does CD/DVD degrade with number of playback?

[kenny1999]

it is said that the laser inside DVD players wear a groove on the surface of the DVD discs, so as you play the disc more, as you play it more, the quality of it degrades more, even it is not noticeable to naked eyes, is that true? Of course assume the disc is always kept well and out of dust and any other harmful environmental conditions

[foxyshadis]

It would take millions, possibly billions of plays for that to happen, because the lasers just don't have that much energy. By that time, dust would have caked every surface and rotational stresses would have long since cracked the disc.

[Ghitulescu]

Who told you, Kenny, this nonsense?

While it's true that the laser heats the metallic grooves, it's warmth is simply not sufficient to perform any changes. There are players (in particular caraudios) that output the CD warm, but this comes from their heatsinks (and car heat itself). Not even this heat will damage the disc. Aluminium melts down at 660°C, that will be so hot that you'll have no fingers to keep it (that's more or less the temperature of the branding iron for cattle or slaves, if you have some around and need to know). For gold add 400°C more.

Therefore, relax, your discs will fail much earlier from different causes, like scratches.

[kenny1999]

It would take millions, possibly billions of plays for that to happen, because the lasers just don't have that much energy. By that time, dust would have caked every surface and rotational stresses would have long since cracked the disc.


hi so how can I clean the dust or dirt already inside the DVD ROM?

[kenny1999]

Who told you, Kenny, this nonsense?

While it's true that the laser heats the metallic grooves, it's warmth is simply not sufficient to perform any changes. There are players (in particular caraudios) that output the CD warm, but this comes from their heatsinks (and car heat itself). Not even this heat will damage the disc. Aluminium melts down at 660°C, that will be so hot that you'll have no fingers to keep it (that's more or less the temperature of the branding iron for cattle or slaves, if you have some around and need to know). For gold add 400°C more.

Therefore, relax, your discs will fail much earlier from different causes, like scratches.

It was said by a professor in university, I guess most Professors like to speak in a very theoretical but impractical manner or I have missed some of his other words.

[Ghitulescu]

... I guess most Professors like to speak in a very theoretical but impractical manner ...

I reckon this too :)

For the sake of completeness, even the recorded ones are relatively insensible to the reading laser.

[kenny1999]

I reckon this too :)

For the sake of completeness, even the recorded ones are relatively insensible to the reading laser.

recorded one? what did you mean? I don't understand. (I Don't speak English very well)

[Asmodian]

Burned discs (e.g. DVD+R) are much more affected by the reading laser. The signal on a DVR+R is from an organic dye not aluminium. Even sitting in a dark box this dye degrades, reading the disc does not increase this rate of decay very much but it does increase it. Do not use burned optical discs for archival storage.

I imagine the reading laser will damage the poly carbonate before it damages the aluminium data layer of a pressed disc.

[foxyshadis]

Burned discs (e.g. DVD+R) are much more affected by the reading laser. The signal on a DVR+R is from an organic dye not aluminium. Even sitting in a dark box this dye degrades, reading the disc does not increase this rate of decay very much but it does increase it. Do not use burned optical discs for archival storage.

I imagine the reading laser will damage the poly carbonate before it damages the aluminium data layer of a pressed disc.

The laser doesn't affect it at all (a tenth of a degree or less of heating), but UV will easily destroy them. Ambient heat isn't a sure killer, nor is time; I've read CDs that were stored in a garage for a decade that routinely hit 130F in summer, but most of them had unreadable spots. Only the initial writing laser will be hot enough to ruin the disc.

[kenny1999]

hi guys

I find that when I simply 'play' the DVD, the DVD writer doesn't make a lot of noise, but when I try to burn or copy the disc, the DVD writer gives loud noise during the process. Does burning or copying harm the DVD disc so much for each time?

[StainlessS]

From what I read 'somewhere', burned CD-R recordable have a lifetime of about 10 years if kept in dark cool condition,
whereas CD-RW re-writable have a life expectancy of 100 years under same conditions (probably WikiPedia).

EDIT:
Something from WikiPedia
Lifespan

Real-life (not accelerated aging) tests have revealed that some CD-Rs degrade quickly even if stored normally.[5][6] The quality of a CD-R disc has a large and direct influence on longevity—low quality discs should not be expected to last very long. According to research conducted by J. Perdereau, CD-Rs are expected to have an average life expectancy of 10 years.[7] Branding isn't a reliable guide to quality, because many brands (major as well as no name) do not manufacture their own discs. Instead they are sourced from different manufacturers of varying quality. For best results, the actual manufacturer and material components of each batch of discs should be verified.
An example of a CD-R burned in 2000 showing dye degradation in 2008. Part of the data on it has been lost.

Burned CD-Rs suffer from material degradation, just like most writable media. CD-R media have an internal layer of dye used to store data. In a CD-RW disc, the recording layer is made of an alloy of silver and other metals—indium, antimony, and tellurium.[8] In CD-R media, the dye itself can degrade, causing data to become unreadable.

As well as degradation of the dye, failure of a CD-R can be due to the reflective surface. While silver is less expensive and more widely used, it is more prone to oxidation resulting in a non-reflecting surface. Gold on the other hand, although more expensive and no longer widely used, is an inert material, so gold-based CD-Rs do not suffer from this problem. Manufacturers have estimated that the longevity of gold-based CD-Rs to be as high as 100 years.[9]


However if you look around, you get all kinds of conflicting estimates on lifespan.

