home video on dvd Warning

"William Skaggs" wrote in message
...
"Gary" wrote in message
...
I have just checked my DVDs with home video on them and some are
unreadable and some are fussy.

I suggest anyone with similar should do the same. before it is too late.

Gary

The best back up for home recorded DVD's is the original tape. The only
problem with that is years down the road, you will have a hard time
finding a working machine to play them on.

I will take one exception to your comments though. The video quality on
DVD's does not get "fuzzy" over time like a tape might do. They can
refuse to play, or skip and freeze, or even get pixilated, but not fuzzy.

-Bill

FUSSY not FUZZY i.e. not happy to play

Gary

"Paul Heslop" wrote in message
...
Vincent wrote:

"Gary" wrote in message
...
I have just checked my DVDs with home video on them and some are
unreadable
and some are fussy.

I suggest anyone with similar should do the same. before it is too
late.

Yep - recordable optical media seems to become unreadable in a few years.
I've noticed this too. I used to backup my Playstation 1 games and use
the
backups. They were expensive branded CDs, and now all of them (10 years
later) are unreadable.

I read a page online about this phenomenon a few years ago, and the
theory
was that over time normal light (from sun, bulbs, etc) would blank the
discs. While the laser (which is just light of a specific wavelength) was
much more powerful, it was only on each bit (or pit) of the disc for an
extremely short time. Over the years, the ambient light adds up to a pass
with the laser. I'm not saying this is true, but it's what I read, and I
do
have some support for this as media I've kept in a metal safe (i.e. dark)
has been fine, despite being recorded on the same burner and the media
being
the same type.

--
Vincent

so on that note would stuff being kept in proper dvd cases not be well
protected?

--
Paul (we break easy)
-------------------------------------------------------
Stop and Look
http://www.geocities.com/dreamst8me/
Mine were in proper DVD cases

Gary

"Paul Heslop" wrote in message
...
Gary wrote:

I have just checked my DVDs with home video on them and some are
unreadable
and some are fussy.

I suggest anyone with similar should do the same. before it is too late.

Gary

Gary, I just had a thunk, you didn't use paper labels on your discs
did you?

--
Paul (we break easy)
-------------------------------------------------------
Stop and Look
http://www.geocities.com/dreamst8me/

No and the disks I am having problems with are 2 different types 1 is a
DVD -r and one is a DVD+rw

The -r disk disk is not even registering as a disk even though you can see
it has tracks burnt. similar the +rw but I have not had time to investigate
this one yet.

Nero disk analyzer can see the tracks but I cannot lift the tracks. any
help would be appreciated.

they were both in proper black DVD cases.

Gary



Gary

"Paul Heslop" wrote in message
...
Gary wrote:

"Paul Heslop" wrote in message

Mine were in proper DVD cases

Gary

so that quashes the idea that direct sunlight is the main cause of
damage

It may be that although they look black to us that some 'light' frequencies
would still see it as transparent?

--

Paul S

On 1 Dec, 17:30, "Vincent" wrote:
"Gary" wrote in message

...

I have just checked my DVDs with home video on them and some are unreadable
and some are fussy.

I suggest anyone with similar should do the same. *before it is too late.

Yep - recordable optical media seems to become unreadable in a few years.
I've noticed this too. I used to backup my Playstation 1 games and use the
backups. They were expensive branded CDs, and now all of them (10 years
later) are unreadable.

I read a page online about this phenomenon a few years ago, and the theory
was that over time normal light (from sun, bulbs, etc) would blank the
discs. While the laser (which is just light of a specific wavelength) was
much more powerful, it was only on each bit (or pit) of the disc for an
extremely short time. Over the years, the ambient light adds up to a pass
with the laser. I'm not saying this is true, but it's what I read, and I do
have some support for this as media I've kept in a metal safe (i.e. dark)
has been fine, despite being recorded on the same burner and the media being
the same type.

I've had the same experience with discs from only 5-10 years ago:
those kept in their jewel cases in a cardboard box are fine. Those
kept in their jewel cases out in the open are less so, and a couple
kept out of their jewel cases out in the open are wrecked. It's not
scratches - one was half under a sheet of paper for 6 months (I'm not
the tidiest person in the world!) it was a different colour where the
light reach it - and Nero CD-DVD speed reported huge bursts of errors
in the part that was exposed to light.

As for home movies on DVD-R: those written by standard-alone DVD
recorders (i.e. the type that record in real time, also from live TV)
aren't always standards-compliant when first written.

Cheers,
David.

"Gary" wrote in message
...
I have just checked my DVDs with home video on them and some are unreadable
and some are fussy.

I suggest anyone with similar should do the same. before it is too late.


A victim writes...

Some time ago when facing a hard drive failure I backed up all my data to
CD, using an HP recorder and top brand discs. Now i find almost all of them
are unreadable, so my documents and photo collection of that period has just
faded away.

It has been mentioned that the form of encoding optical disks has been
changed, and possibly an additional file is needed by modern drives to read
old discs. Hope to find out more about this or perhaps that is what is in
the recovery applications listed in this thread. I'll give them a try, but
i'm not optimistic.

Roger R

"Paul Heslop" wrote in message
...
Paul S wrote:

"Paul Heslop" wrote in message
...
Gary wrote:

"Paul Heslop" wrote in message

Mine were in proper DVD cases

Gary

so that quashes the idea that direct sunlight is the main cause of
damage

It may be that although they look black to us that some 'light'
frequencies
would still see it as transparent?

--

Paul S

could well be, I know some of them are at least opaque. Mine stand in
a shelf which is out of direct sunlight too.

Or sunlight could be one of several ways that discs get damaged...

Whatever the cause though, I think it's fair to say that optical media isn't
very reliable for long term (greater than 5 years) storage.

--
Vincent

On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 10:57:58 -0000
"Vincent" wrote:
Whatever the cause though, I think it's fair to say that optical media isn't
very reliable for long term (greater than 5 years) storage.

For write once or RW discs thats certainly true, but for factory pressed
discs then as long as you treat them well they should last for decades.

B2003

On Dec 2, 11:01*am, wrote:
On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 10:57:58 -0000

"Vincent" wrote:
Whatever the cause though, I think it's fair to say that optical media isn't
very reliable for long term (greater than 5 years) storage.

For write once or RW discs thats certainly true, but for factory pressed
discs then as long as you treat them well they should last for decades.

Hence the statement 'optical media for storage' ?

On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 03:12:48 -0800 (PST)
Mike wrote:
On Dec 2, 11:01=A0am, wrote:
On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 10:57:58 -0000

"Vincent" wrote:
Whatever the cause though, I think it's fair to say that optical media i=
sn't
very reliable for long term (greater than 5 years) storage.

For write once or RW discs thats certainly true, but for factory pressed
discs then as long as you treat them well they should last for decades.

Hence the statement 'optical media for storage' ?

Well I don't know about you but I using the word storing for when I keep
programs/audio/video/whatever on factory pressed discs.

B2003