Warning! for everyone using DVD-R for long-term backup

[DVD Fan]

Ok, now that I have your attention, I would like to share my experince with you on reliability of DVD backup in the long run. Some ground rules first. I don't want to start a war of words here but all and any consturctive suggestion or sharing of your personal experiences would be welcome as this issue impacts everyone. I have been following this and other forums on similar topics for some time now, and I would like to provide my 2 cents for people who might not have had the experience or the material that has been available to me.

Here is the short version. Up to 20% of my DVD-R backups are corrupt in one way or another! This applies to a digital library of more than five hundred DVDs! Do the math... that's pretty darn bad. So if you have legit copies of your DVD movies, you should be still Ok as I will explain but anything else or most importantly those personal DVDs creations of your family and precious moments where you are not backing up but what you got is your master copy.. well you need to watch out very carefully.

In the past few years, I have been backing up movies using various tools and burners. This way, you could say that my collection is a good mixture of everything. I have backed up using ifoedit from the time when there was no "one click" shrink and copy to the latest one click software (e.g. DVD Shrink, Nero Recode, etc.). In addition, I have personal DVDs that I authored using various programs (e.g. DVDIt Pro, Ulead Movie Factory, TMPNc,...). The burners are Panasonic internal as well as stand alone recorders, Plextor, etc. DVD media are Memorex, Opto disc, Ritek, etc. (I know that some people will invariably whine that it's all the crappy media but wait we are not talking just a handful of late blooming coasters here). All these DVDs were played only one time or none (in case of double backups of my important stuff). They were all kept in cases and were not exposed to sunlight, dust, moisture,... and yes I did have lables for most of them(again I know someone is going to blame the lables here, but wait I have non-labled ones that were screwed as well). I was able to salvage most by spending a LOT of TIME by going through various rippers and data recovery programs. Some I was only able to extract/save partially.

This is how I found out what the heck has been brewing. This is where I think where my experience might be somewhat unique. I was alway suspicious of the claims that DVD-Rs last for years and that they are more reliable than VHS tapes. So recently, I decided to transfer every single DVD to a a mutli-terabyte hard drive system (call me crazy but this is one of my hobbies). In the process, evey single DVD needed to be "read" in its entirety, and that is where the enormtiy of the problem became apparent.

Tip 1: Just because you place your backed up or master DVD in a player and can play its first few minutes or can hop through a few chapters means nothing about the integrity of the whole DVD. Also, some of these were good in their entirety the first time as I had watched the whole thing but now after 2-3 years, they have turned into crap.

Tip 2: Please don't confuse commercial DVDs with your burned copies. Commercial ones are "pressed" not burned and they can withstand a lot of abuse and will last for a very long time.

Tip 3: Please do NOT trust DVD-R for your precious and irreplacable personal memories. You might regert is in a huge way in the future. Either backup multiple copies or backup to different media formats (DVD-RAM, Hard drive,...)

Comment: Some will for sure say that labeling, choice of media, etc. are to blame. I agree for most part but as mentioned the problem was somewhat across the whole spectrum. Also more improtantly, the average Joe does not have the technical know how, time, money, resources, and patience that someone like me or a good number of you guys who troll around these forums. Average consumer cannot and should not be expected to know the latest news on which batch of Ritek is good or bad, or does it really matter if you burn at 8X versus 2X on some burners, did the latest firmware fixed pre-exsiting problems with a burner, or know how to track down the "real" manufacturer of a DVD as opposed to the one the lable says... and list goes on. The average guy is being led to believe that once you have DVD copy, it is going to last forever.

The bottom line is that please do not get into a sense of false security by listening to the hype created with commercials making you believe your precious DVDs will last for decades. Some day probably they will. They do not now.
Alway use very good quality media.

Thanks,[/b]

[BJ_M]

i have neverr seen that many bad dvd-r 's (out of maybe 30-40,000 i have done) and i have a lot of these going back years .....

but i HAVE had problems with dvd-roms and certain burners reading some disks ..... but replacing the readers fixed the problem ..

have had a lot of dvd-roms seem to screw up fairly quickly ... cheapo things it seems ...

[Capmaster]

So recently, I decided to transfer every single DVD to a a mutli-terabyte hard drive system (call me crazy but this is one of my hobbies). In the process, evey single DVD needed to be "read" in its entirety, and that is where the enormtiy of the problem became apparent.

Is the copy to HD your main criteria? If so, I think that may be the problem.

When you write a video DVD, some errors are expected, and tolerated on playback by the standalone DVD player. It's only when the errors become so gross that the picture starts freezing or breaking up. But the player will continue to tolerate the errors and try to keep playing the DVD.

