Is there a shelf life to burned DVD's?

[markrb]

After reading the thread "what makes good media good and what makes bad media bad" a question arose in my head about DVD shelf life.

If you use quality media and had a near perfect or perfect burn how long should the disc be readable. Does even the quality media deteriorate over time?

Presssed discs are suppose to last nearly forever if not physically damaged. Can the same be said for Ricoh, TY or Ritek burnable media?

I would hate to think that all that effort dies in a year.

Mark

[Kedirekin]

On TechTV recently, I heard them mention that someone did a study on CDR media. It wasn't too technical - no acid baths or corrosive atmospheres - they basically just stored a bunch of burned media in a file cabinet safe from exposure to light.

The disturbing thing about the study was that some of the media was unreadable after only 18 months.

The TechTV guys didn't go into any detail, but the implication was that you can't rely on cheap media to last. The counter implication was that good media hasn't been around long enough to really stand the test of time. Everyone expects good CDR media, if properly cared for, will last at least 25 years, and maybe as long as 100 years. We've got another 10-15 years to go before we can have positive confirmation of those assumptions. On the other hand, we could have negative confirmation any day now.

Of course that's all for CDR media, but I expect that the story for DVD media will be much the same. We just have to wait longer for positive confirmation (because it hasn't been around as long).

[BioZ]

I read an article in a magazine that discussed this.

The expeted lifespan of an A-Grade, Well burnt DVD should be about 60 years given that it is kept in a low dust, dark, cool area in a proper DVD case (thus not CD cases, which are different) and kept upright.

The latter two insures that the disc does not deform.

So, it will probably be long enough for no-one to want to keep stuff on DVD anymore, and mere gigs of stuff will be dirt cheap to move on to new storage formats :)

[Matthew]

Originally posted by BioZ
in a proper DVD case (thus not CD cases, which are different)

You mean they should be kept in the commercial-style cases and not the jewel cases that non-spindle DVDs are typically sold in?