Cd/dvd Technology

[sibeymai]

Is it just me or is CD/DVD technology one of the biggest scams perpetrated in history ?

First came CDs. The music industry touted them as virtually indestructible. Yet the number of times I've had to replace damaged CDs is contributing nicely to record industry profits and artist's royalties. And at the prices charged I'm not particularly careless with them.

Then came VCDs/DVDs. I regularly find discs won't play on multiple devices: PCs and disc players.

Then there's software: Windows Movie Maker, Nero, in fact, any number regularly fail when trying to burn individual files or whole images. Possible 1 in 10 attempts is successful, if that. If I can copy 4gb of image files from one disk to another why can't I write them to a DVD as individual files or as a disk image ? There's nothing wrong with the files.

So what is wrong here ? Is it just me who has these problems (hard to believe) or is the whole CD/DVD technology, from the media itself to the hardware and software hopelessly inadequate for the task.

Ideas, opinions anyone ?

[phetaroi]

I get so bored with hearing the word scam used in Thailand. Having said that, compared to 45's and 33.3's, CDs are/were virtually indestructible. Just how many have you lostdue to deterioration. As for me, never a single one...well one that I abused by putting it unjacketed in my hot glove compartment over a whole summer.

Well, I guess you need to replace a lot more CDs if you're intent is to make the CD industry clearly profitable. It's a marginal profit-maker these days.

I have never once bought a legal DVD that wouldn't play on my computer or DVD player.

Depending on the brand of CDs that I buy for computer use, I can have either lots of failures or virtually none. I stick to TDK most of the time, and maybe find a bad disk one time in 50.

I'm not saying it's just you, but I just haven't had the problems you experience.

[garyh]

I don't have problems with cd's/dvd's but my teenage kids who are careless with them do.

Cd's are virtually indestructible? where did you get that idea? use one for a skate board and it won't play that is for sure

[PhilHarries]

Cd's are virtually indestructible? where did you get that idea? use one for a skate board and it won't play that is for sure

Well that was the sales pitch when they came out. Of course if you subject them to some real physical abuse they will fail.

But where can you buy CD's these days? Back in August I decided to buy the guesthouse/bar I stay at in Pattaya some new CD's to supplent their limited collection (if I hear "Alice, Alice, who the f*** is Alice" one more time I'll spit the dummy out). Pattaya used to have a large store in Royal Garden Plaza called Tower Records but it's gone, replaced by a food outlet of some kind. Despite trudging the streets I failed to find a music store (I was after genuine discs not dodgy knock offs) but didn't bother too much as I had a return to the UK booked for September. Same thing in the UK, the only places selling CD's were the supermarkets and then only chart CD's none of which even remotely resembled music to my ears (it ain't very democratic but if I'm paying I buy what I like).

Sorry a bit off topic.

I haven't had too much trouble with CD's not playing but the DVD's I have are a bit tempermental

[lothda]

I concur with phetaroi. I own more than 2,500 CDs and almost as many DVDs, all originals, bought all over the world. I don't remember ever having had a CD that didn't play at all fresh out of the box. Very few, less than 10 for sure, had some skipping problem. On the DVD side I only remember three that didn't play at all. Two of those played fine after surface polishing even though one had no visible scratches or detoriation. One was replaced by the dealer and the replacement copy played fine. For recordable media I use TDK for CD-R and TDK or Verbatim for DVD+/-R. The only problem I ever had was with Verbatim media that had been left unrecorded a few years after purchase. Nero works absolutely fine for me. No problems like you describe at all.

[garyh]

Cd's are virtually indestructible? where did you get that idea? use one for a skate board and it won't play that is for sure

Well that was the sales pitch when they came out. Of course if you subject them to some real physical abuse they will fail.

But where can you buy CD's these days? Back in August I decided to buy the guesthouse/bar I stay at in Pattaya some new CD's to supplent their limited collection (if I hear "Alice, Alice, who the f*** is Alice" one more time I'll spit the dummy out). Pattaya used to have a large store in Royal Garden Plaza called Tower Records but it's gone, replaced by a food outlet of some kind. Despite trudging the streets I failed to find a music store (I was after genuine discs not dodgy knock offs) but didn't bother too much as I had a return to the UK booked for September. Same thing in the UK, the only places selling CD's were the supermarkets and then only chart CD's none of which even remotely resembled music to my ears (it ain't very democratic but if I'm paying I buy what I like).

Sorry a bit off topic.

