Ironically, one of the most durable formats was the 'venerable' DVD ..... and NOT expressly for motion pictures. In that department BD~V and now UHD4K obliterated it, even in upsampling mode. But the DVD did form the genesis of both MLP DVD~Audio and even SACD. As far as disc failures, an EXCELLENT track record.
When SONY introduced the SACD format, it basically stated 'although RBCD was a good idea, SACD is better' and inadvertently vowed to release ALL their future music releases in the Superior SACD format. Unlike it's competitor, DVD~Audio it had the advantage of being backward compatible with ALL RBCD players while adding a hi res stereo and multichannel layer. IMO, had SONY added an HDCD layer to the RBCD portion which boasted 20 bit resolution...they would've had a TRUE winner.
Alas, none of that transpired. And initially, in the early days of the format wars, SACD was the clear victor as more and more labels signed on to produce SACDs leaving Warner's MLP DVD~A format in the dust.
As we all know, SACDs are still being produced today in smaller quantities for boutique stereo labels like MoFi, AP, etc. and IMO, successfully resurrected by Dutton Vocalion for their excellent QUAD/Stereo reissues but with the advent of BD~A which is capable of holding amazing amounts of music on a single disc, either in Mono/Stereo/QUAD/5.1/Auro 3D 11.1 and Dolby Atmos we have a new hi~res storage champion ..... but with a single caveat: disc failure. Which brings me to my next discussion: Nothing seems to be ARCHIVAL. LPs, Tape based music/movies and now even the venerable BD~A have not stood the test of time and some have even surmised, digital storage is NOT the panacea it appears to be uless one has back~ups for the back~ups.
And the sad reality is that ALL those fabulous [and NOT so fabulous] Master Tapes and Film Negatives, through neglect and unforseen circumstances [like Fires and Floods and POOR storage] risk being lost to us ..... FOREVER! Our Universal Players will one day break down and our computers will crash while our vision and hearing, through abuse and/or age will diminish while the music majors and movie studios continue to trickle out their wares in various formats while neglecting the sad truth of NOT having an ARCHIVAL format IN THE BEST POSSIBLE RESOLUTIONS AVAILABLE to do justice to those years and years of World Culture.
A QUESTION: In YOUR OPINION what would be the best current format available to preserve this culture in the HIGHEST RESOLUTION POSSIBLE? And WHY?