Preservation of Photos & Technology for the Next Generation

It has been said that it is now possible for your grandchildren and your great grandchildren to be able to know their ancestors since the technology is now available to preserve images, audio visual presentations etc. 

That being said, it may be possible, but it's not easy by any stretch of imagination.   

From a hardware perspective, technology is changing so rapidly that it is almost impossible to even guess which technologies will be around 25 years from now much less 100 or 200 years.  

In fact, Moore's law where technology is doubling in power in half the time is applicable to this preservation effort. What used to be 50 years is now obsolete in 25 years or less.  

 At least black and white photos from the 1800's are actually still around. 

I'm not sure that even becoming digital is a long lasting solution. 

 A case in point is the recent conversion I did from film, taken in 1960 to 1965 by my father with his 8MM home movie projector. 

About 20 years ago, I retrieved the small 3 inch reels of moldy film from his damp basement, and had them sent off to be  cleaned, splice and converted to VHS tape.  Then, about 15 years ago, realizing that VHS was becoming obsolete, I went out and bought a brand new VHS tape player and put it on the shelf.  

Awaiting the day that I could convert the VHS format to digital, thus finally being able to copy without degradation, I've been waiting to see  what hardware format would be the next generation before I convert it for the last time in my lifetime to present it to my daughter.  

In the past 15 years, CD's (too small to convert video) and DVD's (delamination issues over time) have come and gone from my consideration. Now Blue Ray, taking the place of DVD's has the same issue and seems to be yet another Sony Betamax vs. VHS flash in the pan.  

And now, even  NTSC has changed to Digital TV and HDTV so I'm now forced to convert to digital before the TV set will no longer support  composite video formats.   

Now that I'm digital am I safe?    

Certainly and USB external drive has got to be a limited life. We're already at USB2  ... or is it USB3?... or even USB at all?   

Now that I'm digital, what about the software formats?  MPEG2 seems to have survived for the last 20 years. 

 Is there somewhere on the cloud?  oh nevermind... The internet is already a nasty place, everchanging... I can't trust that to be around can I? ...besides the Chinese will probably own it in a few years anyway.  

They said that all the Sun spots were going to kill all computers and disk drives. 

Now what? Maybe the Egyptians were on to something... Hieroglyphics on Stone!   

Sooooooo..........What about the future?  

Maybe having too much technology is actually the MOST dangerous thing to preserving your lives and info for the next generations... 

 In the mean time.... I just hope I don't drop my laptop.