I haven't had too much trouble with CD's not playing but the DVD's I have are a bit tempermental

If someone told me something was virtually indestructible I would expect I could use it as a frisbie, drive over it with my car, let my Rottwieller chew it, burn it, hit it with a hammer, scape paint with it, fire it out of a cannon, put in my CD player and still hear who the @@@@ is Alice as clear as the day I bought it. Cd's are not up to any thing but careful handling. If they where advertised to be able to handle anything like this treatment perhaps the OP could organise a class action against the manufacturer

[dave_boo]

Ummh, it's sounds as possibly you're having an issue with your software install; I haven't ever had an issue burning discs under Linux.

Reason I mention that is it appears you're trying to back up your OWN movies for the kiddos to watch; which is a very valid reason to do it.

[momosan]

Any problems you may have will be either in the media (discs) or burning hardware (burner). You get what you pay for, cheap discs are not going to be great performers. If you want quality then do your research beforehand and purchase accordingly. Also not all burners are created equal some brands are better than others and will burn discs more reliably again research helps here. But burning things yourself and the discs that you buy movies/music on are two complete kettle of fish. The discs you buy with media on them are 'pressed' a different technique resulting in discs that will last longer/be more reliable and are liable to last longer. Bottom line: if you want quality results you have to be willing to know what you need and from which source to obtain those results and to finally be willing to pay for it.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi.

I have lost count of the number of optical drives i have replaced over the last few years, not only my own but for customers and for the office. It appears really as if they had a built-in life timer - drives with one year warranty fail after 13 months, drives with six months warranty fail in the seventh month and drives with two-year warranty fail after 25 months. Coincidence..???

I do have a CD drive right from the stone age, a quad-speed, that one keeps chugging along and still reads every (!) CD i throw at it, even one (no joke) that broke into three parts and is scotch-taped together. I have that drive in an external box with USB for those "hard to read" CD's that i come across occasionally, to make a new copy off those.

As to the media - yes, HUGE differences there. For CD's i still use Princo - i have yet to see the first one fail, even CD's burned five years ago still read just fine. I have CD's of other brands (cheap stuff like "SuperPro" or "Powerwrite" as well as brand-name stuff like, and particularly, "Sony") that became unreadable, some of them actually have the reflective layer peeling off after some years.

With DVD's it's exactly the same - here Princo is a horrible performer, i have a bunch of Princo "DVD-R 4x" that became unreadable after less than a year in storage. Since about two years i use nothing but Verbatim DVD+R and have yet to find one that will not read, also out of maybe 1,000+ that i burned i had less than 10 coasters, if so then usually caused by flaws in the burning software (such as a not-really-compatible version of Nero under Vista) or a burner that's on the way out.

The key to success, as i found out, is NEVER burn at their maximum rated speed! Even if the burner does "22x" and the disc supports "16x", if you burn at 8x you are on the safe side. Granted it takes longer but therefor they last longer! Rule of thumb - half the media's rated maximum speed gets you there. And of course you'll need burning software that supports a change of speeds manually - my boss got coaster after coaster because he used to burn with Windows Media Center which apparently always goes at maximum........ but now no more as i invited him to the world of Linux a couple of weeks ago and he burned the first few without problems.

Best regards......

Thanh

[sibeymai]

All good information, thanks.

I found my most rcent poblem was solved by copying the files from the external USB HDD (Seagate 750mb) to the internal SATA drive after which Nero burned the files successfully. Seems like in this case the problem was a data transfer rate issue. But not always so easy to fix.

I currently use Princo DVDs but have had similar problems with TDK and Sony. I agree that burning at 8x is better than letting the software burn at maximum, but don't know if it has any effect on longevity.

And CDs were promoted as indestructible when they were first introduced. Compared to vinyl I supposed they seemed so.

lothda, how to polish the surface of a disc and how successful is it in recovering a damaged disk ?

[momosan]

I found my most rcent poblem was solved by copying the files from the external USB HDD (Seagate 750mb) to the internal SATA drive after which Nero burned the files successfully. Seems like in this case the problem was a data transfer rate issue. But not always so easy to fix.

If it was a USB 1.1 (12Mbits/s) and not 2.0 (40 MBytes/s) connection then yes it might have been too slow for the burner to pull in the data fast enough. Burning the inside tracks are usually slower than burning the outside tracks, as you're burning outwards it'll start to get faster and faster before reaching maximum speed.

I currently use Princo DVDs but have had similar problems with TDK and Sony. I agree that burning at 8x is better than letting the software burn at maximum, but don't know if it has any effect on longevity.

And CDs were promoted as indestructible when they were first introduced. Compared to vinyl I supposed they seemed so.

The best of the best is Taiyo Yuden media, but unless you know where to get them they're a bit hard to find (sometimes they're re-branded by different companies) they're also more pricey than most brands. Most studies seem to agree that burning at low speed produces better results than otherwise.

lothda, how to polish the surface of a disc and how successful is it in recovering a damaged disk ?

