YOUR DVD’S ARE DYING !

[JohnnyCNote]

Does it even matter, we will all be using blu-ray in 5 years anyways

Hopefully sooner, as I said earlier....

[zorankarapancev]

...and then, again, we will be stuck with the same quality of recordable DVD's !!!

[indolikaa]

This is all a waste of oxygen!

Magnetoresistive RAM will be available soon, and that will take care of the DVD media argument.

[JohnnyCNote]

Oh well, can't win 'em all....

[zenzen1]

I now laminate my DVD-Rs. Protects them from scratching and improves longevity.

[alenhard]

I freeze mine. Pack 'em in ice and stick 'em behind the ice cream.

[WuphonsReach]

Those of us who have hundreds of hours worth of material to archive would really prefer not to have to spend every waking hour maintaining our collections because by the time we get to the end of converting our VHS library to DVD before the tapes die, the DVD's are hitting the end of their life and now we have to go back and convert everything to Blu-Ray (or whatever) before the DVD-R's die... and then a year or two later we'll have to start over and convert those to X-Ray, or HoloMem Crystal, or whatever, before those discs die, and then...

Personally, I add recovery data (QuickPar) to the DVD so that when they do start to die I have a window of opportunity during which I can recover the corrupted data. Not 100% perfect, but better then detecting that your DVD has started to fail and not being able to do anything about it (unless you burned multiple copies).

[dcsos]

This is not for DVD VIDEO I ASSUME it seems like a PAR for theVIDEO files would need a lot more space!

(QuickPar)

[WuphonsReach]

QuickPar works differently (creates/uses PAR2 files) then the old PAR tools. Unlike FSRaid where your PAR files had to be as large as the biggest file in your data set (biggest file size = block size), QuickPar lets you specify a custom block size. (I generally use a block size of 4Mb or 8Mb.)

So even if you only have 1% free on the disc (40Mb or so), there's still room to cram in half a dozen or a dozen PAR2 recovery blocks.

I use it for both my DVD data and DVD video discs (and my MP3 CD discs, but not CD audio).

[dcsos]

Sounds like an IDEA ! (QUICKPAR)

[chunkT]

What good gonja is this cracka smoking?

I have alot of cheap media discs that are almost 2 years old and play alot of them frequently. All play fine, I am sure they wont last 100 years but for 2 years now no problem.

[Cyrax9]

What has been said about some TV Shows and sporting events, etc. etc, on DVD-R's is true, they CAN be re--recorded in the case of catastrophic Disc failures, buut I store everything on DVD-RAM now to be safe, and would really like to know what kind of "unit" I can store them in that would prolong their life and not cost a fortune.

The "problem" however are shows that have been "edited" due to "questionable content" -- including anything that may resemble 9/11.

Case in point: "Power Rangers Time Force" was a casualty of this type of editing. In 2001, BEFORE 9/11 all of the episodes aired in their original format on the now defunct FOX KIDS. AFTER the attacks, Disney bought the rights to the show from Saban and had BVS start distributing episodes through the new ABC Family channel. These episodes became known as the Post-9/11 or "Censored" editions, in which NUMEROUS SCENES were cut, altered or otherwise just REMOVED from the show! Even the openig was changed because of one of the Megazords landiing on two UN-NAMED BUILDINGS which happened to be a night scene, go figure.

At the time I didn't have a lot of money, I recorded the episdes onto VHS Tapes, the PRE-9/11 or UNCENSORED versions, they ALL went bad. I can NEVER Re-record the ORIGINAL airings of my FAVORITE "Power Rangers" season because they will most likely nevr be re-broadcast, I would have to find a way to contact Disney and have them SPECIALLY REPRODUCE a set of these videos for me at an outrageous price if I wanted them.

In addition, screen bugs get progressivley worse with every year in the USA, those FOX KIDS airings had the FK Screen bug and an OCCASIONAL crawl at the bottom of the screen, the ABC Family edited episodes have a GIANT Screen but that takes up HALF the screen in addition to the regular ABC FAMILY Watermark. It seemsonly the USA does this overbugging of their videos, but what really peeves me is that I can NEVER get that original footage back, and Disney doesn't seemt o be in any hurry to do the old shows on DVD, sadly this was just as treasured as any family memory, these unedited shows were the last done by Saban Entertainment instead of BVS and marked the end of an era of a TV Company that practically defined 90's pop-culture.

So what are my options? Write to Diisney and offer $100 for 40 episodes burned to DVD-R or some exorbetant sum of money for offical pressings? Seriously, a dead disc is a dead disc, my DMR-HS2 could have saved my tapes, bu they were too far gone, and other shows are edited as are some DVD's, so what would you say to someone like em who got a DVD Recorder in 2002 -- a year later, and had their source tapes ddestroyed and no logner viewable? It's bad enough they had a TV Watermark, now they'rre gone enitrely, and truth be told iif that hapened to another season ro anther show I would be even mroe ticked, yeah I could re-record it, and yes, it'd probably come out well but what if ti was edited, and I had it UNEDITED before my DVD's went bad the way the tapes did for Time Force?

