[Eala]

(Excerpting note: Text is here but they don't seem to be serving the image...)

[secret garden]

Bad news Bump.

[BushCountry]

To be honest this is quite stunning. The amount of valuable information lost is staggering, this will compound the problem. People assumed (as did I) that CD-ROMs were a viable backup alternative to tape.

I seen a show that stated that this would be the only period in history without a written record. I am beginning to wonder? Harddrives crash, cd-roms unreadable, tape backup systems falling in disrepair, massive viruses, the data lost (great works of art) is mind boggling.

[Mr Rogers]

I haven't had any problems...

[cake_crumb]

Oh this is wonderful news, especially for people who store their digital photographs on CD. I'll have to ask Mom about her CDRs. She's had her CDR-W for over two years.

[Joe Bonforte]

Sounds overblown to me. I've been storing stuff with a CD burner for over five years now, and never lost a byte of it. My oldest burned CDs (data or audio) are easily readable.

I don't ever buy no-name CD blanks, which may help.

[TheBattman]

Where are the lawyers on this? If a company claim 10, 20 years, or even a century, and the disc only remains readable for 20 months or less, that would be fraud....

[moehoward]

I remember reading likewise bad news about VHS tapes. They were supposed to start loosing data around the two year mark. This has not been the case. Pre-recorded and recorded are both still working great 10 years later.

[dennisw]

WONDERFUL!

Fortunately hard drives are dirt cheap so keep yours cool (install a fan) and buy an extra HD for duplication (backup) and storage. Fan should be blowing on and cooling the underside of the HD. The electronics. This is the point of failure, not the spinning disks inside

[tgslTakoma]

!

[JesseHousman]

Eala: could you comment briefly on the DVD-R and DVD+Rs?

Thanks

[Kevin Curry]

This doesn't make sense.

All of my 15 year-old music CDs still play without a hitch, so I cannot believe the medium itself is fundamentally flawed. I can believe that individual data bits might be lost (and not affect audio playback performance, due to error-correcting algorithms) and that would clearly be a problem with files that require absoutely full and accurate data bits. But for audio and image recordings especially, the CD medium seems to have proven its adequacy.

Now, the article suggests that perhaps the particular media sold to the consumer CD-R market is inferior. And maybe even some consumer CD-R hardware doesn't burn data consistently well. Still, for the permamant archival market, industrial quality recorders and CD media should get the job done, I would think.

[Consort]

Punched cards are the only way to go.

[Allan]

bump

[the crow]

thx for the post bump

[Smogger]

bump for later

[dixie sass]

Thought y'all might be interested in this.

[strela]

Disturbing and annoying news. I'm about 90 percent of the way through scanning over 10,000 family photographs into my system to end up eventually on data CD. I'm also converting about 6000 feet of Super 8 movie film to video, to end up on DVD eventually.

[rwfromkansas]

Is this a joke?

Has anyone experienced this first hand? I was just about ready to do my first "burn" today or tomorrow of music to clear my hard drive. But my goodness, if this is true, that isn't good.

Also I thought about making a video cd of video files, but if they are just going to go "bye-bye" in two years, what is the point?

I thought CD media was supposed to be better than cassette? All my cassettes have last much longer than 2 years. Heck, they are still going strong after a decade.

Surely this study is not real valid?

[ampat]

Couldn't find the cause anywhere. Is the loss of readability due to wear and tear of use, or just time?

[Prince Charles]

Tip: If you're using a Sharpie marker (or similar) to write on the label side of the disc you're playing with fire. The dyes from the permanent marker can seep through to the dye layer of the disc and corrupt it. Buy markers that use water-based pigment and are specifically made for use with disc media.