Toothpaste and a bit of clean cloth is what most people would recommend but I personally just use my finger to make sure there's no material that's going to give it bigger scratches in the cloth. Bit of toothpaste and water and move your finger in circular motions over the scratches. Wash and dry. The drives also matter. Internal drives in laptops are not going to be as good as the big drives you find in PCs simply because everything has been miniaturized including the laser heads. Also you're gonna need special software, I use Alcohol 100% if it cannot read a sector it will keep going over it again and again until it can, not just simply ignoring it or completely failing.

[momosan]

I found my most rcent poblem was solved by copying the files from the external USB HDD (Seagate 750mb) to the internal SATA drive after which Nero burned the files successfully. Seems like in this case the problem was a data transfer rate issue. But not always so easy to fix.

If it was a USB 1.1 (12Mbits/s) and not 2.0 (40 MBytes/s) connection then yes it might have been too slow for the burner to pull in the data fast enough. Burning the inside tracks are usually slower than burning the outside tracks, as you're burning outwards it'll start to get faster and faster before reaching maximum speed.

I currently use Princo DVDs but have had similar problems with TDK and Sony. I agree that burning at 8x is better than letting the software burn at maximum, but don't know if it has any effect on longevity.

And CDs were promoted as indestructible when they were first introduced. Compared to vinyl I supposed they seemed so.

The best of the best is Taiyo Yuden media, but unless you know where to get them they're a bit hard to find (some

[Digitalbanana]

People still use CD's and DVD's? I thought they were history?

[trogers]

People still use CD's and DVD's? I thought they were history?

Perhaps you have a cheaper way to store 4400GB of data per year for a home user?

[Beggar]

In my experience many DVD-RW drives are scrap. My IDE drive I had to replace 5 times. But then it was perfect. My new SATA drive I had to replace 3 times and it still has many write and read errors. Just scrap. All of them where the top of the line. I sit here at the moment with many Sony RW and cannot use them anymore with the new drive.

But for me this DVD burning game is a thing of the past anyway. Now I have many Terra Bytes with hard disks. All my DVD data will be copied to them. No burning anymore and waiting and checking and waiting and if bad luck do everything again. No checking anymore to find out if the DVDs are still okay after some years. No read errors anymore if not. No looking for them to find the data. And much more... Bye, Bye DVDs.

Blue Ray will not make any difference for me anymore. The same problems just for more money. Better not

[trogers]

In my experience many DVD-RW drives are scrap. My IDE drive I had to replace 5 times. But then it was perfect. My new SATA drive I had to replace 3 times and it still has many write and read errors. Just scrap. All of them where the top of the line. I sit here at the moment with many Sony RW and cannot use them anymore with the new drive.

But for me this DVD burning game is a thing of the past anyway. Now I have many Terra Bytes with hard disks. All my DVD data will be copied to them. No burning anymore and waiting and checking and waiting and if bad luck do everything again. No checking anymore to find out if the DVDs are still okay after some years. No read errors anymore if not. No looking for them to find the data. And much more... Bye, Bye DVDs.

Blue Ray will not make any difference for me anymore. The same problems just for more money. Better not

Great. I will need 5 terrabytes hard disks per year x 6 years (to date) to store my present library of DVDs.

Cost only Bt12k x 30 and further Bt60k per year...

[Gary A]

I had a plastic box full of CDs when I moved over here. After a couple years, more than half of them wouldn't work. I took some to a techie friend of mine. He held them up to the light and quickly told me that a fungus had eaten the backing. I didn't believe him and actually thought he was joking. When I held them up to the light, I could see spots where the light shined through. A Google search found that it does happen. Indestructible? BULL. All the CDs were in plastic slip covers and stored in a CD storage box.

[Beggar]

Great. I will need 5 terrabytes hard disks per year x 6 years (to date) to store my present library of DVDs.

Cost only Bt12k x 30 and further Bt60k per year...

Thats not bad. You create an average of 3 DVDs a day every day of the year. May I ask for what? At the moment after six years you must have more than 6000 DVDs. Not bad... How many burners did you use up?

[trogers]

I had a plastic box full of CDs when I moved over here. After a couple years, more than half of them wouldn't work. I took some to a techie friend of mine. He held them up to the light and quickly told me that a fungus had eaten the backing. I didn't believe him and actually thought he was joking. When I held them up to the light, I could see spots where the light shined through. A Google search found that it does happen. Indestructible? BULL. All the CDs were in plastic slip covers and stored in a CD storage box.

All my DVDs are kept in their cylindrical containers of 25s and 50s, and in my study cupboard that is air-con 5 hours a day. No fungus growth, same as my old VHS tapes over a decade ago which are still playable. Yup, I still have a VHS recorder/player next to my DVD player.

