DVD

[Magnum]

I am thinking about whether a DVD burner would be worth having.

I know it holds so much more that a CD.

Do the R/W ones work as well as the CD ones?

[dedndave]

i have heard that they are not as reliable
that is, over time, they can lose data
however, i have never had this problem
maybe i haven't waited long enough   :P
or - perhaps the person who reported that was using inferior discs or drive
it may also be that technology has improved, like anything else, and the problems have been overcome

[Neil]

Get one that supports RAM Disc, these have a 100,000 rewrite cycle. I have some of these more than 5 years old & found them extremely reliable. The only downside is that they are more expensive, but if you want reliability.....

[Magnum]

I have read some bad reviews with some DVD recorders not reading disks after a few months.

What brand and model do you use?

Are some media more reliable?

Andy

[dedndave]

well - i would do some research with google
i dunno about "a few months"
i was thinking more along the lines of a few years

[Neil]

I've used a variety of DVD recorders over the years & never had a problem. I use Panasonic RAM Discs & I use these same discs in my TV DVD recorder (Formatted differently) & as I said, never had a problem.

[jj2007]

Ask the aussies:
Risks Associated with the Use of Recordable CDs and DVDs as Reliable Storage Media in Archival Collections - Strategies and
Alternatives, By Kevin Bradley. National Library of Australia, Canberra

[Magnum]

Thanks for the article.

It was interesting that the failure rate for CDs/DVDs is quite high.

I noticed a lot of errors when I burned Linux and other O.S.s to rewriteable CDs.

With hard drives becoming so cheap, I will stick with additional hard drives as "semi-archival" storage areas.

[dedndave]

i try not to use the re-write capability, except for temporary storage
for more permanent backups, i gather about 650-700 Mb of stuff together, and write/close the CD
with older equipment and supplies, i would limit the write speed to 32x
but i think that has been overcome with improved manufacturing

[Magnum]

I have had excellent results with R/W CDs.

The recording layer is thicker than on the CD_Rs.

No failure so far, did about 75 writes on one CD.

I remember years ago when movie DVDs came out.

They thought that a small scratch would ruin the DVD.

That hasn't been my experience with apartment use DVDs.

I think that if the scratch is limited to the top clear layer, it will still play.

[dedndave]

i have heard just the opposite - lol
that the top layer was a reflector for the light beam

[Magnum]

The silver layer is what the laser burns into.

If the clear layer is scratched, the light rays get scattered too, but it will probably still be playable.

When the silver layer gets scratched that's when your movie freezes or becomes a single use frisbee.

My grandson wasn't too good at taking care of his movies.  :bg

[Tedd]

The top layer of produced CDs and DVDs is a transparent dust cover. On recordable media, the top layer is the actual recording layer (treated with light-reactive chemicals.)
Scratches can make the bits unreadable, but as long as they're isolated, the surrounding error-correction bits will make up for it. Obviously, as scratches build up this causes more problems.

As for lifetime, CD-Rs seem to last longer, while DVD-Rs are lucky to make it beyond several years. It's a natural deterioration of the recorded layer (it's still light-reactive), and the fact that DVDs have a higher density, so it takes less deterioration before a noticeable error is produced (one that can't be automatically repaired.)

[sinsi]

Nice explanation here: DISC CONSTRUCTION AND MANUFACTURING

[hutch--]

Seems to vary from DVD writer to DVD writer. I had a new Samsung fail on me after very few writes so I replaced it with a cheap LITEON that can suddenly read a whole pile of DVDs that the others could not. I think from memory I have only ever had one CD fail where I have had many DVDs fail so while I keep all of them in pristine condition as far as scratches, deterioration of the recording layer seems to be the main reason why they fail. My earlier writers were Pioneer of a few different models but the Sony readers started to have problems with them within a few months of them being recorded. Interestingly enough the LITEON cheapie can read the lot.