I don't post much here, but have been reading posts here for about 6
months. My focus is on audio and video preservation. We (AMIPA) only
use CDs and DVDs as access media - NOT for preservation. We have had
problems with "Gold" DVDs as they are often unplayable on players in
computers, though I've never seen one fail to play in our dedicate DVD
player. I can't help but wonder if Corey's observations might be tied
to the ability of his playback device to correctly read all of the data
from "Gold" CDs? Could it be that the playback device is compensating
for data it can't retrieve and thus dropping or reinterpreting part of
the spectrum using it's own software? I'm not an expert when it comes
to digital playback. Many digital playback devices we are using now
"impose" themselves via hardware based software on our data. The data
stream coming out of one device will often not match bit-for-bit the
data stream from another device that reads from the same media. That is
certainly the case with DV video (and other digital formats) where the
playback device massages the raw data from the tape (concealment is the
example I've most often seen used when discussing DV). This all gets
really messy. So to keep it short - I wonder if the problem Corey noted
is with the media or with the playback device he used?

--greg schmitz
Alaska Moving Image Association
Anchorage Alaska

On 2010-11-11 2:00 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
> For what it's worth, I have found that blue-dye silver discs, I prefer
> Toyo-Yuden just because I have years of good experiences (successful
> burns, near-universal playability), seem to work best as playback
> media. In fussy car players, in old home players, in early DVD
> players, etc. I also have heard similar things to what Corey heard in
> a gold MAM vs. a blue-dye T-Y, played back in a mid-90's vintage
> Philips CD player. Played back via my Tascam CD recorder, I couldn't
> hear any difference. I am guessing that older CD players have trouble
> reading the gold-backed CDs and thus either more error correction is
> going on or for some reason jitter is being induced, or some other
> digital-realm thing is going on. My conclusion was to pursue the same
> recommendations as Corey -- blue-dye/silver for playback, gold-back
> for archiving (although I highly recommend a maintained hard-drive
> archiving strategy).
>
> -- Tom Fine