Doubts about my DVD discs files lasting?

[myfiles87]

I've read that DVD discs are fragile in high humidity if in long term storage I sometime my city's humidity and temperature goes close to 90% and 27-29C immediately the discs and data die?

For long term storage is the sata dvd drive or the usb dvd drive better?

[lordsmurf]

SATA and USB are just comm methods, nothing to really do with drives. Both SATA and USB can be good or bad. The drive is what determines quality, not the comm method. Same for capture cards, hard drives, etc.

Correct, DVD doesn't like humidity, fails. Don't store discs outside, high heat, etc. Indoor, temp controlled.

[dpalomaki]

High temperatures, high humidity, intense light (i.e., painfully bright to people), frequent temperature and humidity swings, are not good for DVD life. How bad depends on the individual DVD and the manufacturing processes. Some brands are better than others, and all brands may put out an occasional batch with some manufacturing issues such as weak glue joints or poos uniformity of the sensitive layers.

Search the web and you will find a number of reports on DVD media tests and life predictions. But most tests results will not be based on your storage conditions or media and serve mainly as a guide for assessing your risks.

The archival issue with all media is the ability to read it in the distant future. While I can still play 78 rpm records from the 1920s and read books printed in the 1700s and before, tough to read the 8-track tapes, ZIP drives, or 5-1/4" floppy disks from the 1980s. And today's PC come without floppy disc or optical drives. Media such as hard drive or thumb drive is electro mechanical or electronic, not etched in stone, and failure is possible. Long term life of solid state storage is not proven, and if you can erase it, so can a sufficiently large EMP.

Store your DVDs in what most people consider comfortable conditions; e.g., around 50% humidity and temperatures in the 20-26 C range if you can. And avoid wide and storage conditions swings. If the material is important and a replacement is not available, store back-ups off site and periodically test the media to determine if you are seeing a rise in correctable read errors. Make new copies while read errors are still correctable.

[Lisa007lk]

I was online looking to buy my Verbatim DVD-R & CD-R discs & happened upon a Video Help forum discussing the quality of various discs & the AZO vs Life Series in particular. LORD SMURF commented “who’s burning CDs anymore anyway?’ & I wanted to come here to tell him that my husband burns concerts by the dozen (mostly of bootleg concerts of the band YES & any bands any of the members may have played in. He has compiled an extensive collection over the years & in the last 5 has come across sites with massive amounts of concerts available to anyone to copy. Well they have taken over my 3T external HD upstairs & I’ve been bugging him to do something with them to free up some room! Plus after he creates a CD & artwork, this disc can be taken in the car or by another’s house or shared easily. He is definitely an audiophile & I am the videophile. And we both argue with those who stream their entertainment that we like to hold the discs in our hands & read the accompanying paperwork/covers. I have made thousands of dvds of favorite movies, TV shows, commercials & concerts on a machine that I was made aware of by a fellow soap opera fan. After getting a SONY DVD Recorder, I quickly hated the fact I could not edit & was introduced to a Pioneer model that had frame by frame editing. I Loved it but have abused it (& subsequent ones of same model i bought off EBay, swearing i won’t fill it but I always do!) I’m trying to clear my 4th now. Anyway, thnx for schooling me about AZO but i think many of my disc problems (besides scratches & age just laying about in my living room) is problems w/the machine…not recognizing what’s on the DVD & thinking it’s blank. (Otherwise i have 59 of 100 DVDs now blank…sorry for the lengthy post!

[lordsmurf]

Welcome!

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Originally Posted by Lisa007lk

LORD SMURF commented “who’s burning CDs anymore anyway?’ & I wanted to come here to tell him that my husband burns concerts by the dozen (mostly of bootleg concerts of the band YES & any bands any of the members may have played in.

Interesting!

I've not been to a live event for several years now. I'm not sure if I should be surprised by this. Let me share my experiences here...

By the early 2010s (when I was in Nashville), there was already a push to get folks to buy songs from iTunes and Amazon. Most indy artists had given up trying to sell discs. Online gave less, but also took less effort, less upfront costs involved. Most actually had pressed discs in cases, not CD-R. And usually with some sort of artwork (usually professional, even if just cards from Vistaprint).

Back in the 90s, I saw CD-R often. But by even the 20s, even my cheapskate friends were getting presses in plain slim cases.

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in the last 5 has come across sites with massive amounts of concerts available to anyone to copy. Well they have taken over my 3T external HD upstairs & I’ve been bugging him to do something with them to free up some room!

Data hoarders. Few ever enjoy all the crap they collect. I almost feel into that bad habit in the 2000s, but learned to limit myself only to that which I will definitely use or enjoy. There is some value to data hoarding, but not as much with video (TV, movies) and audio (music, podcasts, etc). You have to be selective. The opposite of hoarder is a connoisseur. I'd rather be the latter, or somewhere in the middle.

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Plus after he creates a CD & artwork,

This is becoming a lost art. I was quite good at it.

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we like to hold the discs in our hands & read the accompanying paperwork/covers.

