Just a word of warning.
I note that these discs are still for sale on such sites as Amazon.
I bought a pancake of 10 of these a couple of years ago, recently I wanted to pull an archived file off one of them, and now find that none of the discs I made are recognised by any of three PC's nor will the authored discs play in my Sony player - they were all fine, so 12 months in a dark dry cool space has rendered them useless - BEWARE.
God help anyone using these to archive EX or AVCHD files.
Paul :-(
Thanks for the heads-up.
Time to go and check my EX1 archive...
AT 25Gb / UK pound from a 2Tb hard drive it is a much more cost effective storage medium
But printable BDs will be delivered to your door for 80p each. That's 25Gb / 80p, even better value (assuming they don't suffer the Traxdata ot Zerodefex failings).
I was wondering if/when we should start to see any reports of faulty 'burnt' Blu-ray discs?
Most burnt DVDs were supposed to last for ever (OK, nearly ever) and many people (including me) have had mulitple failures - after less than two years in some cases.
Pressed DVDs seem to fare rather better (so far).
Looks as if Blu-ray may be following the same pattern?
Not sure they are going to be a good ideas for serious long term data storage.
I certainly made the decison not to 'do' disc again, when I started with HD video. But then, as a hobbiest, I might not have the same requirements as 'pros' do?
On the rare occasions where I have made short videos for others, I have not once been aksed for a Blu-ray. It's always a 'DVD please'.
Will Blu-ray ever be 'mainstream' in the same way as DVD ?......
Hi Paul,
a previous thread http://forums.dvdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=53337 also highlighted issues with blu-ray discs including traxdata.
I'm presenting an evening at my local camcorder club next week dealing with the technicalities of blu-ray and HD and the options for archiving are quite depressing - sadly HDV tapes, which I think are a viable option for long(ish) term storage, have been pushed aside by hard-drive and memory card.
Previous threads have suggested saving data using a suite of options including hard drives and memory cards to spread the risk of permanently losing precious data. A newish option would be online storage - I wouldn't put the mortgage on any of these though,
John
John D johnross93.freeserve.co.uk
Yep, I read similar reports after using a box of 10 last year. Only tried them, because I couldn't get Verbatims with a full face printable surface. (are they available anywhere even now??) I've just pulled one from exactly a year ago....and it played fine. Phew!! Feels a bit like sitting on eggs though. :rolleyes:
I have recently used a pack of Ten Aone blu-ray discs. Every one burnt OK. I've just bought another pack of ten and the burner recognised them but wouldn't burn to any of them. Could be that troublesome DVD architect to blame I suppose.
I've moved on to these now: http://www.totalblankmedia.com/panasonic-bdr-25gb-bluray-printable-10-spindle-p-2079.html Excellent value.
Those are the Panasonic discs I use too, and I rather like the discrete Panasonic logo that's printed on them.
It has for some time, occurred to me that -RW DVDs (and -RE BDs) could be more robust it terms of data retention. The writing process for DVD-R and BD-R discs is a photochemical one using high intensity light. This has two potential failure modes when used for long-term data storage:
1) the unwritten virtual 'pits' will eventually change state when exposed to normal daylight over a long period, hence the good practice of keeping the discs in shaded or dark storage between reading.
2) the photochemical dye may become unstable over a long period resulting in corruption in the bit pattern ans loss of readable data.
Re-writable discs however rely on a proces involving locally raising the temperature to change the phase state of the disc surface from amorphous to crystalline to change the reflectivity. The erasure process reverses the state back to amorphous once again, by raising the temperature. I feel that it is less likey that a disc will accidentally be subjected to temperatures high enough to change any part of the data layer's state than a -R disc's chances of cumulative exposure to higher than recommended daylight levels.
Steve
I used to be of the same opinion Steve, but then saw a very thorough article which proved me wrong. It seems to be looooong gone now. Though found this: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/opticalmedialongevity.html#Anchor-What-35882
Thanks for that Arthur. I've not been able to find any articles that discuss the relative merits of disc types for archiving.
The only comments re '-RW discs is a fairly dismissive reference to the metallisation being unstable. I'm not challenging that but I think the relative longevity may be different when the rigours of practical long-term use and storage are considered.
Steve