This brave new world will never come to pass–digital video storage is too expensive, right?
Yes, and a computer used to fill a room. If technology has taught us anything, it’s that it eventually gets faster and cheaper. It’s true that current digital storage is not cost-effective for large quantities of video material. But according to PBS’s John Tollefson, PBS has looked at systems that store from one to three petabytes (a petabyte is one million gigabytes) of content–the equivalent of five to 15 years of new PBS content. Within two years, these systems will be available at costs competitive with current digital tape drive storage.
