CD-R insight?

[Intimidator]

What seems to be a good quality CD-R? I am still trying to figure out why a majority of people that post on this form seem to like Taiyo Yuden, as the manufacture? Afterall they use the cyanine pigment. Cyanine's ability to maintain reflectivity is poor giving it a life span of about 10 years. It also delivers the weakest reflection contrasts and thus can cause read errors when run on old CD-ROM drives. Now I here cyanine formula has been altered which results in a much higher life span (20 to 50 years). The gold reflection layer has also been replaced by a silver reflection layer this make the color of the bottom appear blue.

I have also reviewed some very interesting sites pertaining to CD-R's. I am not sure if you have read these or not, so I thought I would share them with you:

http://www.mscience.com/faq52.html

and

http://www.angelfire.com/music2/MP3TUTO ... a_help.htm

Afterall coming from a scientific background it is really the math, physics and chemistry that makes a CD-R better or worse in qulaity. There are so many uncontrolable variables that come into play that it really becomes mind boggling to think about. How can the quality of a cd-r be consistant if there are over 250 BILLION CD-R's made per month.

I hear people say they have not had any problem with this barond or the other and they could burn 100 in a row without a single coaster. Does that mean the CD-R has good quality? Maybe, but not necessarily it just means it is compatible with your burner. Also what good it a 100 CD-R's with cyanine dye if they will only last several years at the most.

Any thoughts?

[coolestnitish]

I don't know all the physics and chemistry behind it, but I've had great luck with TYs. You do point out some interesting facts but I guess what makes a CD-R the best is the overall manufacturing which means having a balance of quality in every material and processing step.
As far as the life-span is concerned, I know for myself that whatever I burn won't be needed for a life-time. What do we burn mostly? Games, VCDs, Programs, Back-ups etc.
Games are always getting old, VCDs have already transfered to DVD and maybe blu-ray in the future, Programs come out with newer versions every year, back-up's or documents can be made another copy of. So I don't think people burn stuff to keep for a life-time. I forgot music, but we already have those as MP3s which can be burnt on DVD-Audio which would become pretty common too.

[Intimidator]

Coolestnitish:

You also have some valid points, however this does not explain why something can be burned one day and a few weeks later or a few days later this burned CD-R no longer works in any CD-ROM. I have read many cases stating this very fact. Now of course I have no idea what the CD-R has gone through since the original burn so once again there are variables that cannot be controlled.

So your precious data that you have worked months and years on or your priceless digital photos are now history because of bad media.

So maybe a person should burn several CD-R's of the same information so the probability would be decreased that your priceless data would not be lost.

The science behind this technology is really fascinating!

[coolestnitish]

Coolestnitish:
So maybe a person should burn several CD-R's of the same information so the probability would be decreased that your priceless data would not be lost.

Yah I agree, one should burn more than 1 copy of valuable data on CD-Rs as they are so cheap and also keep a copy on the hard drive. That way if the CD or the hard drive fails, you will have another copy.
About those people who say CD-Rs degrade over the years ie. not compatible anymore, we can't be sure. If the people kept the CD where the temperature was close to 45 degrees, or in contact of direct sunlight, then of course they will not work. But other than that, I can't see a reason why a CD won't work after 10 years if we still use a CD-Rom made in the same time as the Cd. Maybe the people are trying to make their newer CD-ROMs read very old cds which may sometimes have compatibility problems.