No disagreement here.

I'm not that into artwork, aside from things I really like. Mostly toons, shows like Smurfs. The trivia does it for me.

And maybe not discs, but at least local files. I don't trust "the cloud" (internet) to maintain copies available. We've already seen how stuff can disappear on a whim.

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I have made thousands of dvds of favorite movies, TV shows, commercials & concerts on a machine that I was made aware of by a fellow soap opera fan.

How long have you done this? We may have common friends. If you were not aware, I started into video as pure hobby, toons and TV. Pro came much later, what I refer to as my accidental career.

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After getting a SONY DVD Recorder, I quickly hated the fact I could not edit & was introduced to a Pioneer model that had frame by frame editing. I Loved it but have abused it (& subsequent ones of same model i bought off EBay, swearing i won’t fill it but I always do!) I’m trying to clear my 4th now.

Eh. Not the best.
Pioneer depended on model. Some decent, some suck.
Don't use those nasty 6-hour modes. (Those traders and collectors were infamous, and would be banned from the better places. Not helpful to provide crap quality to groups.)

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Anyway, thnx for schooling me about AZO

You'll essentially never go wrong using Verbatim AZO media, or Taiyo Yuden media. Legit, not fake stuff. Noting that fake discs have mostly disappeared, zero money in it anymore.

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but i think many of my disc problems (besides scratches & age just laying about in my living room) is problems w/the machine…not recognizing what’s on the DVD & thinking it’s blank.

Could be. Lots of possible issue. DVD lasers have a finite life, often just 2-5 years before weakening and failing. So who cases if DVDs "only" last 100 years, or even 50, or even 25. Will we still have players? You may be shocked when that future date arrives. So many DVDs, so little to see them. I think DVD players are now like VCRs, no longer made. It's just BD players now, and those never really caught on. Netflix, Disney+, etc. Or DLNA with Kodi boxes. Disc-free days are upon us. I ripped every one of my DVDs to ISO, and backed those up as well. I now mostly just view files on LAN, when not streaming.

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(Otherwise i have 59 of 100 DVDs now blank…

Only 59?

(I have at least 10x that right now, maybe 20x or 30x. Don't use these much anymore.)

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sorry for the lengthy post!

I always enjoy meeting a fellow TV collector, especially DVDs.

I need to move this threadjack to its own post, not really on-topic to our banned "fungus" friend.

[Lisa007lk]

Thnx so much for yr reply. When I said I have about 59 of 100 discs blank, I meant JUST from my last spindle of 100 DVDs (which are Verbatim but Life Series. Honestly I never really paid much attention to whether I bought AZO or Life Series. In my living room I have 18 spindles of 100 discs on my coffee table & at least 10 more in a box in the bedroom. Many are not finalized so I can always add to it but now when i put a disc with some recordings in the DVD-R sometimes it wipes it all out (so it says nothing is on it yet I can’t record to it). I also had 999 (max allowed) recordings on the machine & it won’t fully optimize so I’m trying to burn things off the HD to clean it up. On another machine when this happened, it became usable (to edit) after burned/deleted a few hundred recordings…I hoping it will do the same.
And I never knew anyone else with a DVD-R.I found someone online who was selling homemade DVDs of a long cancelled soap opera & she told me what units she worked with (Panasonic & Pioneer & ?). I had gotten the Sont DVDR free with points earned on a Sony credit card but was extremely frustrated that I couldn’t edit the show recorded after to make a clean commercial free episode. I didn’t know there was such a machine w/a HD to save & edit the shows & then burn them onto a disc. I was thrilled when i bought my first one & began trading soaps with 2 people. By the time i had problems w/it about 3 yrs into a 5 yr warranty w/the store…that chain of electronic stores were no longer around. I then sent my unit direct to Pioneer but eventually it got stuck again (no one told me about the approx. 5 yr life of the laser) but then Pioneer went out so i sent it to my Brother across the country to fix (he builds his own computers). He thought he could replace the laser w/o touching the HD but he couldn’t so he put all my stuff on th HD onto a disc for me but I am not familiar w/editing & burning on a computer so I just kept buying ones I found on EBay. (I have a Pioneer DVR-640H) We have a Sony Bravia XBR with 8 inputs (& P&P which is why we are married so long-we can watch 2 dif things at the same time). We have 3 cable boxes, the DVD-R & had a VCR also at one point on the TVs so I can be recording on the one cable box, watching another show & editing on the DVD-R all at the same time. I began keeping a spreadsheet of all of the shows/movies, etc. i have recorded & finalized. My one goal is to burn my wedding VHS (raw tapes) onto dvd (from 1991). I never got the finished video all edited because the guy was going to let me help edit but I was sick & eventually he went out of biz so i have the raw vhs. Plus old concerts on vhs….I am always trying to find the best way to save files/videos/audio for long term. Like I have over 25,000 photos for art references…my bro says i should save them on DVDs but ther would be no way to sort/reference them. thnx for all the info!