Joav Shdema wrote:
> Steve and all,
> I have been using Verbatim and Mitsui (and Quantegy) for a better part
> of the past 3 years. In this period prices went down and speed went up
> considerably. From 3-4 manufacturers we now have numerous. Although I
> have not witnessed an aged corrupt DVD yet data start to amass.
> Recording layer corruption, layers separating, cracks, storage scratches
> and other. I recon (and naively hope) that staying with the best brand
> names would be safer until data could be verified in 10-20 years.
> Our Master cabinets are at room temperature, locked and dark. Air-con is
> on during the hotter hours of the day to keep an average 23!C. Hardly
> archiving, more of a real world condition. In these conditions we have
> never had any problems with DVD-R or CDRs of any brand from real
> el-cheapos to the best of the best. Others miles may vary... If the copy
> you supply is the only copy why not supply 2 copies and get done with
> it? :-) Mark one as MASTER and seal it, mark the other WORK COPY and
> leave it open. I always keep my own copy as safety back-up.

Again, speaking out of turn:

Multiple copies are an excellent choice, indeed, I would say a necessary
one.

They should be on different media, both (or all) of high quality.

I trust that by "seal", you do not mean hermetically seal the disc.
Keeping air out means trapping gasses in, which I believe is considered
unwise for recordable optical media. Of course, you are correct that a
master copy should not be accessed except to verify integrity.

Whatever media you use, please calibrate them on your hardware - that
is, determine the optimum record speed by minimum error count - then
record at or near that speed. My experience is that premature failure of
quality discs is consistently associated with either poor handling or a
poor initial recording. Both may be avoided without great effort.

Mike
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