Arrrrggghhh!! Perhaps this warning will spare my friends from my current frustration. Who would've thought such a thing likely?!
I have been busily rendering my VHS tapes into DVDs, using a somewhat tedious and time-consuming process that I'm employing because, well, it's FREE, and I'm BROKE. That being said, everything has been going along swimmingly until yesterday, when I spent several hours rendering a tape, only at the very final stage of the burn finding that somehow the whole system was HUNG...completely stuck and unable to complete the burn. I was puzzled, but when I reviewed the iMovie project everything seemed okay, so I chalked it up to an anomaly and decided to try to reboot the system and re-render the project into iDVD for another go at the burn. Several more hours later, that attempt HUNG AT THE SAME SPOT. I scratched my head, and then, in a flash of insight, decided to check the media...AND LO! This supposedly pristine disc, the last on the spindle, was COVERED WITH GREASY FINGERPRINTS!
Now, I have to establish some bona fides; ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you I'm completely anal-retentive about optical media; I have literally hundreds of CDs and DVDs that have never had their read-surface touched by human finger. I shame and heap scorn on friends when I see them carelessly handling discs. I have been known to wash discs that I saw being handled carelessly, often right in front of the careless handler, all the while clucking my tongue and cursing silently under my breath the benighted fools who are so careless and lacking of appreciation of the miracle of optical media! I spent a DECADE waiting to be able to afford my first optical media player (CD, back in the day) and I'll be DAMNED if anyone is going to abuse my precious archives. So, I KNOW those fingerprints weren't mine. And no one around here ever approaches the rendering suite, so the only possible culprit had to be someone at the FACTORY. While I still think it highly improbable, given automation, that someone actually puts the discs onto the spindle by hand, SOMEONE had to handle that disc at some point; being it was the very last disc on the spindle, the assumption would be that someone picked up a stack of discs and did just that.
The only plea for forgiveness is the fact that by my count, it was the 52nd disc in a spindle of 50. So I suppose I should shut up...I'm still a disc ahead. BUT WHAT ABOUT MY TIME? What about my anguish?
And so the caveat, and a new element in my rendering process: CHECK THAT DISC BEFORE YOU START TO BURN. A greasy fingerprint can ruin your morning.
And, finally, some useful notes:
-while there are many disc cleaners on the market, I've yet to see one any more effective than dish soap and warm water. Work the dish soap into a thin emulsion with your fingers, and lightly clean the read surface, working from the inner surface towards the outer, and be very mindful of any grit that might scratch the plastic. Rinse well, and, if you're cool like me, use a micro-fiber fabric to blot the excess water off the disc.
-for truly filthy or scratched discs, I have actually succeeded in render many readable again with this process-first, wash the disc to remove any particles or debris. Once the disc is really clean, use a fine polish like diamond wax, or a veryyyyy low-grit car polish, and, again using your fingers, work the polish-wax from the inside to the outside edge, rotating the disc, and staying with it as you periodically rinse and examine the surface to see if the scratches are disappearing. The process is very similiar to removing fine scratches from an instrument's finish (where I got the idea) and the results can be amazing if done right. I have a CD that was found in the gravel on a street, and after diligent work (done for experiment) I rendered 5 of 7 tracks playable!
-In both cases, after the rinse has been blotted and air-dried there are still sometimes water-spots; remove these with a drop of optical glass cleaner and an optical polishing cloth-the same as you would use for eyeglasses is fine. Then, savagely excoriate anyone in your vicinity that would be so cavalier as to abuse this precious gift of nearly-permanent data storage. Just because replacements may be cheap doesn't mean you shouldn't care!
Back in the early '90's, some friends and I decided to try to calculate the potential life-span of CDs and DVDs. Assuming archival level treatment, we determined the two key dynamics were oxidization of the actual recorded metallic media, and hazing in the plastic surrounding the metallic media. I think the first part was used as a gimmick-pitch in the whole "gold-disc" boondoggle of the 90's. Of course, there is a kernel of truth there, since the more-common aluminum substrate can eventually oxidize by action of the oxygen molecules in the plastic stratus; however, we all know, now, that that plastic will long-before molecularly cross-link into a hazy layer that will just as effectively as oxidization confound readability. Now, how long would it take that plastic to degrade to the point of unreadability? Again, assuming the disc was properly protected from accelerating variable components, like sunlight, free exposure to airborne agents, etc, we had a chemist friend do some calculations and we came up with something like 50-150 years, plus or minus about 10 years.
