This is a question for Tom Hardwick.
Tom, in your excellent article in the February 2010 issue of F & VM you write "Home burnt silver discs worry me slightly as many of my early ones are unplayable now."
Could you please explain further what you mean by this?
Thanks.
Ian Woodward
Silver discs
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billyfromConsett
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Re: Silver discs
I've got disks I burned years ago that don't read now. IMO tapes are better for archiving.
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Ian Woodward
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Re: Silver discs
Thanks, Billy.
But forgive my ignorance - what are "silver disc"?
Are they the commercially available DVDs used for burning video projects (or other DVDs) to DVD?
I use Verbatim DVD+R discs.
Ian
But forgive my ignorance - what are "silver disc"?
Are they the commercially available DVDs used for burning video projects (or other DVDs) to DVD?
I use Verbatim DVD+R discs.
Ian
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Michael Slowe
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Re: Silver discs
Pending Tom's reply I think the topic applies to any 'disc' type of media. As Billy indicates, the life of DVD's has proved to be limited although it is thought that the manufacturers in Japan did address this problem a few years ago and the longevity may now be improved. This doesn't matter if you just use DVD's for exhibition purposes as you can make copies from time to time thus ensuring you always have useable ones. Archiving is altogether a different matter. Don't, for goodness sake, archive a precious project on a DVD, although people do put the media files on to discs. Tape is still the safest archiving media. I always master a project to DVCAM tape on a robust Sony DSR 20 deck. The problem is I'm now shooting and editing in full 1920 X 1080 HD and a DVCAM master means downscaling. The pro production houses now tend to use a tape archive system whose name escapes me right now but the player / recorder costs thousands so not for occasional use. I propose archiving HD projects from now on to stand alone drives and hope that they survive. Since the use will be minimal this may work, although drives do need to be operated from time to time. It's all very flakey I'm afraid!
Re: Silver discs
There are Archive Quality Gold DVD-R discs available here in the USA, lifetime claimed to be 100 years, priced at about $2.50 each. I will try some but cannot expect to carry out the full lifetime evaluation.
ned c
ned c
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Ian Woodward
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Re: Silver discs
Many thanks, Michael and Ned, for your helpful replies.
I am sad to learn of the potentially short life of projects which have been burned to DVD disc.
Two years ago, having been told that my family films on VHS tape would eventually deteriorate to the point where they would be unplayable, I took the prevailing best advice and transferred everything onto 36 DVD discs. Now what?
It is all very well for keen, passionate videographers (KPVs) - professional as well as amateur - to state that valuable material should not be archived on disc. But we forget here that KPVs are not the sole beneficiaries of DVD material - there is the vast general public out there who do not have any knowledge of the technical side of the subject under discussion but who should, nevertheless, be considered in the broader picture.
Take the wedding DVD for instance. Newly-married couples pay huge sums to wedding videographers so that they will have a cherished record of their Big Day, a film that not just they themselves but their children and grandchildren will be able to watch in years to come.
But how many couples are aware that it is unlikely that their wedding video will not be watchable in generations to come and that the DVDs might not even be playable when they celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary?
As valuable as Michael's advice is in terms of archiving precious material, we cannot expect Mr & Mrs Joe Public to go down this road.
Ian
I am sad to learn of the potentially short life of projects which have been burned to DVD disc.
Two years ago, having been told that my family films on VHS tape would eventually deteriorate to the point where they would be unplayable, I took the prevailing best advice and transferred everything onto 36 DVD discs. Now what?
It is all very well for keen, passionate videographers (KPVs) - professional as well as amateur - to state that valuable material should not be archived on disc. But we forget here that KPVs are not the sole beneficiaries of DVD material - there is the vast general public out there who do not have any knowledge of the technical side of the subject under discussion but who should, nevertheless, be considered in the broader picture.
Take the wedding DVD for instance. Newly-married couples pay huge sums to wedding videographers so that they will have a cherished record of their Big Day, a film that not just they themselves but their children and grandchildren will be able to watch in years to come.
