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gold dvds

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by jrosiak

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are gold dvds the archival standard ?

6 replies

by dadspad

These are specially coated to reduce scratches and finger prints, unlike statdard DVD. If you are archiving it DVD, best to use these Gold DVD.

by oh smeg

Gold DVDs are used by the Movie Recording Industry as Premium Disc's on manufactured DVDs.

These do have a better protection on the Data Surface but the main difference is the foil between the different Substrates of the actual Disc. Because it's a different material to the Foil Aluminum that is commonly used it lasts longer. Most Video Hire Shops use these [b]"Gold DVDs[/b] instead of the more common Public DVDs that are made. They just last longer are less prone to scratching, marks and other things that destroy DVDs in this environment. They have been available for a long time and you hear very loud complaints when a New Disc isn't one of these [b]Gold[/b] Disc's when it hits the Video Stores as the owners need more copies to last as long.

Now for Recordable Media they use a Different Coating and Different Dye to make the things that have been Misnamed as Gold DVDs. While they are much better than the normal DVD Blanks and superior to the Tough DVD Blanks they are certainly not a Gold Blank but because that term has been used in the Industry for many years I think that it's been carried over to the Recordable Media so that the Makers can charge a premium price for the Product.

Col

by jrosiak

Based on that information, is the Gold Disc being solld now have any archival properties at all? Will they last at least 40-50 years, or am I dreaming?

The brand I have been reviewing is "Delkin"...their web site indicates archival quality.

by oh smeg

But under ideal conditions they may. I think that the reason why they have the Premium pricing is because they resist Scratching and other contamination better than the Standard DVD Blanks but no matter how good they are 15 minutes in the wrong conditions will do damage.

Just as some Background here Kodak recommends the following for pictures on Burnt Optical Media

Replace the media every 4 to 5 years or so as the Picture Quality degrades. As both CD and DVD blanks are effectively made the same way I would tend to believe that what applies to CD's would also apply to DVD media so act accordingly.

AS for long term storage there is nothing better than a HDD though in 40 or 50 years you may be unable to actually read the drive as there is nothing to plug it into. But then again it's also possible that a DVD reader will no longer be available in that time frame.

For this type of Long Term Storage you would need to store the Hardware & Media for the period or constantly update or transfer from one media to another as Technology changes.

This is one of the problems that needs Addressing by whoever for Extreme Long Term Storage. as the Technology changes the means of recovering or reading the Stored Data will also need to change. At the moment DVD looks great but even now we are seeing changes to the DVD format to HD or BlueRay, personally I wouldn't even like to guess what will be being used in 5 years let along 25 years.

Col

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