Degradation

[Mdanner423]

Hey

I have a few questions that no matter how long i search online i have been unable to find the answer to.

What causes VHS to degrade over time?

What causes DVD to stop working over time?

Why is cheap media such as ritek or princo bad, do they not have to conform to standards like the others. They wont last 50-100 years from now?

[ZippyP.]

What causes VHS to degrade over time?

What causes DVD to stop working over time?

Why is cheap media such as ritek or princo bad, do they not have to conform to standards like the others. They wont last 50-100 years from now?

I'm no expert but here goes:
Tape is magnetic media and has little tiny iron-oxide particles that get arranged when passing over recording heads. It is susceptible to heat, electro-magnetic waves and of course the friction (wear and tear) of being played many times. Even time causes it to slowly demagnetize. It's just not very durable.
DVD is optical media (like CD) which has a layer of dye that gets written and read by a laser. No touch = no friction. It's pretty durable but it doesn't like dirt or scratches which can interfere with the beam. Exposure to intense light sources or even sunlight over time will degrade both the dye and the plastic.
I don't think that there can be any test to simulate aging, only time will tell. I use the "cheap" media and have no problems. Do you think that DVD will still be around in 50 or 100 years? It might be, but I probably won't.

[LanEvo7]

DVD+ and CD-R media is made using an organic dye. So it will "decomposes" naturally. However, if the quality of the dye is good then it will last over 100 years. If the quality of the dye is bad, it can decompose within months. Stamped cds do not use a dye, so they will last forever provided you take good care of them.

Cheap media = cheap dye
Expensive media = expensive dye

[Mdanner423]

Thanks for the responses.

Alright, so, I am putting home movies on to DVDs, because vhs tapes dont last long. But cheap dvds last an even shorter ammount of time? Do they not have to go by standards?

What does 'Grade A' mean.

Has anyone had a dvd-r to decompose on them yet???

[LanEvo7]

There are no standards which manufactures HAVE to go by. Manufactures do tend to like customers to continue buying their items, so there is usually some standard they won't go below, but each is different. I haven't had enough experience with dvd-r media to tell which is bad and which is good( I got my dvd-r less than a month ago). You should read the reviews by users on this site, DVDMedia. However, I've had enough experience with CD-R media to tell you which are bad, cince some of them are moving onto manufacturing DVD-Rs, you can try to avoid them. Currently it seems the most popular cheap media is made by PRINCO, RITEK and CMC media. I've never tried Princo anything, but there are reports of their DVD-R being having errors after about a year. I've tried Ritek CD-Rs and they seem to be fine and currently their dvd-rs seem to have the best price/quality ratio. I've never tried CMC DVD-R nor will I ever. I've tried their CD-Rs and they were the worst pile of crap I have ever bought. I've tried so many different CD-R brand ranging from the el-cheapo no labels to high quality Sony. I never had read errors from any of them if it was burned successfully. Exception is CMC, they became unreadable within months. They would skip when I played them and near the end of the disc it would freeze.