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CD-R burnout

As an old fart about ready for retirement, this little ditty appeared in the latest AARP magazine, dated March 2006:
"Popular CD-R and CD-RW discs used to "burn" digital photographs, videos, and songs for the long haul seem to have a crucial short-coming, says an IBM information storage expert: The discs, unlike pressed compact discs used for professionally produced music and video recordings, typically last only two to five years.

Physicist Kurt Gerecke says heat can degrade the recording surface of burned CD's, which makes the stored data "unreadable" by laser beams. His advice: Store photos and other keepsake data on magnetic tape, which can last 30 years. Or they can be archived on a computer hard drive with a high-quality disk bearing and a disk with 7,200 revolutions per minute"

What think you, Audiogonners', about this news?
sid42
sid42 OP
301 posts
 
Your responses are all great. I personally have not had any problem with my discs; I just thought you guys might get a kick out of the drivel that seems to be floating around out there. As usual, time will tell. As for me, my hearing will probably go before the discs do!!!!!!!
Thanks to all of you.
Alan
ketchup
688 posts
 
The blank discs are not cheap, and most consumer stores do not carry them, but they can be found online and from several pro-audio supply houses.

Taiyo Yuden discs can be found in many stores. As long as the spindle says made in Japan you've found TYs.
mmrog
101 posts
 
Here's a link to a ComputerWorld article on the life span of recordable CDs. I don't think it's quite as bad as they say, but it sure isn't encouraging.

http://tinyurl.com/7zqez

As for a few of the problems metioned above. Keeping CDRs in cars is asking for trouble. The heat, and even the light, are definitely bad for them. If you do this, have a spare locked away in a cool, dark place.

And the noise/static mentioned on older CD-Rs could be due to any writing on the disc. Unless it was done with a water based marker, the ink can eat through the protective coating and cause that effect. There are now inexpensive "Sharpies" available at many office supply stores that are made for made for marking CDRs.

BTW, here's a somewhat geekier article from ComputerWorld on how to keep important data. It recommends an old format called "tape".

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/1552
avideo
222 posts
 
I laugh at articles like the one you quote from above. I've been in the television and media duplication business for nearly 20 years. I've seen a wide variety of video and audio formats come and go. I record all my CD-Rs on a commercial Marantz or Denon CD recorder at 1x / real time speed. I have used various brands of blank CD disks over the years, but mostly have used Maxell and Tayo Yuden commercial CD-Rs, which I buy by the hundreds.
I usually keep copies of CDs I like in my cars, but rarely play original discs in them. Too much bumping around for my tastes. I have both CD-Rs and DVD-Rs that play every bit as good as the day I recorded them. Maybe it's because I use commercial CD and DVD recorders, not cheap computer drives to record my stuff. The simple fact that most people record discs at speeds higher than normal playback speed often leads to digital errors in the recordings, not to mention that most of the cheapie CD-Rs and DVD-Rs that most people buy are pure CRAP - often Q.C. rejects from the commercial manufacturing lines. (Bet you didn't know that did you - but it's TRUE!)
NEVER - EVER buy those "special" no-name discs from places like Fry's or Office Depot. They are all PURE CRAP.
As for tape being a better medium for storage, maybe that IBM guy should come and visit my studios some time. I would love to show him old 3/4", VHS, and Betamax tapes that are not only deteriorating after less than 20 years, but that exhibit traits such as "print thru" of adjacent scenes on video, audio dropouts, particle shedding and lots more I bet he's never seen.
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