WSJ article on fading die, cd,DVD longevity and burn rate

[rotuts]

Hello

the Wall Street Journal on 21 June 04 had an interesting article on dye and CD DVD quality:

"Beware the Fading dye: Wrriteable CDs DVDs vary a lot in Quality"

I cannot give you the web ref as WSJ is a pay only site even if you are a newsprint subscriber.

in summary: interviewd was Fred Byers from the Natiional Institue of Standards.

they test media longevity by using high humidy and temp.

the article noted that some CD's use gold as the dye. they are thought to be better.

also os interest is the note that they say slower recording sppeds add to longevity.

they also note that Byers has info on the web: type in search "Byers CD care guide"

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:7wdQ6ig-4u8J:www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/...re+guide&hl=en

the "regulars" here might want to go here or stop by their local library and see the WSJ article and comment

hope this is interesting. Ill use slower speeds for important stuff from now on.

any ides on the 'gold' CD?
\
rotut

[Ladd]

Without having read the article, I am guessing that what you mean to report is that recordable CDs using the element Gold as the reflective layer might last longer that CDs that use other types of reflective material (usually an aluminum alloy) because gold is non-reactive to most substances.

In other words, gold doesn't oxidize or "rot".

I'm pretty sure gold is not a dye -- at least in the context of when used on recordable CDs.