Jeremy is correct, I think, or at least he is not alone, in questioning whether or not digitized video is of "broadcast quality." However, broadcast quality is a rather vague term. Is Hi-8 broadcast quality? Certainly productions shot on Hi-8 have been broadcast nationwide by PBS and other networks. Some broadcast engineers don't really like Hi-8, of course. Some corporate production houses are producing both in-house pieces for internal use and for broadcast, which are actually finished entirely digitally. Burroughs Wellcome, for example, has done this in our area, the Research Triangle. Subjectively digital video doesn't look exactly like analog video, but nor does analog video look like film. I personally think that more and more productions are going to be completed digitally simply because it is faster and that broadcasters will adjust to the look of digital video. It is relatively easy to incorporate special effects into the production as part of the digital, nonlinear editing process. As to preservation, the chief advantage of digital media is that they are not degraded through use or duplication or through nonuse and storage. I do not believe that digital(production)cameras will replace film, however, for a long time. It may also be a while before they replace analog video cameras. No electronic medium comes close to IMAX, of course, and it is difficult to imagine when one will. While I personally prefer the look of film at least as a production medium, I am willing to admit that in some perhaps many situations digital video offers a number of advantages in postproduction, even when it will only serve as a basis for conforming the original film. But this is off the track of the main issue at hand, preservation. Some preservationist may find that the advantages of digital storage and retrieval outweigh the disadvantages, and some scholars may find that digital systems increase their access to these materials without reducing the quality of the images for future scholars. While as a scholar I would prefer to view a work in its original form or medium, I also realize that my use of analog materials degrades the quality of those materials for others. Hap Kindem UNC-CH