[hello_hello]

From what I read 'somewhere', burned CD-R recordable have a lifetime of about 10 years if kept in dark cool condition

Nobody got old CD-Rs they can check?

I could find some easily enough, but I'd probably have some more if I went hunting for them. The problem is, the ones I found have been living on a large spindle with the oldest discs on the bottom, and as a rule they're a bit scratched, and I have no way of knowing what the burn quality was like in the first place. However......

The discs I checked were all burned between 2004 and 2006 according to Nero.
I checked the quality with Nero and double checked Nero by copying the contents of a few discs. If Nero reported 100% quality they copied fine. If it didn't they copied very slowly or failed to copy.

Circumstantial evidence seems to suggest so far failure is probably related to the quality of the disc and the quality of the burn, and not age specifically (given they're all about the same age and the low quality discs could have been low quality ten years ago for all I know). And I do have a burner that's never been all that good with Verbatim CDs.

Many of the discs were TDK with CMC dye. The ones I tested all looked pretty good (100% quality according to Nero).
Two LG discs with CMC dye were low quality (passed but very slow to read).
A Kodak disc passed 100%.
Two Verbatim with a "Prodisc" ID. One looked pretty good and the other failed.
Two Philips discs (Ritek). One Passed, one failed.
Two "Prime" discs (probably some cheap supermarket brand) with a "Plasmon" ID both failed.

If I was motivated I'd mark them and test again in five years time. If I was clever I'd have marked them as I was testing this time. Maybe I'll re-test properly later and it least mark the good ones with a date so I'll know they've changed if I test again down the road.

[hello_hello]

hi guys

I find that when I simply 'play' the DVD, the DVD writer doesn't make a lot of noise, but when I try to burn or copy the disc, the DVD writer gives loud noise during the process. Does burning or copying harm the DVD disc so much for each time?

The amount of noise is generally related directly to the speed the disc is spinning. You may have software controlling the speed of the disc on playback to keep the noise down.

Low noise when reading a disc (ie copying it to your hard drive) might mean the drive has slowed down as it's having trouble reading it. Likewise lots of noise when a drive is burning is probably a better sign than little noise, which might indicate the burn quality dropped and the drive slowed the burn down in an attempt to maintain the quality.

[Ghitulescu]

From what I read 'somewhere', burned CD-R recordable have a lifetime of about 10 years if kept in dark cool condition,
whereas CD-RW re-writable have a life expectancy of 100 years under same conditions (probably WikiPedia).
It depends.
10 years might be the case for today's written discs. These are cheaply made and the burners are also cheaply made and not tuned. Also the user does not treat them with care.
My first CDRs are now 20 years old, and they happily work also today. These are kept as the other, pressed, CDs in the same place. Most of them I have anyway ripped and FLACed (the best of them as ISO), and have them for making car CDRs, which will fail due to scratches faster than the dye will decay.

The same is for DVDRs, and today for BDRs (the early ones were much better made than the current ones). And the same goes for the hardware, too. Although no current DVDR is made for 1x, but for 4x and above, my old industrial Matsushita, which can only 1x burns them very well, not the amount of errors a premium DVDR would have in a premium burner, but not far away, and definitely classes better than what a "modern" burner can do.

[StainlessS]

Come to think of it, I think the figures I quoted may have come from "Upgrading & Repairing PC's" by Scott somebody (I think),
great big tombstone of a book (probably holding a door open somewhere).
Also probably without multiple reads/writes or splodges of jam, archival only in cool dark place.
I still miss my old Lite-On which died about 7 years ago, dead but not forgotten :(

[SeeMoreDigital]

My first CDRs are now 20 years old, and they happily work also today. Hmmm...

I bought my companies first CD burner in late 1996. By the time it was installed within our Windows files server (complete with SCSI card), it cost nearly a £1000.00!!!

It was only used to back-up/store data. Indeed I don't remember there being any software at the time that offered anything else... But we had to have it ;)

[foxyshadis]

Hmmm...

I bought my companies first CD burner in late 1996. By the time it was installed within our Windows files server (complete with SCSI card), it cost nearly a £1000.00!!!

It was only used to back-up/store data. Indeed I don't remember there being any software at the time that offered anything else... But we had to have it ;)

When the other primary option was a Zip drive, complete with click of death, it's no surprise that a company would invest in a much higher capacity CD burner for data transfer and storage. Man, I haven't seen a Zip disk since high school....

[SeeMoreDigital]

Man, I haven't seen a Zip disk since high school....I think I might have the 100MB and 250MB 'external' versions in a box somewhere. Along with a tape drive :eek:

[Ghitulescu]

I have the ZIP 250 system (the one without the click-of-death) because my DAW requires a SCSI removable medium and ZIP happened to be there. I also have the USB version (for Windows), so exchanging data among systems is ensured.

[kuchikirukia]

It depends.
10 years might be the case for today's written discs. These are cheaply made and the burners are also cheaply made and not tuned. Also the user does not treat them with care.
My first CDRs are now 20 years old, and they happily work also today.

Yup, mine are 15 and they work.