But how many couples are aware that it is unlikely that their wedding video will not be watchable in generations to come and that the DVDs might not even be playable when they celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary?
As valuable as Michael's advice is in terms of archiving precious material, we cannot expect Mr & Mrs Joe Public to go down this road.
Ian
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billyfromConsett
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Re: Silver discs
You could save each disk as an image on an external hard drive, then just keep it on the shelf, and also copy the DVD's in 2015 say.
Re the weddings. I have only done a few weddings, but I don't tell the couple that they'll last forever. They could copy them in 5 years or so to make sure they last, but I don't feel pressured to archive the disks on their behalf. I don't charge huge sums either.
Re the weddings. I have only done a few weddings, but I don't tell the couple that they'll last forever. They could copy them in 5 years or so to make sure they last, but I don't feel pressured to archive the disks on their behalf. I don't charge huge sums either.
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Silver discs
Ian ... the sad fact is that almost any electronic medium may be impossible for grandchildren to enjoy. Technology changes. It often improves, though sometimes change is just for commercial purposes.
There are two problems:
1) we do not know how long the current storage media will last ... whether that be tape, DVD or hard drive.
The ultimate life of the best tapes and DVDs is not yet known. Some cheaper ones have already become unplayable ... tape surfaces breaking down and disc dyes spreading. Hard drives are electro-mechanical devices. As such they need occasional use to keep lubricants in place and prevent them seizing up. Any archive hard drives need to be run for a while at intervals and even then components will deteriorate with age.
2) we probably will not have working players for any given medium in a few years time.
How many people do you know with a laser-disc player? How about Betamax videotape players? Come to that many non-film-makers now don't have a working VHS or S-VHS videorecorder.
So there can be no guarantees. As Billy says the only practical approach is to copy the material every few years onto whatever is the then current technology.
By the way before all our wedding videographers explode ... what you pay for in a wedding video is the skill, experience and hard work of the video-maker more than the materials used. None of them skimp on tapes and discs because those are a tiny part of the cost involved.
Oh ... and this problem is not confined to videos ... lots of cine film has disintegrated or faded into oblivion, many old books and periodicals have disintegrated, lots of photos have faded out, even carved stone messages have become broken and worn away after centuries.
Dave
There are two problems:
1) we do not know how long the current storage media will last ... whether that be tape, DVD or hard drive.
The ultimate life of the best tapes and DVDs is not yet known. Some cheaper ones have already become unplayable ... tape surfaces breaking down and disc dyes spreading. Hard drives are electro-mechanical devices. As such they need occasional use to keep lubricants in place and prevent them seizing up. Any archive hard drives need to be run for a while at intervals and even then components will deteriorate with age.
2) we probably will not have working players for any given medium in a few years time.
How many people do you know with a laser-disc player? How about Betamax videotape players? Come to that many non-film-makers now don't have a working VHS or S-VHS videorecorder.
So there can be no guarantees. As Billy says the only practical approach is to copy the material every few years onto whatever is the then current technology.
By the way before all our wedding videographers explode ... what you pay for in a wedding video is the skill, experience and hard work of the video-maker more than the materials used. None of them skimp on tapes and discs because those are a tiny part of the cost involved.
Oh ... and this problem is not confined to videos ... lots of cine film has disintegrated or faded into oblivion, many old books and periodicals have disintegrated, lots of photos have faded out, even carved stone messages have become broken and worn away after centuries.
Dave
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Ian Woodward
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Re: Silver discs
Thank you to Billy and Dave for the further insights into the thorny question of the various archiving methods available and their respective flaws.
Your overview and analysis of the whole subject, Dave, is a little gem and should be shown to anyone, like myself, who is concerned about the relatively short life of silver discs.
I very much appreciate the time you have taken to explain all this and to put everything into perspective.
It all makes perfect sense - but it doesn't cheer me up!
Ian
Your overview and analysis of the whole subject, Dave, is a little gem and should be shown to anyone, like myself, who is concerned about the relatively short life of silver discs.
I very much appreciate the time you have taken to explain all this and to put everything into perspective.
It all makes perfect sense - but it doesn't cheer me up!
