A. Also, as has been pointed out, they are big with collectors also, and there are a number of working machines in the hands of small businesses that specialize in video recovery.
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