I think if I buy a DVD with a lifetime Warrenty it should alst the average Human life, 80 years now, and in 80 years if we're still using DVD's well, we'll have another problem, this is stuff I want to preserve, and I'm not paying a ton of money to make coasters, I really wish that they'd make a way for you to send a DVD-R for pro-pressing in SMALL QUANTITES as a DVD-Video and pay $10 for the transfer, that way it could be done well without any damage to your orriginal disc and you'd also be able to avid format problems, was VHS done differently by pros? I doubt it, so why DVD? Yeah a press costs a ton of money but why can't you have pressed DVD's on demand the way you can have PPV on demand?

[Hawseman]

Tell us what brand of media you used.

[888888]

I really don't get those of you who seem to care so little if your DVD+-Rs "die". Something along the lines of "DVDRs will be replaced by another medium anyway so who cares". I for one agree 100% with the guy who posted this thread. Anyone who truly thinks of this business of DVD-R as a hobby SHOULD care about if their discs will be playable after three years. So what if there will be blu-ray or whatever else, DVD is a good enough format to use for a long time. For example, if I had a huge collection of VHS movies I made in the early 90s and put a lot of effort into it, I would still watch them. Who cares if they are tapes- they are still whole movies you can watch through. I personally love vynil records because I in my opinion they have a unique and better sound (you may not). Imagine if all records just deteriorated after a while(with good storage). What a shame! Some of you obviously wouldn't care but I dare say those are the same people who really don't have a passion for having a library of DVDR media either. I have spent the last three years accumulating over 200 audio CD-Rs. I use them as backups for my MP3s. If those cds suddenly died, you better believe I would be pissed. It's more than just the content (which is often irreplaceable) but the work I put into it.

You don't have to agree with zorankarapanc. I very much hope he is wrong. But you should not put him down or say he has "too much free time on his hands" or whatever. This SHOULD be a legitimate issue for anyone who cares about this hobby.

[Cyrax9]

Tell us what brand of media you used.

Memorex VHS Tapes, a year later I tried Maxell (A Little better... barely.) and then in late-2002 I started experiment with Set-Top DVD Writers before I had a Mac Laptop.

I have yet to see the "Rot Problem" on ANY of my Disc's and I've checked them all to date, here's what I have:

10 Memorex DVD-RAM's working on #11, over a space of 2 years, all play with no problems and have a removable cartridge, with these you either got a great Disc or one that NEVER worked!

10 OptoDisc DVD-RAM's -- All work perfectly on DMR-HS2 and play (out of removable cartridge) in Toshiba SD-M1712 DVD-ROM Drive.

1 Panasonic DVD-RAM -- No cartridge but it plays fine and is the oldest of the Disc's.

1 BeAll 1X-4X DVD-R (Burned) -- Plays AMAZINGLY picture qyality is superior to OptoDisc 1X DVD-R I was using before.

15 OptoDisc 1X DVD-R's, aside from two coasters during burning these are fine.

8 Maxell 1X-4X DVD-R's, again no problems except a few signal drops from my lousy Digital Cable system, but that's another story, NOTHING would have prevented that except a ne cable line, or a Dish.

16 Memorex 1X DVD-R's, the WORST I have used to date, did an ENTIRE SERIES of these that LOOKED FINE, then a week later they wouldn't play! Nor will they rip, now I do dual back-ups of TV Shows I save JUST IN CASE this happens, although at this time Memorex was producng coasters left and right and probably using CMC for everything.

So the only thing I can see as a problem are Disc's with already unstable dye, for VHS tapes, I had these stored in a cool, dark cabinet and am quite shocked they died while my tapes from 1996 are still able to be restored to VCD-Quality and play fine, while the newer tapes play like crap.

I test my DVD's once a year and have back-ups just in case, I've yet to have a problem except the catastrophic 8 DVD-R's from Memorex and I first noticed that when I took them to a friends house and played them in his Apex Player so it was probably two low qualty products doing the damage here, took them home and they were ready to hold an Ice cold Coke!

I would think that there would be a way you could laquer your disc's, or someone would create a "Disc Sunscreen" to protect them from the light, of course all of mine are in cases but still, the things I must do for a decent disc... It doesn't help that BVS won't do Season sets of the show DESPITE having the Video Distro rights to both the new Village Roadshow series' (Ninja Storm from 2003, Dino Thunder from 2004, and whatever is being done for 2005) and Saban Entertainment/MMPR Productions (1993-2002) because they're taking this "wait and see and test the wallets of the buyers" approach because apparently they don't think DVD's have caught on yet! Disney's BVS Subsidiary is starting to sound like Nintendo with Optical Media when Sony was reaming them in the stores and hey werre wondering why!

At least FOX put the moviies on respectable DVD's since they retained the rights to those, and Germany & the Neatherlands have Fox Sub-liscences for Vidoe Distribution of that show but US fans such as my self have basically be told everything short of "Hook up a cable and burn yourself a disc." which is just sad, I wouldn't have to BUY a stack of DVD-R's the way I do if BVS would start releasing the 500 TV Episodes collecting dust in their vaults!

[gitreel]

I have yet to have a dvd wear out from overplaying. I cannot say the same for vhs