Failing Backups

[MrRadio]

I discovered over the last few days that a large number of my DVD backups (up to 5 years old) no longer work. Most have a cloudy appearance, pixilate when played and fail when I attempt to re-encode them.
The cloudy appearance I think is from the way they are stored (in an aluminium case hanging in plastic sleeves, two per sleeve with perforated divider) as I have successfully cleaned the cloudyness from one and re encoded it. But I dont think this is the culprit. I am wavering between poor selection of blank DVD in the first place or the fact that every one that has failed has a printed stick on label, I remember reading sometime ago about some label glues seeping through the disc and affecting the dye. Any ont got any ideas.

EDIT: None of my backups I have tried so far which remain unlabeled have failed.

[MrRadio]

I would really appreciate any help or suggestions on how to recover them, these are family memories painstakingly converted from years of vhs. Yes I still have the vhs but not the time to re edit them all.

[admin]

A lot of the cheaper brand CD-R failed after that period of time , it looks like DVD-R is no different. I have many no name / cheap discs like Princo on CD-R that I have had to throw out.

Thats probably not what you want to hear , but unfortunately how it is. All I can suggest is giving them a clean and maybe trying them in a few different drives as some will read better than others.

[MrRadio]

Thanks Sanity, your are right when you say not what I want to hear but I guess that's just the way it is. Along with a few unbranded the brands however include Teac, TDK and Phillips. I thought I was pretty safe with those. I still can't explain why the few older ones I didn't label haven't failed. I will try the failures in various drives, in fact I think I still have the drive that a lot of them were written in, gathering dust in a box in the garage. Always good to have a new project to occupy your "spare" time.

[BCNZ]

The issue of disc longevity has been on the tables for as long as discs have been produced and no one is able as yet to say just how long this media will last.

A couple of months ago I left a Sony CD-R outside, but not in the rain. It was sitting on a bench in my carport.

A few weeks later I noticed the top surface starting to peel. A week after that the surface really was delaminating, and now I just have a plastic disc! This is a disc that was simply exposed to damp - not actually wet as such.

I've not experienced any issues with burnable discs deteriorating indoors as yet.

I have seen commercially made CDs (music) start to degrade - I had one disc that started to get tiny pinsize holes in the aluminium layer - holding it up to the light showed these.
Another disc I've got is losing its printed label - it just started to peel off. I was going to send it back to the record company but I got lazy!

It seems that if you want longevity at the moment, the best option is to dump to hard drive and store it away safely in an anti-stat bag somewhere dry and cool.

[mark_f85]

I've got a lot of stuff stored on VHS (some date back to 1979). Random testing of some of these tapes revealed that they all still played perfectly well - even my off-air recording of the Moscow Olympics opening and closing ceremonies from 1980.
Lets hope we can say the same for our CD and DVD recordings in 28 years time. I suspect we will have to hope a lot. "Hope" never works for me.
I'm starting to wonder whether it might be a better idea to transfer some of my DVD and CD recordings to VHS. I already have a lot of LP vinyl discs backed up in LP high-fi VHS. They still sound great. (8 hours of music on a 4 hour tape for $4).
But whatever you do, don't store your VHS tapes anywhere near a CRT television (big degaussing coil tends to slowly erase them).

[Hakko]

I remember reading an article where there was a push for the plastic(s)/materials were supposed to degrade and decompose to be environmentally safe. The concern was the longevity and the amount of cds & dvds appearing in land fill caused concern that they would take too long to break down.

I believe that Verbatim manufacture a long lasting dvd.

Hope this helps.

[rob916]

I have seen plenty of disks de-laminate but never heard of or seen the cloudy appearance that you describe. If it is only on the bottom surface you may have a chance to polish it clear, but if is inside the disk you maybe in serious trouble.
Try the ones you need backed up again in different dvd writers ( writers usually read much better than just a reader )
Good Luck.