CD-R burnout

There are several types of CD-Rs available, and the differences have to do with the type of organic "dye" used on the side which has the data written to it. Indeed, there are many cheap CD-Rs that will only last a couple of years before the dye, which has been burned into a series of "bump" and "no bump" areas, begins to lose it's integrity. The disc becomes difficult for the player mechanism to follow and eventually becomes untrackable. Some say that the degradation can be delayed by storing discs in a horizontal position, that probably helps but does not address the real issue.

However, all CD-Rs are not as subject to that problem. Most people purchase the "low bid" CD-R, which is why there are so many of them around, but there are significant differences in the products from various vendors. To really keep your music / pictures / data etc. intact it would be wise to purchase CD-R product from either Mitsui or Taio Yuden. These companies were the pioneers in organic dye used to make CD-Rs and they have done accelerated life testing on their discs. 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.

My experience with trying to preserve various kinds of digital data over the last 20 years or so is that the problem is almost always the obsolescence of the player, or the interface between the player and the output device, rather than the longevity of the medium. First there were floppies, then tape, then Syquest drives, then CD's, now DVD's and terabyte hard drives, probably some kind of solid-state memory is next, who knows?

We'll have to keep herding the bits from one medium to another as long as long as technology keeps changing, which means forever, and if you screw up and forget to transfer something it will wind up sitting on your shelf, perfectly intact, with no place to go.

I also have cheap recorded disks that still sound the day they were recorded. If really concerned and you have some keepsake material, then use some of the highly touted gold disks, such as the Mitsui MAM 80's only a $ a piece and they are supposed to be around when old farts are gone!

I think with pics and data, some CD-Rs may potentially not work in some computers years from now. It may depend on the speed used when they were recorded, type of software, type of drive, etc... With music though, it should not happen if you use good discs and take care of them. Just my opinion.

CDR discs and CD-RW discs I have in the car are still kicking but starting to have issues with MOST of them. Which is ok, I'll just burn another copy and throw them out.

But---- For my Archieved Vinyl, I fear problems in the future. Good thing I still have my vinyl.

das loon~