Ian
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tom hardwick
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Re: Silver discs
They've all beaten me to it Ian and all answered as I would - that is, don't put your complete trust in any storage medium. The Dead Sea Scrolls did pretty well but have a look in your local churchyard - words 3" high hewn out of solid marble are hard to read after 70 years out in the open.
I'm with Michael - my weddings are stored on DVCAM tapes (like a MiniDV tape, but bigger, and holding many hours). I tell my brides that I'll keep them for a year and that they can buy them from me at any time. 99.9% of them won't be able to play them of course, but in the future any production house worth more than tuppence will be able to make more DVDs, flash memory sticks, upload the film for streaming, whatever it is that comes next. I keep the tapes for ever, btw.
I'm starting to find I'm being asked to transfer MiniDV tapes onto DVD now. Clients have found their camcorder has died and Dixons tell them they're not made any more. Perfectly correct, but suddenly it seems as if their archive of tapes is effectively unplayable.
It pains me that many of my early (2002) DVD-Rs won't play any more but my VHS tapes from the 80s, my Super-8s from the 70s and my open reel tapes from the 60s are fine.
A DVD has to be able to write and read at a colossal bit rate - millions and millions of bits of information per second. A Blu0ray disc has to double those figures. An expensive Taiyo Yuden DVD costs all of 25p, and my PC burner sells for £18. We're asking a lot if we expect the resulting product to stand the test of time. In my view 'archival' discs are simply there to calm our fears, but they don't calm mine. A £1.50 disc to hold 4.3 gb? Don't trust it.
Tape is the best archive in my view. But it needs a working decoding player, and as Dave points out, there's aren't that many Akai open reel video recorders about any more.
tom.
I'm with Michael - my weddings are stored on DVCAM tapes (like a MiniDV tape, but bigger, and holding many hours). I tell my brides that I'll keep them for a year and that they can buy them from me at any time. 99.9% of them won't be able to play them of course, but in the future any production house worth more than tuppence will be able to make more DVDs, flash memory sticks, upload the film for streaming, whatever it is that comes next. I keep the tapes for ever, btw.
I'm starting to find I'm being asked to transfer MiniDV tapes onto DVD now. Clients have found their camcorder has died and Dixons tell them they're not made any more. Perfectly correct, but suddenly it seems as if their archive of tapes is effectively unplayable.
It pains me that many of my early (2002) DVD-Rs won't play any more but my VHS tapes from the 80s, my Super-8s from the 70s and my open reel tapes from the 60s are fine.
A DVD has to be able to write and read at a colossal bit rate - millions and millions of bits of information per second. A Blu0ray disc has to double those figures. An expensive Taiyo Yuden DVD costs all of 25p, and my PC burner sells for £18. We're asking a lot if we expect the resulting product to stand the test of time. In my view 'archival' discs are simply there to calm our fears, but they don't calm mine. A £1.50 disc to hold 4.3 gb? Don't trust it.
Tape is the best archive in my view. But it needs a working decoding player, and as Dave points out, there's aren't that many Akai open reel video recorders about any more.
tom.
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Michael Slowe
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Re: Silver discs
Actually, awful quality though it is, VHS tape has lasted pretty well it's just that the players are disappearing and many home systems now won't include them - there's too much kit to stack! I am currently transferring VHS material that I may need, firstly to Mini DV, then into the computer, use top quality software to encode, format and burn DVD's. As I intimated in an earlier post I finally master from my timeline to DVCAM tape, as Tom explained. There will be professional houses with DVCAM players for the next 20 years or so, how long do we want to go on? Ned is already suggesting that he will be testing his archives in 100 years, of course he will!
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Ian Woodward
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Re: Silver discs
Little did I realise what a can of worms I was opening when I posted my original query a few days ago!
I take your point, Tom, about inscriptions on gravestones being hard to read a century after they were first exposed to the elements. But the Great Sphinx at Giza, though in pretty bad shape, has nevertheless survived more than 4500 years! I suppose similar archive systems can last in different ways and for different timescales.
