Is it live or is it Memorex?

:O|

TY is the best of "ordinary" DVD blanks. They may last 10 years, or more, or less.

Next step up is MAM-A and equivalent gold-plated archival disks, these are likely to last many decades.

Scientists at a top institution were tasked recently with creating a 10,000 year archival disk. After testing their first creation using a 12" titanium disk, they found they couldn't even guarantee 10 years...

It's a mess right now.

That "subliminal" message is a good thing.
If you get your render average and maximum bitrates just right, as well as the field order, you might be able to get "No recompression required" all of the time, which means Vegas is doing a frame-to-frame transfer, exactly like the original.

You might try "Unstoppable Copier 4", it's freeware and may be able to extract the remaining file. http://www.roadkill.net

Vegas will smart render AVI and MPEG files which means it will just do a straight file copy on those parts of the video which have not been modified in any way and exactly match the format of the render. The "No Recompression required" alert isn't necessarily a problem.

In the future, I agree that Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden discs are very, very good and MAM-A discs are likely the best available. Regardless of the brand, I always burn at half their rated speed, normally 8x on 16x discs. I also make two copies of critical DVDs, each on different brands of high-quality media. No digital data is actually safe unless it exists in at least two different places.

Thanks everyone for the responses. At the time all I could find was the Memorex brand. As far as the bit rates, I always (only) use what is called for on the existing templates...I never change the settings.

That 'subliminal' message was almost constantly flashing during the render so maybe all will work out OK.

Thanks again.
Bob

Yep, avoid Memorex. I have good luck with Maxell and Taiyo Yuden.

It is scary to think that many of us are trusting precious home movies to a media that can just stop working. I am sure in a hundred years the historians will wonder why there aren't any visual or audio records of this time period. (because we trusted it to a laquered disk with a dye inside). ;)

Dave T2

Bob,

Just wondering...did the damaged disc have a paper label applied to it?

Way back when, many of us didn't realize the long term negative effects of paper labels.

Simply put, the label "draws up" over time, causing the disc to pull into a slight concave shape. Since DVDs are read from the inside out, files closest to the center are less affected than those on the outer areas. I have several DVD's that will only play for a few minutes, then freeze up.

I mention this hoping it will help you, and as a reminder to "new producers" of the issue.

Good luck!

No, there were no labels. In fact, I don't mark the disks at all with anything. The disk name and software versions used and other pertinent information is displayed on the storage case only.

Bob

If you want to archive video then authoring a DVD is not such a good idea. Obviously make one and a backup stored elsewhere so you can easily watch it. Think of a DVD as a lower qulaity viewing copy, a bit like a release print of a movie, never think of it as a master

What you should be doing is archving your original material or at least your edited original with as little further compression as possible. You can store 20 minutes of DV as an AVI file on a single layer DVD as a data file.

I'll echo what others have said, MAM A or MAM E DVD disks are the best. Accelerated aging tests indicate they should last 100 years with reasonable storage, possibly as long as 300 years. If you look around you can also buy archival library cases. They seem well designed to stop UV light getting to the media and they're a more practical size for labelling and storage.

Bob.

Until they were mentioned earlier in this thread, I had never heard of the MAM A or E DVD disks. Any idea of the costs? Can you buy them in stores or only through the internet? And finally, can you burn them/read them with a normal DVD burner/player.

Bob

PS. Are DVDs burned as a 'data' file less likely to fail than ones burned and formatted as a DVD movie?

Any advice I can give from the otherside of the Pacific Ocean is probably not going to be of much help however as an indication I pay roughly $5 for the MAM media and $1 for the TY Masters.

There's a full list of Gold media from my local supplier here:

http://www.pcx.com.au/products/index.asp?sx=disc,gold,archive

He did inform me that Kodak will be releasing medical grade DVDs to the market shortly. I shudder to think what they'll cost.

Bob.

MAM-A site.
A 50 pack of gold DVDs is $152.00 and it looks like it's on-line shopping only.
Amazon has 10-packs for $20 so definitely shop around for the best price.

Mike

It might be worth trying to get the data off the DVD using IsoBuster.

I think the free version should be sufficient to recover the data if it is possible, although there is also a paid-for version with additional features.

Mark

butchmoore:

I've encountered the paper label disc distortion a couple of times. I heated the disc gently with a hair dryer then peeled the label. I removed the remaining adhesive with GooGone, but others have said WD-40 will also do the trick.

The disc was still not be flat, but I was able to heat and work the disc to near flat, then copy the files off before it went back to its cupped shape.

Bob:

So we can all learn more about DVD storage, can you give us a little more information?

1. Was the disc in the same storage area sitting for the eight years?

2. Did light shine on the disc any?

3. Was the disc relatively cool the whole time? I.E. sun didn't shine on the cabinet or disc certain times of the day and heat it?

4, There was definately no handling damage or scratches?

5. When did you last play it and it worked?

Im just very curious about burned DVD lifespans. Im also having DVDs go bad with no apparent surface scratches. I do know that heat and light are deadly to burned media, especially inside a hot car for instance. But even the lower heat level inside a entertainment center storage area seems to degrade discs over a period of years.

Im currently giving my clients directions on storing their media which says to store in a cool, dark storage area. I hope that works, because the older projects can't be recovered.

FYI, you can examine the discs burned area with a microscope if you have one and visually confirm the gross disc condition. For a totally unreadable disc, I would look at the inner lead-in in area.

