Longevity of Recordable CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays (revised 2019)

[bassman81]

Hi,
longtime registered user of MakeMKV finally joining the forum!

Have you read the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) Notes 19/1 Longevity of Recordable CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays?
https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-i ... -dvds.html

This part is especially interesting:

Table 2: the relative stability of optical disc formats
CD (read-only, such as an audio CD) 50 to 100 years
DVD and BD (read-only, such as a DVD or Blu-ray movie) 10 to 20 years

This seems very low to me in comparison with pressed CDs.
Has anyone here experienced old BDs/DVDs failing even if in pristine condition?

[Woodstock]

Generally, recordable disks have little to do with MakeMKV, other than some companies are now doing "burn on demand" DVDs. I haven't seen that much outside of porn titles, though.

Does it address the problems with storage of pressed disks and chemical deposition from the packaging?

[bassman81]

Yes, what I quoted is about PRESSED discs (10 to 20 years for DVD/Blu-rays).

[Woodstock]

The pressed disks themselves are still "usable", but require cleaning more often.

This is a common problem, as the disk density goes up (UHD) and the packaging gets more careless. You would think the packaging would be "cleaner".

Unless the chemical contamination is really a preservative... like Cosmoline for optical disks...

[Username1267]

On old disks I have often found a thin film of some substance. Maybe it's the plasticizer of the package. But at an age of about 10 years they get harder to read.