dvds degrading, Whats the best reader?

[nightanole]

Ok its not funny anymore. I have about 3 200 disc cd wallets of dvdrs of misc crap. About a month ago i noticed that my dvd movies werent playing at the end of some newly burnt movies. These were prodisc 8+ +r's burnt at 8x on a liteon. So i started doing random spot checks. All the prodiscs are bad and unreadable alittle past the 50% mark. Ive gone through 50 or so test so far. Pi errors in the 800's and pif errors in the 200's across the board. Now im trying to rebuild some stuff and it looks like almost all the discs ive burnt over the past 2 years are bad. Talking at least 3 diff burners and media from memorex/ritek/prodisc/ricoh.

I dont get it. I know for a fact that after alot of these discs were burnt the error rates were very low ( under 50pi and under 4pif). Now the same disc like 6 months later is bad. These discs where just in cd wallets, in a 70 degree room with no outside like.

Is there any hope? Im testing with a liteon 163sreader and a nec 3500 writer but so far non of the 4+ gig burns are workable.

The both rip real dvds fine.

[RJW]

This confirms some results I have seen from someone who is experimentating with ageing and stability tests. (also it fits older data done by some european magazines !)

70 degrees Fahrenheit I pressume. In case of Kelvin (to low) or Celsius (to high) then it's probally the temperature that killed them.

Best readers for bad burned DVD recordables are the Pioneer dvd-burners. However in your case there's a good change the Pioneer's can not read it.
2 Things could be screwed up. THe dye itself has gone bad.
The silver layer has reacted.
In the last case your as good as doomed.
It's not something like that pits size has been screwed up for which pioneer is very tollerant. Now it's probally the pits and lands that are completely ruined.

Also notice that it has been reported befor that cheap cd wallets most times have the problems of leaching of corrosive chemicals. Still this last one is also possible with jewel cases. So to recommend jewelcases over cd wallets is a questionable thing. Now befor mass hysteria will arrise. Notice that the influence of these chemicals are only possible if the media is poor manufactured.

One thing I like to know Is there a colour change on the burning side of the media ?

[kingofheck]

Yikes!

Now I'm starting to get worried...

RJW, do you have any links to the references
you mentioned that we could read?

Is there any way to prevent lesser-quality discs
from degrading so quickly?

Thanks

[elec999]

You are scaring me. Would even TY dvdrs get bad. Is it bad if you store your dvds and cds in cd binders.
Thanks

[nightanole]

Well the discsa look fine. It doesnt appear that the folders effected them. Since they are dvds the silver side is sandwitched inbetween both layers. I thought they might be warped or something ( though its never happened before with my cd collection) so i left a few out on the table and some in the drives over night. Still no affect.


I dont get it. These are high end discs, the ricoh's have labels on them, the riteks g04's have labels on them or are printables. The prodiscs are printables ( just a few lines telling what they are, no big pictures). When i got a new batch of mits chemical ones i did several full burns to test them. They all had pi errors below 20 and pif errors at 2 or lower 2-3 months ago. Now they are unreadable. Hell look at these 2 scans taken only a month appart.

Heres a scan when i first got the mits discs



Heres the same discs this month. They are getting worse.


Heres the same discs now that they have degraded. the scan dies at 30%.



And to scare some of you. Ritek g04 that was burned back in feb 04.

[RJW]

The data of the labeled media might still be retrieved.
However it has some prices.
Did you test befor labeling of after.
If it's the label that screwed up (which labels do. That's why you never should use fancy labels.) you might be able to remove it very carefully with soap and water.
However the price your paying is that your disc is exposed to very high humidity.
So after removal of the labels and your are able to read the disc again then you should back up them directly to other recordables.

About sources.
At this time the only thing I can do is put up some links to some MCC propaganda . A link which points to the influence of plastifiers in jewelcases on media. And a old DVD test (4x media GERMAN CHIP) which tests UV stability.

However not the early results I was reffereing to however I am trying to see what's possible for the future.

[nightanole]

Ive gotten some head way. I upgraded my aspi to 4.6 ( ant sure if it did anything). I still cant read or play any of the files past the 50% mark on the bad discs. But i can make copies of the discs using nero dvd copy. Its worked on 3 of the worst discs sofar.

[franco50]

Still being a relative newcomer to DVD recording a lot of the information in these posts was well over my head but it does make interesting reading. Just recently I have suffered from a few self recorded DVDs stuttering and freezing in my TV's DVD player. I have narrowed it down to disks that were burned quite recently (older recordings and commercially bought DVDs seem to be OK) and the only theory I can come up with is in connection with the type of DVD case I've been using for storing the disks. I use your average run of the mill black DVD case but the last batch I bought have very inefficient retaining buttons (not sure if this gizmo has a proper name but the tab thingy which holds the disk in place inside the case - you know what I mean ) To remove a disk from its case means a lot of prising up on the edge of the disk as the 'button' does not release as it should. Is it possible that this constant prising has slightly warped the disk and damaged the recorded layer??

One other question - why is not advisable to use full sized adhesive labels on DVDs ?? I was considering buying an Epson R200 printer to enable me to use printable disks anyway - is that a safer option?

[MediumRare]

One other question - why is not advisable to use full sized adhesive labels on DVDs ?? I was considering buying an Epson R200 printer to enable me to use printable disks anyway - is that a safer option?

The German computer magazine c't did a test on labels some months ago (see this summary). They found that the tension from the label warps the disc and tends to make it unreadable.

I bought a Canon i865 to print on my discs. The newer Canon Pixma iP3000 and iP4000 can do this as well (at least the European edition)
G

[RJW]

Also some users on different forums proofed that putting labels on disc's is problematic. For the folks who don't believe c't these guys did some K-probe testing to proof it. With in the end same conclusion. !!

[franco50]

The German computer magazine c't did a test on labels some months ago (see http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=108702]this summary[/url]). They found that the tension from the label warps the disc and tends to make it unreadable.

I bought a Canon i865 to print on my discs. The newer Canon Pixma iP3000 and iP4000 can do this as well (at least the European edition)
G

Thanks for the info, unfortunately the c't page is in German only and their English archive pages don't list that report. I did some searching around via Google and found that labels can also cause the disk to spin in an unbalanced manner causing reading problems. I will now definately stop using labels and make the effort to get a printer which will take printable disks.

[RJW]

Well I never abused the Canon I865 for printable cd's that's because I still got to much branded good media I think and as long as branded TY media is much cheaper and easier for me to get as good printable media I think I will not use the feature of printing cd-r's much. Still it's a nice option.