I read with interest Robert Lezzi's assertions in his May 15 letter, "Beware future memory meltdown," that we should expect, sooner rather than later, a loss of memories associated with recordings of art, music and family events stored on DVDs.
I don't share these fears. Classical movies, as far as they have survived to this day, will continue to be available to rent in whatever the current storage medium may be as long as there is demand for them. Why record them? Why duplicate them? Why waste the time and money? If the end of demand means the disappearance of these oldies, wouldn't that be a good thing, really? Why hoard what no one wants to see?
The fate of art (not Hollywood) has much firmer foundations in the written word, music and pictures, all of which which will be around for a long time without requiring personal recordings.
As for the the dreaded family events, you need to have been well indoctrinated with Japan Inc. to believe that these recordings will ever make it out of the storage box -- if they ever make it into one to start with. Their banality is tiring. Recordings rest on the false perception of gaining something through the lens when the time could have been more fruitfully directed to building great memories in the simplest of manners.
Memories require no medium other than your brain, and they stay if you cultivate them -- even down to the next generation. Not only that, they stay "pristine" -- without the awful fashion-of-the-day overlay, ridiculous behaviors and well-meant platitudes of their actors. Free yourself of high-tech and you will be surprised what you can store!