I still maintain that the non-aficionado videographer - the average man in the street - who has precious family material on his tapes and DVDs is not going to even think about, let alone do, all that technical stuff that the pros and keen amateurs do in order to preserve material. So maybe, for such people, the DVD manufactures should put a "health" warning on the side of the DVD cases saying: "The cherished movies of your family that you may burn onto this disc will probably not be playable in a decade from now." I am being delbertely naive here, to make a point.
One more question on this subject. Does this issue of deterioration only apply to the consumer market who burn, say, their material to DVD or does such potentially limited playability time also apply to the sale of DVD films (the latest Harry Potter, say) and music CDs?
Ian
I take your point, Tom, about inscriptions on gravestones being hard to read a century after they were first exposed to the elements. But the Great Sphinx at Giza, though in pretty bad shape, has nevertheless survived more than 4500 years! I suppose similar archive systems can last in different ways and for different timescales.
I still maintain that the non-aficionado videographer - the average man in the street - who has precious family material on his tapes and DVDs is not going to even think about, let alone do, all that technical stuff that the pros and keen amateurs do in order to preserve material. So maybe, for such people, the DVD manufactures should put a "health" warning on the side of the DVD cases saying: "The cherished movies of your family that you may burn onto this disc will probably not be playable in a decade from now." I am being delbertely naive here, to make a point.
One more question on this subject. Does this issue of deterioration only apply to the consumer market who burn, say, their material to DVD or does such potentially limited playability time also apply to the sale of DVD films (the latest Harry Potter, say) and music CDs?
Ian
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Silver discs
Commercially produced CDs and DVDs are different. The production process is more like old-fashioned 78s, LPs and so on ... a master is cut and a printing plate made from it. That is used to emboss the metallic layer of the discs which are then coated in the protective outer layers of plastic. Those should last very much longer than "our" discs.
Our discs trap dye materials within the plastic outer shell of a disc and the heat from the lasers in our CD and DVD burners burns off the dye to reveal a reflective later beneath.
- Dave
Our discs trap dye materials within the plastic outer shell of a disc and the heat from the lasers in our CD and DVD burners burns off the dye to reveal a reflective later beneath.
- Dave
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Ian Woodward
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Re: Silver discs
Thanks for that useful info, Dave.
A few days ago Ned wrote: "There are Archive Quality Gold DVD-R discs available here in the USA, lifetime claimed to be 100 years, priced at about $2.50 each."
What are your thoughts on them and are they available in the UK?
Ian
A few days ago Ned wrote: "There are Archive Quality Gold DVD-R discs available here in the USA, lifetime claimed to be 100 years, priced at about $2.50 each."
What are your thoughts on them and are they available in the UK?
Ian
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Silver discs
A google for "archival quality" +DVD will present you with some options.
For a study in depth by one enthusiast see http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/ ... ival-media ...
He recommends Taiyo Yuden archival quality discs. Finding them is another problem. See http://club.myce.com/f33/taiyo-yuden-faq-178622/ for details of the other brands which are TY in disguise and equally important the fakes which pretend to be TY and are not.
Hawks Photo Video http://www.hawksphotovideo.co.uk/dvd-r-discs are offering Delkin Archival Gold DVDs - at prices which range from £5.51 for a single disc to around 22p a disc in large packs ... there must, I assume, be a difference in the qualities!!!
Anyone know where to buy TY archival discs? (Their regular "silver" discs are easily found.)
-Dave
For a study in depth by one enthusiast see http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/ ... ival-media ...
He recommends Taiyo Yuden archival quality discs. Finding them is another problem. See http://club.myce.com/f33/taiyo-yuden-faq-178622/ for details of the other brands which are TY in disguise and equally important the fakes which pretend to be TY and are not.
Hawks Photo Video http://www.hawksphotovideo.co.uk/dvd-r-discs are offering Delkin Archival Gold DVDs - at prices which range from £5.51 for a single disc to around 22p a disc in large packs ... there must, I assume, be a difference in the qualities!!!
Anyone know where to buy TY archival discs? (Their regular "silver" discs are easily found.)
-Dave