Life span of CD's and DVD's?
I'm wondering how long CD's and DVD's last before they begin to lose quality.
Several years ago, I'd read an article somewhere that said film was good for 100 years, but digital media would start going bad by the 20 year mark. If this is true, why is this? There's nothing ambiguous about a bunch of 0's and 1's.
Last winter, when I was doing test shots for my then-upcoming new Webshow, I'd saved a few things to a CD, and only a month later, they were not the same. I played them back and quality of the video and sound was bad in spots. The CD had been stored in a plastic case, and always at room temperature.
Now that my Webshow is going strong and getting more and more popular, I always back everything up on a hard drive and on CD's. But I'd hate to pull them out 20 years from now and find them to be useless.
Several years ago, I'd read an article somewhere that said film was good for 100 years, but digital media would start going bad by the 20 year mark. If this is true, why is this? There's nothing ambiguous about a bunch of 0's and 1's.
Last winter, when I was doing test shots for my then-upcoming new Webshow, I'd saved a few things to a CD, and only a month later, they were not the same. I played them back and quality of the video and sound was bad in spots. The CD had been stored in a plastic case, and always at room temperature.
Now that my Webshow is going strong and getting more and more popular, I always back everything up on a hard drive and on CD's. But I'd hate to pull them out 20 years from now and find them to be useless.
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Not to mention how damned easy it is to scratch them, by accident alone I can hardly keep a DC/DVD scratch free for more than a year, yet I try my best to take care of them.