Some CDr brands degrade within months article

A Fungus among us...!...g

Sounds like a poor storage environment; Fungus needs H2O to propagate;
should there be any truth to this... Some legitimately documented
failures have been oxidation due to poor disc edge cleaning/lacquer
sealing which of course is a manufacturing defect.

Tim K

"wally" wrote in message
...
In article , Neil Maxwell
wrote:
On Tue, 09 Sep 2003 05:53:19 -0700, wrote:

I've had good luck with Phthalocyanine CDRs. But how long they'll
last
is a good question. I think the industry needs to come up with a
permanent data storage medium. Let's crank up the wattage and punch
holes in something durable

Yep, there's sure no subsitute for pressed layers of aluminum...

Maybe not, I've read of a fungus that grows between the layers
"eating" the aluminum and therefore the data.

--wally.

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 14:23:58 GMT, (wally) wrote:

Yep, there's sure no subsitute for pressed layers of aluminum...

Maybe not, I've read of a fungus that grows between the layers
"eating" the aluminum and therefore the data.

This was a problem in the early days of CDs, particularly in humid
environments, but seems to be a thing of the past now. I don't know
how they fixed this; maybe better edge sealing... It's a good point,
as even pits in aluminum are no good if the substrate goes bad.

My first CD is still working quite well, and given the hundreds of
millions (billions?) of pressed CDs out there, you'd think we'd know
about any major problems. I bet they don't last as long as vinyl,
though.

I should have pointed out that gold was even better than aluminum, but
that's not going to happen on a large scale due to costs, particularly
in this time of (hopefully) decreasing CD prices. You used to be able
to get specialty CDs pressed with gold, for a few extra bucks. I
don't know if they still make these.


Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 14:18:40 +0100, James Perrett
wrote:

Neil Maxwell wrote:

I've used various writers (JVC 2x, Plextor 4x and 8x, Teac/Liteon/
whatever in the 24x+ lineups) and the best media available at the
time, according to Usenet wisdom (not always based on fact, of
course), including Mitsui, KAO, Kodak Gold, Kodak Silver, and various
TY (as well as some cheap stuff here and there), some with labels,
some not.

Kodak Gold discs burned on a Plextor writer at half-max speed have
shown the problem of data deterioration.

This is interesting because you list many of the same makes that I have
used. Maybe I should go back and check a few more of my older discs. Now
that I have a Plextor Premium drive it is much easier to obtain hard
error rate data.

I'd love to hear about your results, since there are a few variables
in my results I have little control over (where I live, for instance).
I'm just as interested in old burns that read perfectly as the ones
that have failures.

Unfortunately, I didn't start documenting the details until the last
few years, when the problem moved past the nuisance stage for me, so
the oldest data is kinda fuzzy. Maybe I should get another high-end
drive like the Plextor for the hard data...


Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

Neil Maxwell wrote:



I'd love to hear about your results, since there are a few variables
in my results I have little control over (where I live, for instance).
I'm just as interested in old burns that read perfectly as the ones
that have failures.


I did a few more tests last night and all showed no uncorrectable
errors.

The Kao discs from 1997 were reported as being manufactured by Ricoh and
gave an average BLER of around 0.3. The Kodak discs were slightly worse
with a BLER of 1.1 to 1.3. Even the cheap CMC unbranded disc from 4
years ago was only showing a BLER of 1.3. Some discs did show C2 errors
but this could have been due to them being recorded in track at once
mode rather than disc at once.

My first Taiyo Yuden disc was probably the worst performer with an
average BLER of around 5.

The early discs were recorded on a Philips CDD522 recorder while I'm
less certain about the newer discs as I would have had a Yamaha 4260 and
a Plextor 820 at the time.

Cheers.

James.

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 15:12:10 +0100, James Perrett
wrote:

I did a few more tests last night and all showed no uncorrectable
errors.

The Kao discs from 1997 were reported as being manufactured by Ricoh and
gave an average BLER of around 0.3. The Kodak discs were slightly worse
with a BLER of 1.1 to 1.3. Even the cheap CMC unbranded disc from 4
years ago was only showing a BLER of 1.3. Some discs did show C2 errors
but this could have been due to them being recorded in track at once
mode rather than disc at once.

My first Taiyo Yuden disc was probably the worst performer with an
average BLER of around 5.

The early discs were recorded on a Philips CDD522 recorder while I'm
less certain about the newer discs as I would have had a Yamaha 4260 and
a Plextor 820 at the time.

While digging around on http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/ for MP3 threads,
I stumbled across this thread on dying CDRs:
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/3247

I also did some quick tests; not much time to dedicate, I'm afraid.
My most visible problem discs are audio, since I use them more than
old data discs and the problems are obvious. I dug out an old copy of
Johnny Cash - The Sun Sessions (burned about '98, most likely on a
SAF2006+ (oem JVC 2x), but it's hard to remember). It's in fine
physical shape, with no label and minimal Sharpie writing.