I've yet to find a media disc that will last more than a couple of years. Like many here have said, Ty Yuden seem to be the best. Verbatim and Maxell are almost as good. Sony and HP discs are the only ones that seem to burn in my Blu-ray playback compatible laptop drive. Most other brands suck.

A few years ago I tried a bunch of "gold standard" type discs for long term storage. Every single one of them failed quicker than ordinary discs. I haven't tried them since though I've heard that they are better now.

For me, the only long term storage solution is to keep a disc image on a hard drive somewhere.

It really pisses me off that optical media have ratings like "500 years". As far as I can see those numbers are just a figment of some marketing department's imagination. Occasionally I see a burned disc last more than five years, but by then that particular formulation is out of production.

Discs are temporary storage. They are nice for short term delivery but that's it.

"It really pisses me off that optical media have ratings like "500 years"."

Those claims only apply to pressed media. The burnt media is a completely different beast and is more fragile.
Genuine "gold" media is just that, 24 carat gold. One issue with that kind of media is it's quite likely to not play in conventional players, particularly the ones in portable devices. The lower powered lasers in conjunction with the lower reflectivity of pure gold is the issue.

My collection of burnt optical media only goes back 9 years, so far not a single disk that cannot be read. In that time period though I've replaced a lot STB DVD players and a couple of PC drives. The first thing to typically wear out in either of those devices is the laser used to read DVDs and due to the lower reflectivity of burnt DVDs of any kind the first symptom of a failing drive will be the ability to read DVD +/- R discs.

I'm not too certain about the quality of the burners in laptops.

Bob.

QUOTE: FYI, you can examine the discs burned area with a microscope if you have one and visually confirm the gross disc condition. For a totally unreadable disc, I would look at the inner lead-in in area.

I wonder if a lot of the problems with discs over time is the flexing of the disc that happens when removed from a case. Many people don't know the proper way of removing them, so instead of pushing on the hub release in the case, they grab them by the edges and force them out, thus flexing and tearing the fragile inner hub area. I've seen my daughter do this, and even though I've cautioned her about it, she still forgets constantly.

Just a thought.

A 50 pack of gold DVDs is $152.00 and it looks like it's on-line shopping only.

Amazon also has the 50 pack for $95.50

http://www.amazon.com/MAM-Mitsui-Gold-Archive-DVD-R/dp/B000FAJQHS

Bob:

Your collection of burnt media going back 9 years would be mostly CDs. Burned CDs are far more reliable than DVDs as the pit, land and groove density is less than half of a DVD and they are manufactured much differently. Cds are more susceptible to some physical damage than DVDs, but the potential dye integrity is greater on the CD.

From Wiki:
Sales of DVD-Video titles and players began in late 1997. By June 2003, weekly DVD-Video rentals began out-numbering weekly VHS cassette rentals, reflecting the rapid adoption rate of the technology in the U.S. marketplace.

The first DVD burners were available in Japan in 1999 at a cost of $3,000 to $4,000 USD.

So, DVDs are still so new, there is really no telling what the future of burned DVD media is. I would guess it will not be similar to CD longevity.

The bummer will be when someone (or the client) takes out the wedding, kids video or other irreplaceable video in 10 or even 20 years and it's dead. Probably be a market in the future to try to restore them.

To the OP Bob:

You were certainly leading edge back in 2001. I looked up DVD burner prices and they were about $1,000 and the media was 10 to 20 per disc. Your problem is probably partly that you were working with early development products. Hopefully current products are a lot better.

Article (a must read):
http://news.cnet.com/Apple,-Compaq-adding-recordable-DVD-drives/2100-1040_3-250597.html

"Those claims only apply to pressed media. The burnt media is a completely different beast and is more fragile."

500 years... or even 100 years is still GROSSLY overstated even for pressed media. Although pressed media suffers slightly differently in the way they go bad... they still go bad. The glue starts to separate between the layers and shears the media layer while the plies loosen up. I believe the term is called disk rot?

I believe the term is called disk rot?"

Disk rot refers to the oxidation of the aluminium reflective layer once oxygen reaches it. Delamination is an issue but one I've never seen happed. Even trying to render optical media unreadable I don't see it happening much.

Traditional CDs have an issue, the back of the reflective layer is protected only by a layer of lacquer. You can buy somewhat expensive CD media that has a layer of polycarbonate on both sides of the reflective layer, the same as a DVD. They seem a little thicker and heavier than the cheaper CDs.

Using pure gold as the reflective layer avoids the oxidation problem to a certain extent. The composition of the dye layer is equally important as is the quality of the burn.

Anything used for archival storage is not meant to be used regularly. It should be stored and handled appropriately. Fragile artworks have survived for over 2,000 years and vanished very quickly once we started looking at them. There's artworks in this country that have survived untouched for around 50,000 years. Modern efforts to "preserve" them pretty well destoryed them. It's not entirely rocket science to work out how to preserve anything although it can be quite a challenge to implement practically. Most destructive process involve water, oxygen and light. Keep all three away from the article and it will last. There's some notable exceptions caused by incomplete chemical reactions, vinegar syndrome in film stock is a good example, "sticky shed syndrome" in video and tape stock is one I've dealt with on a very regular basis.

If you want to read further about the processes involved with optical media decay I'd suggest you read the Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's article titled "Stability Comparison of Recordable Optical Discs—A Study of Error Rates in Harsh Conditions", it's in Volume 109, September - October 2004. It draws no conclusions though on ultimate life expectancy. I should do some more research as this was part of an ongoing project with the LoC who for obvious reasons have a vested interest in this.

Bob.