A hard disk allows no errors. It is not error tolerant like a DVD player is. Those DVDs you copied were probably done using a file copy, right?

If you use a ripping program like DVDShrink, you'll probably be able to copy them just fine. Try them on a set-top player before you give up on them

I came across some information a while back that indicated there is good scientific data that the burnable DVDs probably last longer than the commercial, pressed ones. In fact, they could very well last 100 to 200 years Here's the link to my post:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=878017#878017

[archaeo]

Studies on long term storage of digital data on CD's and DVD's is in its infancy. In the National Park Service (where I work), properly archiving historical data is paramount. We now generate a majority of our contemporary data (on archeological and historical sites) in digital form, so this issue is getting a lot of attention from archivists. Many curators just will not use CD's or DVD's to store data for the long term because of the uncertainty with it. You can't store irreplacable data on a medium that does not have a proven track record. Data loss in even the smallest degree is unacceptable. Federal archival requirements are a lot stricter than those for the average home user, but the risk is the same - you could lose some valuable data if you don't take precautions, like backing up regularly and storing CD's and DVD's properly.

[DVD Fan]

I agree with the media being probably the most important factor. But again, the point was that the average consumer, does not know much about different brands. VHS tapes are really good and some are not but all are pretty reliable. This is not the case with the DVD-R.

On the point regarding stand-alone DVD player being more tolerant, again I agree. But, the issue is that the "faults" seem to become more apparent and persistent over time and there could come a time not too far from now where even the stand-alone might not be able to read. At that point, you will have nothing to work with. If you have some very important material would you really trust a system where you are hoping that you can get away with faults?

As for DVD-Rs lasting 100 years. I beg to differ. It all depneds on how they are handled and how they stand to abuse over time. I have small kids and they abuse the heck out of their commercial pressed DVDs and they last until they are scatched and abused to the max. I make backup of the commericial ones knowing that they don't handle DVDs with care. The backed up DVD-Rs go into the trash can after very minor scratches and not so gentle care from the little kids. They do not even compare on reliability. It is not just the dye. It's whole DVD and the process by which it is made.

[lordsmurf]

How many posts does this topic need ???
We're getting these things almost twice a day recently.

Here's a new stickie for everybody:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248839

Go here to discuss this common question/problem/issue.

[Capmaster]

Yes Smurfie, there seem to be many posts about DVD recordable longevity lately

[Timmychuck]

You have a forum name of ( DVD FAN ). Then you post how shitty
dvd are.

[dory]

DVD FAN has some merit in what they wrote and I believe they are very correct in DVD-R becoming unplayable for absolutely no reason over time. I don't agree with those numbers but I don't know how they stored their discs. I recently spent a couple of months ripping so many discs per day myself to test mine from over 2 years ago. All discs were tested after they were burned and tested great with no errors. Out of about 500 discs 3 of them would not rip at certain points. I tried everything and still could not get those discs to rip. Those discs were definitely perfectly fine when I burned them, they didn't have a single scratch on them and looked perfect but yet still wouldn't rip at certain points. So my numbers are probably more like BJ_M's numbers but it does go to show you that DVD-R's and probably +R's can and possibley will become unplayable for no reasons whatsoever.

Another very concerning thing to me was that all my old Verbatim "MCC" yes "MCC" not CMC DVD+R media has had the dye actually change color to a more deep burnt color in some areas. That's about 10 discs I have which I had to re-do. I was still able to rip those, how, I don't know, but I was and I redid them. Those dye issues were not there when I burned the discs 2 years ago and they were not there when I checked my discs a year ago, but they were there recently. The discs looked like they were burnt in some areas and it was very weird looking. I'm sure it was gonna get worse. This only happened with my MCC Verbatim DVD+R discs so it was definitely something to do with them. With all of these facts I'd be very concerned about long lasting storage.

[lordsmurf]

Yes Smurfie, there seem to be many posts about DVD recordable longevity lately

I've made a new sticky from one of the existing topics. And I'm locking this one. We don't need 3-4 of these going on at the same time. Everybody can go there to continue the discussion.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248839

[BJ_M]

of course the question becomes WHAT is a good archive format ... tape (as in DLT) has proven itself with proper storage .. ..

DAT storage and other tape store methods are dicy at best (specially 4mm) , 1/2" seems to fair better.

I would not consider VHS an archive format - D5 , d-beta, beta sp = yes .. at least for mid term (10+ years) , problem is, are the machines going to be around...

a LOT of stuff was archived on laser disk (by the gov. also - as well as lot of librarys and such) .. that has proven to be not always a great choice ..

only thing i know of that has really stood up is microfilm and even high quality film stock (properly stored) ...