Non-motoring > How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? Miscellaneous
Thread Author: L'escargot Replies: 19
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 15:11 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - L'escargot
I assume they don't last forever.
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 15:15 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - Armel Coussine
Copies of nice CDs made by friends of mine seldom play in the car's CD slot. They go in all right but no sound ensues and then they come sulkily out as if the CD player was sticking its tongue out at me.

Why is this? It's very annoying. Is there some commercial code on over-the-counter CDs?
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 15:47 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - R.P.
Depends how they were copied for one thing and possibly have copy protect coding.
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 15:52 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - spamcan61
I've got some proper CDs from '87 that still play fine,but CD-Rs from 2006 that won't play at all - all from the same batch of blanks. Not sure whether the proper CDs will outlast me or not.

AC - at least a couple of possibilities

1 - The CDs haven't been copied in proper CD audio format - do they play back on a computer?

2 - Some car CD players are particularly fussy about the brand of blank CD used, may be worth copying the copy to a different brand of blank, and copying at the slowest speed the computer will allow.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Sun 1 Apr 12 at 15:52
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 16:43 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - Ambo
Maybe the friend has used the wrong type of disk or not finished it off properly. I was told that for use on my own player I should use DVD-RAM disks. For others' DVD-RW and Finalise. I couldn't make any of this work and so gave up trying.
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 17:45 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - AnotherJohnH
As said above:

Music creating as a DATA CD will play music/MP3 on any PC if "finalised" - not finalised only on the machine that created it until it's finalised.

Most modern CD players will cope with MP3.

CD created as MUSIC CD, and finalised should play in anything that plays CD's.


The original question:

Life of CD's and DVD's is a moot point -

www.osta.org/technology/cdqa13.htm

www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa11.htm

years, tens of years, hard to say exactly... it depends.
Last edited by: AnotherJohnH on Sun 1 Apr 12 at 17:46
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 19:05 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - devonite
I find that if I am copying a cd to be played in my Music separates (Technics) or car player, they have to be burnt in .Wav format.
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 20:03 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - Zero
>> I assume they don't last forever.

Use is not what kills CD's or DVD's, its poor handling, abuse and bad storage that kills them.
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New Sun 1 Apr 12 20:20 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - WillDeBeest
Yep, Zero. It's the worst thing about playing CDs in the car. I'm usually scrupulous about putting them away but I've mislaid a couple under the seat and found them weeks later covered in fluff and scratches. Never the same again after that.

Indoors, I've yet to wear out a CD - or an LP for that matter, and I've had some of mine since the late 1970s. My dad was obsessive about proper handling and cleaning, so I expect I caught the habit from him.
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 09:02 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - Stuartli
I've got CD-Rs from the late 1990s that play without problems. Don't forget that most/many ICE CD units before recent years won't handle other than basic CDs (so forget MP3s etc)

I use a lot of Imation CD-R and DVD-R blank disks (they are rebadged Taiyo Yuden media, probably the best manufacturer of its type in the world) and Imation claimed a few years ago that its DVD disks would last around 100 years. How it knew this I don't know...:-))
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 09:37 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - L'escargot
>> ............ Imation claimed
>> a few years ago that its DVD disks would last around 100 years. How it
>> knew this I don't know...:-))
>>

Accelerated durability tests.
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 12:36 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - teabelly
I use imation cds. I've had endless bother with those in cd players! Fuji and traxdata seem to work much better.
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 13:12 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - diddy1234
the cds that are brought tend to last around 10 years but the blank cds tend to last around 5 years.

something to do with extra coating on them hence last longer.

ditto for dvds.

i used to work for a company making udo media (a derivative of blu ray) and we could guarantee 50 year life.
good for insurance companies and legal departments.

unfortunatley the company i worked for folded so almost all companies use raid harddrive backups now.

i am not to sure how long blu ray media lasts but should be longer.
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 16:43 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - Cliff Pope
No storage medium has ever been developed to beat parchment. Old documents will stand damp, bookworm, radiation, heat, cold, or physical abuse.

You need to copy the music scores onto genuine parchment using mediaeval ink. (modern ink is not UV-resistant)

Warning - not guaranteed over 1000 years, so get some monks to set up a rolling programme of re-copying periodically.
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 17:14 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - CGNorwich
Re-writable too. A quick scour and you have a palimpsest
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 18:00 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - Zero
>> Re-writable too.

and that is why you can't believe history.
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 19:18 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - Iffy
I recall one of the inventors of LCD displays was asked about longevity.

His reply was along the lines of: "One on the test bench has been going for more than a year, but I can't be certain it will last five years until five years has elapsed."

The first music CDs I bought in the late 80s still play 'as new' as far as I can tell.

With moderate use, that's 25 years and counting.



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New Mon 2 Apr 12 19:58 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - spamcan61
I suspect the purity of the raw materials and consistency of manufacturing process play a huge part in disc longevity.

Acclerated life testing is all very well, but unless the test regime closely emulates the real aging mechanisms of the subject then it's really no more than a rough guide to longevity - that's a general statement, I'm not a CD aging mechanism boffin ;-)

Yep proper audio CDs need to be recorded (effectively) as .wav 16 bit linear PCM with 44.1KHz sample rate. Any CD burning software will automatically set this for you, dragging and dropping from Explorer won't - although I suspect Windows will ask if you actually want to burn an audio CD and fire up WMP under these circumstances.
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 20:09 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - diddy1234
one of our tests with the udo media was to write data to the disc then chuck it in a lake for 12 months.
fished it back out, replaced the caddy and then test that we could read the data back.
all worked fine.

another one of the tests that i used to do was use a permament marker pen and physicly mark the media.
then write data to the media. visually check the pen has been removed from the media and then read back the data.
a cd or dvd burner doesnt use enough power to remove marker pen when writing data to the disc.

i also did other insane tests like scoring the disc and used the recovery tool to get 95% data back. and it worked (on the udo media).

quite robust really. shame it never caught on.
Last edited by: diddy1234 on Mon 2 Apr 12 at 20:11
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New Mon 2 Apr 12 21:41 
 How long do CDs and DVDs last with normal use? - rtj70
CDs and DVDs are pressed and subject to proper handling and storage should last.

CD-R, CD-RW, and the +/- equivalents of DVDs rely on a change when heat is applied along with a magnetic field to change a spot on the disk to emulate a pit on the pressed CD/DVD. And this relies on a chemical change and of course heat. So no it won't last because heat and magnetic fields created the pits in the first place.

It also depends on the type of dye formulation used for the disks. I know in my early DVD-R burning days (6+ years ago) that the Rytek disks were more compatible with players.

From personal experience I have created backups on some DVD-Rs and CD-Rs long ago and they don't work now. And they've been stored in cool, dry locations and never been used since verification of the burn process. I mainly rely on disks for backups.
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