How old is your oldest burn? Did it degrade any?

[DVDEmperor]

I am worried about this degration issue with dvd-r discs.

Some say only Princos mess up over time, and others say nothing degrades and it's just a stupid rumor.

I am just wondering, does anyone have an old DVD-R burn that is a few years old that still works fine?

I use Ritek discs, G03s... and haven't had any problems yet. My oldest discs are 8 months old.

Thanks

[Bob W]

I think the oldest backup disk I have is about six or seven months. The first twenty discs I burned were 1x princo and they still play OK in my players at home. I started out using the thin plastic CD cases to store my backups but that started to get out of control so now I just use CD binders which works out well for me.

[Faustus]

My oldest is about a year and half old. its on an Apple disc and plays fine. OTher then apple disc my next oldest is on Ritek G01 and also played fine last I checked a few months ago.

[DVDEmperor]

I just don't want my Ritek burns to degrade in a year or two and all this go to waste. I have spent a lot of money backing up my DVD library and now I may have to throw all of that out the window due to degration issues!


I use G03s from Ritek... they seem to be ok.

[Faustus]

You should be fine so far as I've found. Riteks are good stuff.

[Rookie64]

From what I've been reading elsewhere, there's some debate about the new dyes RITEK started using, and many have had big problems with RITEK G03s from Meritline in recent weeks.

Also, why RITEK is now using Ridata logos on their discs
http://www.ridata.com.au/products/dvd-r.html


I'd hate to see a good product turn bad

[birdygal]

I have been burning for 1 1/2 yrs The only problems I have had with riteks are because I use to label them. They still read well enough to reburn them without labels . My DVD player just didn't like them with labels

[lordsmurf]

September 2001. Works just fine.

I've had very few disc "die" since I began burning. The 4-5 that did that were probably bad all along, I just didn't notice. I admittedly didn't test much back then like I do now. Luckily, almost all the old discs are fine.

And if you're worried about the drive dying, my old trusty Pioner 103 is still kicking and burning strong. Had it since August 2001.

All my 2001 discs are Apple (MCC), Pioneer (PVC), and Ritek G1.

[DVDEmperor]

In other words, I don't have anything to worry about.

I talked with a guy on IRC who said his 3 year old Ritek G02 burns are still working fine but he has 2 year old Princo burns that have failed.

He also said Memorex is known to degrade as well.

[psx_pirate]

I originally used princos but after 5 or 6 months i had problems reading them in both my standalone and my dvd rom drive, a friend of mine noticed similar problems, to test the theory i burned a princo disc and then burned the same files on another make of dvd (mirror) i then put them away in a dvd case and left them for 3 months, after retrieving the disks the mirror worked fine but the princo kept skipping, i then tried ripping both disks to my hdd, the mirror ripped fine but the princo failed despite everything i tried. I no longer use princo disks.

[defense]

Some say only Princos mess up over time, and others say nothing degrades and it's just a stupid rumor.

anybody that makes that comment doesn't have the slightest clue. I've read COUNTLESS PEOPLE on this forum alone who have had degrading media. And some of them weren't Princo...but the disks degraded anyway.

I had a few disks which this happened to. Now those disks were crap Long..Ten disks....and I expected issues with them..so I kept a good eye on them...sure enough...directly post burn..disks played fine....months later....forget about it. Not too long ago..I tested all my disks...almost all of them are the highest of quality...and they play perfectly. I've ripped numerous various disks...mainly from my first burns..and they all rip perfectly.

Unfortunately, noone can say for sure how long disks will last. The technology just hasn't been around long enough.

[lordsmurf]

My Princo 1x (silver and white) from early 2002 are fine.

Only discs I ever had "die" were CMC and LD

[disturbed1]

My first DVD ever burnt was a Pioneer DVD-R disc from May/June, 2001. Still works fine. (media ID PVC)

I have a few TDK (media ID TDK)discs from July-August 2001. And many, many Princo DVD-Rs from August-December 2001. Around 30% or so of the Princo started to fail with in a year. Not the whole disc, just the last few sectors.


Some of the Princo have degraded sooner than others. At this point, I still have 5 Princos from Sept 2001 that are fine. The rest were all transfered to TDK media before the data was lost. 90% of the Princo discs under 4gig were, upto the point of transfer (1-3 months ago), still 100% readable.

Though I did keep the 5 Princo, just to see, I wouldn't trust the media forever. With my Lite-On DVD-ROM I had 0 read back errors, but my Pioneer 116 DVD-ROM would give read errors on many discs. Most of my stand alone DVD players played the media back fine though, with only the rare bad/skipping disc.

Just for comparison, I also have Lead Data media that has now mostly expired in 12 months or less. Not only the end of the disc, but the first few sectors too, with many completely unsavable discs. So it would seem Princo is a little bit higher quality than the Lead Data media.

In Jan. 2002 I switched to Ritek G03, 100% (that I've tested), are still fine. I also have 20 or so BeAll discs from OCT 2002 that are also still fine.

[stk]

Princo sux big time

[DVDEmperor]

disturbed, thanks for your input.

Ritek discs are very nice, I have talked to many who have old ones like yours, 2-3 years too and have no problems with them. I am relieved that only cheap ass media has degration problems, but I've never used them so I don't care.

I am still amazed at how many people still buy princos and the like though.

Ritek's have shot down in price lately, good time for any of you reading this to go ahead and switch to them!

[Gazorgan]

Along similiar lines, I have over 100 dead CDR's. Assorted brands and speeds. These range in age from 18 months to 4 years old. Not so bad for vcd/svcd. Horrible for mp3/avi.

The precedent is there: Cheapo's don't come with a lifetime warranty......

[Metaluna]

I just don't want my Ritek burns to degrade in a year or two and all this go to waste. I have spent a lot of money backing up my DVD library and now I may have to throw all of that out the window due to degration issues!


I use G03s from Ritek... they seem to be ok.

Remember though...in a year or two DVDR's (even good ones) will be so cheap that it will be no big deal if you have to recopy your library (other than the time required). By then people will have a better sense of which dyes are stable. Right now I make two copies of everything on different types of media (usually a Ricoh DVD+R and a Ritek, TDK, or Fuji/Taiyo Yuden DVD-R). In a year or two I plan to re-evaluate the media available and recopy as necessary.

[DVDEmperor]

That's true... especially looking at how much dvd-r has changed in the last year alone.

Up to 8x writing, 4x burners down to $140, and Ritek media at $0.89/disc.

In 2 years I will probably want to reburn everything to whatever is available then because I'm sure like you said, cheap discs will hold data forever without any problems.