My earliest CDs are just now 20 years old, and play perfectly. Properly treated, my media should outlive me by a very comfortable margin. Of course, player formats are still evolving, and rather like the end-of-life experience of magnetic data-storage and playback, the ultimate issue will become having a player that can render the media in question. And so, I have determined to create the QMech Museum of Still-Operable Obsolete Technology. So far, I have two VHS recorder/players (one a broadcast-quality machine), three stand-alone DVD players (I'm not counting DVD or CD playing computers...that will be a separate wing for Computers), two CD players (one a really sweet Sony single-shot that I just cannot turn my back on) and three cassette players (two deck-types and one portable, but, hey, it's a NAKIMICHI!). And while I'm shedding magnetic tape media as fast as epithelial cells, I'm currently putting those machines into long-term storage conditions, 'cause, HEY! why not?
Please note: I am not accepting donations of hardware for the museum. Bury your own dead. And especially, NO eight-tracks! I've already turned down the only one I would've considered, and it was a Marantz! I will eventually look for a nice reel-to-reel, but I'm spoiled, so I'll only consider a Teac 3340, 'cause when it comes to reel-to-reel, I'm gonna stick to what I know, and I really liked that 4-track. So if you got a 3340, we can talk.
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How long a DVD or CD might last is a tricky prediction. Most companies claim from 20 to 50 years with a few archive quality brands saying up to 200 but no one believes them.
ReplyDeleteFirst you have to know if your media is a factory stamped unit or one created by the consumer. That's the most important thing of all because they are completely different. A factory DVD or Cd is physically stamped out with little indentations for the data made in a metal substrate. These last a long time because there are ways to overcome plastic fogging on the surface. The metal substrate can oxidize only if the plastic isn't perfectly sealed, which can happen.
If the media was burned by a consumer then all that goes out the window. There are no metal substrates but only a dye strata. A laser heats the dye to change it's color for each bit. How long that disc will last depends on the quality of the dye, how well it's sealed into the plastic, and the power of the laser used to burn it. Laser power in a home burner can vary drastically between brands plus the laser gets weaker over time.
A disc burned with a weak laser means the dye didn't change strongly, and in turn, has less time before it's unreadable. Cheap DVDs also have poor quality dye that doesn't turn color well or last long. Never buy cheap discs.
I have some DVDs only a few years old that I burned myself and are now unusable. That's how it is. However, all my factory discs still play.
So for archive purposes only factory stamped units have a chance of lasting. Figure anything you burn yourself to be temporary.
Here's a trick for recovering a bad disc. Both CD and DVD formats have strong error sensing methods. If a few bad bits are detected the sector is labeled as bad and the whole disc is rejected although 99% is readable. There are programs such as DVDFab that override the normal error rejection process and will completely copy the disc to your drive and "Blank out" the bad sectors. You can't recover the bad 1% but the other 99% is still there. Works great on a scratched disc. After the disc is sopied to your hard drive simply burn a new copy to a blank you you're in business.
I've been at this stuff a long time :)
That's a great tip, Duke! I was aware that error detection was the primary culprit in "bad" discs, but I didn't know there was a fix.
ReplyDeleteGood to know!
And, of course, "temporary" is relative...anything that survives the next 10 years is good to me!
I have thought about transferring video to DVD many times, but in the end, I just have too much stuff. I wouldn't know where to start, and I know myself too well. The first plug into the first hole, I'd start getting hinky and would probably have a nervous breakdown when the first real snafu came along.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame to have all those VHS tapes in boxes taking up a wall of shelves in the spare bedroom that could better be served housing something else.
Ahhh, 21st century living....
Actually, the instrumentality I'm using is pretty simple; a decent VHS unit, running thru a Sony analog-digital codec box, firewired into a Macbook. You just import the tape into an iMovie project, then share it to iDvd, which burns your DVD. It's not real fast, but it's real simple. About the only bug I've had to contend with is hard-drive space. You've got to remember to delete each project as you go, 'cause you need about 40 gigs free to render a two-hour tape.
ReplyDelete