[Spoonman]

5tb/4.7gb = 1063 single sided DVD's @ 350b per 50 discs = 7440b.

1tb HDD = 2000b

For the sake of an extra 2559b i know where i would be storing my stuff, not to mention the time that goes into burning that many discs.

Gotta give you credit though, thats some impressive internet rapage, I thought i was doing allright @ 3tb in 8 months....

Edited December 11, 2009 by Spoonman

[trogers]

Great. I will need 5 terrabytes hard disks per year x 6 years (to date) to store my present library of DVDs.

Cost only Bt12k x 30 and further Bt60k per year...

Thats not bad. You create an average of 3 DVDs a day every day of the year. May I ask for what? At the moment after six years you must have more than 6000 DVDs. Not bad... How many burners did you use up?

I am still using my 2nd burner, but speed limited to 8x. Mainly for movies, esp. old TV series eg. Dr. Who, Sapphire & Steel, Star Trek, from torrents...

[trogers]

5tb/4.7gb = 1063 single sided DVD's @ 350b per 50 discs = 7440b.

1tb HDD = 2000b

For the sake of an extra 2559b i know where i would be storing my stuff, not to mention the time that goes into burning that many discs.

Gotta give you credit though, thats some impressive internet rapage, I thought i was doing allright @ 3tb in 8 months....

Burning three 2-hr DVD discs a day is not a problem on my PC that runs 24/7. Start converting and burn 1st disc while leaving in the morning, 2nd disc after back home but before going to bed, and the 3rd start at bedtime.

[Spoonman]

Burning three 2-hr DVD discs a day is not a problem on my PC that runs 24/7. Start converting and burn 1st disc while leaving in the morning, 2nd disc after back home but before going to bed, and the 3rd start at bedtime.

Just seems to be a lot of effort, i store all my stuff on HDD's (have more than 15tb to date) everything is streamed over my WiFi to the various TV's in my house....simple, yet very easy (but not cheap).

Edited December 11, 2009 by Spoonman

[trogers]

Burning three 2-hr DVD discs a day is not a problem on my PC that runs 24/7. Start converting and burn 1st disc while leaving in the morning, 2nd disc after back home but before going to bed, and the 3rd start at bedtime.

Just seems to be a lot of effort, i store all my stuff on HDD's (have more than 15tb to date) everything is streamed over my WiFi to the various TV's in my house....simple, yet very easy (but not cheap).

I use the economical solution, as I have only one TV point, and my Thai wife does not watch my movies, and is retiring in a few years, no kid(s). So another couple of decades, my wife will hold an auction on these DVDs and VHS...

[Spoonman]

So another couple of decades, my wife will hold an auction on these DVDs and VHS...

Good idea, a pirated movie on a burnt disc has got to be worth, what, 10baht.....she's gunna be rolling in it

[trogers]

So another couple of decades, my wife will hold an auction on these DVDs and VHS...

Good idea, a pirated movie on a burnt disc has got to be worth, what, 10baht.....she's gunna be rolling in it

Not many living expats 2 decades into the future would have even heard of Dr. Who. That's the hidden value, and originals have to be imported and processed by the censors before release.

[Beggar]

So another couple of decades, my wife will hold an auction on these DVDs and VHS...

Good idea, a pirated movie on a burnt disc has got to be worth, what, 10baht.....she's gunna be rolling in it

If this stuff does still work after this long storage then she will end up in jail I am afraid if she makes an auction

I collected endless music on cassette tapes. They all ended in the garbage.

[trogers]

So another couple of decades, my wife will hold an auction on these DVDs and VHS...

Good idea, a pirated movie on a burnt disc has got to be worth, what, 10baht.....she's gunna be rolling in it

If this stuff does still work after this long storage then she will end up in jail I am afraid if she makes an auction

I collected endless music on cassette tapes. They all ended in the garbage.

Copyrights have a finite time period, usually not over 30 years.

[Thanh-BKK]

1tb HDD = 2000b

OFF TOPIC

Hi.

Can you please tell me where you get 1 TB hard drives for 2,000 Baht? Because i'll go and get me some for that price Last time i checked they were more than twice that........ (few weeks ago)

Kind regards......

Thanh

[nikster]

There's a huge difference between CDs that you burn, and those that you buy in the shop. The latter always work, they get scratched if you're not careful but otherwise they last a long time.

CD/DVD burning is different, I've had too many go bad so I don't do it anymore. I store stuff on hard disks (main + backup).

In fact, I don't use CDs or DVDs anymore at all. All media is on the computer, on hard drives, on the iPod, iPhone, etc. If I buy a CD or DVD, then the only purpose is to rip the media to my hard drive. I have no need for discs...