Here's what I found:

Disc: HP branded Mitsui, bought from CompUSA way back when.
ATIP: 97m 27s 55f
Disc Manufacturer: Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals, Inc.
Assumed Dye type: Phthalocyanine (Type 5)
Media type: CD-Recordable
Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
nominal Capacity: 650.85MB (74m 05s 10f / LBA: 333235)

- NAD 515 changer (sensitive) - a few skips in every song, getting
worse on later tracks, unlistenable on the last few.

- Apex AD-1500 DVD/MP3 player - played all the way through fine.

EAC found no C2 errors using my Ultraplex PF-40TS.

Tried to extract the tracks using EAC, with these results:

- Plextor Ultraplex PF-40TS - 1st track dropped down to 0.1x
extraction, labored away for a while, and quit with the following
message:
Suspicious position 0:00:11

Missing samples
Peak level 0.0 %
Track quality 95.2 %
Copy finished

There were errors

The short wav file it managed to extract was full of blips and skips.

- Tried the same on my Teac 24x burner on this box, and it made even
less progress.

More tests to do, I suppose, and I need to dig my collection of
failing discs out of the archives.




Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:28:37 -0700, Neil Maxwell
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 15:12:10 +0100, James Perrett
wrote:

I did a few more tests last night and all showed no uncorrectable
errors.

The Kao discs from 1997 were reported as being manufactured by Ricoh and
gave an average BLER of around 0.3. The Kodak discs were slightly worse
with a BLER of 1.1 to 1.3. Even the cheap CMC unbranded disc from 4
years ago was only showing a BLER of 1.3. Some discs did show C2 errors
but this could have been due to them being recorded in track at once
mode rather than disc at once.

My first Taiyo Yuden disc was probably the worst performer with an
average BLER of around 5.

The early discs were recorded on a Philips CDD522 recorder while I'm
less certain about the newer discs as I would have had a Yamaha 4260 and
a Plextor 820 at the time.

While digging around on http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/ for MP3 threads,
I stumbled across this thread on dying CDRs:
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/3247

I also did some quick tests; not much time to dedicate, I'm afraid.
My most visible problem discs are audio, since I use them more than
old data discs and the problems are obvious. I dug out an old copy of
Johnny Cash - The Sun Sessions (burned about '98, most likely on a
SAF2006+ (oem JVC 2x), but it's hard to remember). It's in fine
physical shape, with no label and minimal Sharpie writing.

Here's what I found:

Disc: HP branded Mitsui, bought from CompUSA way back when.
ATIP: 97m 27s 55f
Disc Manufacturer: Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals, Inc.
Assumed Dye type: Phthalocyanine (Type 5)
Media type: CD-Recordable
Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
nominal Capacity: 650.85MB (74m 05s 10f / LBA: 333235)

- NAD 515 changer (sensitive) - a few skips in every song, getting
worse on later tracks, unlistenable on the last few.

- Apex AD-1500 DVD/MP3 player - played all the way through fine.

EAC found no C2 errors using my Ultraplex PF-40TS.

Tried to extract the tracks using EAC, with these results:

- Plextor Ultraplex PF-40TS - 1st track dropped down to 0.1x
extraction, labored away for a while, and quit with the following
message:
Suspicious position 0:00:11

Missing samples
Peak level 0.0 %
Track quality 95.2 %
Copy finished

There were errors

The short wav file it managed to extract was full of blips and skips.

- Tried the same on my Teac 24x burner on this box, and it made even
less progress.

More tests to do, I suppose, and I need to dig my collection of
failing discs out of the archives.


I have cassettes and reels that are 30 years old and play fine. And I
have to worry about CDs that are three years old? Are we kidding?

Neil Maxwell wrote:

Here's what I found:

Disc: HP branded Mitsui, bought from CompUSA way back when.
ATIP: 97m 27s 55f
Disc Manufacturer: Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals, Inc.
Assumed Dye type: Phthalocyanine (Type 5)
Media type: CD-Recordable
Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
nominal Capacity: 650.85MB (74m 05s 10f / LBA: 333235)

- NAD 515 changer (sensitive) - a few skips in every song, getting
worse on later tracks, unlistenable on the last few.

- Apex AD-1500 DVD/MP3 player - played all the way through fine.

EAC found no C2 errors using my Ultraplex PF-40TS.

Tried to extract the tracks using EAC, with these results:

- Plextor Ultraplex PF-40TS - 1st track dropped down to 0.1x
extraction, labored away for a while, and quit with the following
message:
Suspicious position 0:00:11

This is a little odd - if EAC has problems extracting the audio then it
should also find C2 errors - in fact it should also find uncorrectable
errors.

Have you tried using the error checking tools in Nero's CDSpeed
(available separately from www.ahead.de)? You might also look into using
Plextools - if you don't already have a copy then do a Google Groups
search for Graham Mayor's postings about this software in this
newsgroup.

I've found that some older CD players don't like the pthalocyanine dye
that Mitsui use as much as other dyes, but this applies to freshly
burned discs as much as older discs. Silver Mitsui discs are also heat
sensitive - they have a lifetime of around 6 months if left almost
continuously in my office computer.

That forum thread you mention is interesting but there isn't really
enough reliable data there to draw good conclusions.

Cheers.

James.

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 13:59:40 +0100, James Perrett
wrote:

This is a little odd - if EAC has problems extracting the audio then it
should also find C2 errors - in fact it should also find uncorrectable
errors.

I thought so too, but it's very reproducible.

Have you tried using the error checking tools in Nero's CDSpeed
(available separately from www.ahead.de)? You might also look into using
Plextools - if you don't already have a copy then do a Google Groups
search for Graham Mayor's postings about this software in this
newsgroup.

I'll give these a try when time allows; maybe this weekend. My copy
of Plextools is quite old (never had much use for it), but I can round
up an updated copy.

I've found that some older CD players don't like the pthalocyanine dye
that Mitsui use as much as other dyes, but this applies to freshly
burned discs as much as older discs. Silver Mitsui discs are also heat
sensitive - they have a lifetime of around 6 months if left almost
continuously in my office computer.

All my failing discs worked fine when freshly burned. This particular
one was in a stack of other unlabeled CDRs, in a dark corner. Some
heat there in summer, but nothing extraordinary. Part of the point of
this exercise is that Mitsuis were (and still are) considered
high-grade discs, and it's clear to me that they're not as good as I
hoped.

That forum thread you mention is interesting but there isn't really
enough reliable data there to draw good conclusions.

And that's one of the better collections of info so far!



Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

My oldest CD-Rs are about 4 years old. Periodically I check them.
None have failed in any way. What brands are they? Whatever was on
sale when I needed discs.

Norm Strong

"Neil Maxwell" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 13:59:40 +0100, James Perrett
wrote:

This is a little odd - if EAC has problems extracting the audio
then it
should also find C2 errors - in fact it should also find
uncorrectable
errors.

I thought so too, but it's very reproducible.

Have you tried using the error checking tools in Nero's CDSpeed
(available separately from www.ahead.de)? You might also look into
using
Plextools - if you don't already have a copy then do a Google
Groups
search for Graham Mayor's postings about this software in this
newsgroup.

I'll give these a try when time allows; maybe this weekend. My copy
of Plextools is quite old (never had much use for it), but I can
round
up an updated copy.

I've found that some older CD players don't like the pthalocyanine
dye
that Mitsui use as much as other dyes, but this applies to freshly
burned discs as much as older discs. Silver Mitsui discs are also
heat
sensitive - they have a lifetime of around 6 months if left almost
continuously in my office computer.

All my failing discs worked fine when freshly burned. This
particular
one was in a stack of other unlabeled CDRs, in a dark corner. Some
heat there in summer, but nothing extraordinary. Part of the point
of
this exercise is that Mitsuis were (and still are) considered
high-grade discs, and it's clear to me that they're not as good as I
hoped.

That forum thread you mention is interesting but there isn't really
enough reliable data there to draw good conclusions.

And that's one of the better collections of info so far!



Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 10:30:24 -0700, Neil Maxwell
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 14:25:14 GMT, "normanstrong"
wrote:

My oldest CD-Rs are about 4 years old. Periodically I check them.
None have failed in any way. What brands are they? Whatever was on
sale when I needed discs.

Are these data or music (or both)? Do they have labels on them, or
writing on the disk? How were they stored? What speed were they
written at, and was it full speed on the burner? What brand of
burner?

My experience has been that errors on data disks are unnoticeable
until it can't read at all. That is, it corrects as the data slowly
gets weaker, with the only indication that the drive slows down (at
least on my Ultraplex).

Some drives are better than others at reading failing data (my burner
reads some data that my Ultraplex won't), which only delays the
problem, and doesn't mean that the disk isn't failing.

Audio disks are much more obvious, since the error correction is weak
and the skips are pretty hard to miss.

I have disks less than 2 years old that are failing badly (and some
that are still good), and disks over 5 years old that still read OK
(and some that are totally unreadable).


Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer


I like to make a .sfv file using quicksfv for the data on the cdr.
When I run the file after burning, it scrolls a list of files as it
check them. On bad CD's it will run noticeably slower, even pausing
at times. On good CD's it will go pretty fast depending on the file
sizes.

You can get a nice feel for what's going on with your CD. You can also
see specific files that may be problems when all the rest of the CD is
pretty good.

It's a nice little tool.