Hi all,

I am living in the hot and humid tropical climate of Singapore. My room temperature is approx. 31 degrees Celcius and relative humidity in the room is about 88%. To date more than 40 DVD discs have either degraded (nero transfer rate graphs show lousy dipping curves) and many DVD discs have CRC/read errors (windows report CRC, dvdinfopro show red color blocks). For those discs that have degraded I have actually reburned those discs (about 40-50 discs so far) and store them inside dry boxes with relative humidity maintained at about 20-30% through the use of silica gel crystals. Brands of dvd media that have degraded in my storage include TDK, Verbatim, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Ricoh, NEC, etc. These media are considered branded ones. Also, numerous other people in my country have reported dying/dead/unreadable Imation and Maxell DVD media. I am wondering if dvd degradation occurs in tropical countries only. For those of you who stayed in cold, temperate countries, do you experience failing dvd media?

I have many Mitsubishi, Ricoh and NEC dvd discs with darkened purple spots on the recording side of the disc. A comparison of discs stored in dry boxes and unprotected by dry boxes shows that mit and nec discs stored in dry boxes with silica gel do not have spots whereas discs left lying around everywhere developed spots. They are burned and stored for around the same time.

Please refer to the background and details in the following link:

<A HREF="http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=991675" target="_new">http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=991675</A>

The entire thread is about 24 pages so far. I apologize for its terrible length and disorganization (as well as some ranting).

This thread contains background information, my storage environments, hypothesis that humidity degrades my media, efforts to use dry boxes and silica gel, video footages of mitsubishi, nec and ricoh with spots, nero transfer rate curves of degraded media, disc quality scans with terrible PI/PO results, and disc quality scans reserved for future comparisons.

I hope you guys could contribute in the reporting of your failing dvd media and storage conditions in the following format. If you have a better format please advise me. If I have missed out anything please advise me as well.

1. Brand, e.g. Verbatim
2. Format, e.g. 8X DVD+R or 16x DVD-R
3. MID, e.g. MCC04
4. Date the DVD was burned or how long you have stored it, e.g. 4 years 2 months
5. DVD burner used, e.g. LG-4163B
6. Burn speed, e.g. 2X
7. Recording software used, e.g. nero, padus, sonic, etc (seems to be irrelevant?)
8. State/Province, Country, e.g. Wisconsin, U.S.A or Sussex, U.K.
9. DVD Storage temperature, e.g. 30 degrees Celcius
10. DVD Storage Relative Humidity, e.g. 10%
11. DVD protection used, e.g. dry box with silica gel, or electric dry cabinet, or left lying around, CD/DVD wallets, jewel case, or paper sleeve.
12. DVD Failure type: CRC/read error or degraded with no error or cannot be detected by reader (gone case)
13. Attach PI/PO graphs or transfer rate graphs or scandisc graphs?

Thank you for your effort. Your effort is greatly appreciated.

Just to add: some of my dvd discs degrade in as little as 3-4 months (early discs not protected by dry box and silica gel).

Photos reproduced here for convenience:

DVD Discs with spots on recording side
=========================

<A HREF="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/dvdrot/04150002.jpg" target="_new">http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/dvdrot/04150002.jpg</A>
<A HREF="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/dvdrot/04150004.jpg" target="_new">http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/dvdrot/04150004.jpg</A>

An example of a degrading dvd disc (nero cd-dvd speed transfer rate curve):

<A HREF="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/verbatimdvdrdatalife.jpg" target="_new">http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/verbatimdvdrdatalife.jpg</A>
<A HREF="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/protectdvd/04240003.jpg" target="_new">http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/protectdvd/04240003.jpg</A>

Conditions of My Room, hygrometer exposed for 2 hrs 45 mins, taken on 2005-May-15 1:05 AM Sun SGT:

<A HREF="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/myroom-exposed-2hrs45mins-050515_010517.jpg" target="_new">http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/p4coverclocker/myroom-exposed-2hrs45mins-050515_010517.jpg</A>

My room temperature = 32C
Relative humidity in my room = 87%

Those conditions aren't too terrible, that's what my office is like during the summer, and I live in a northern climate.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

PDF e-books on DVD Longevity / Lifetime / Degradation are now available for offline reading.

Please note that there are some broken links in the previous versions (10 & 11 June 2006) of e-books. These broken links have been fixed in the current version (15 June 2006). All hyperlinks in PDF files should work now.

The filesizes are so much smaller now and should take less time to download. The current version of e-books also features full color graphics.




[1] Really Disappointed with DVD Discs Media

Filename: ebookv2.zip
Filesize: 46 MB
Version: 15 June 2006
Last Page of e-book: 66
md5 checksum: c00a736c524499d1f8fb70c20229fde6

Download Link:

http://s9.quicksharing.com/v/5379432/ebookv2.zip.html


[2] Experimental Data on DVD Longevity @ cdfreaks

Filename: ebookv2.zip
Filesize: 2.55 MB
Version: 15 June 2006
Last Page of e-book: 13
md5 checksum: 55957ac5fb56084f28b14e3134766bd6

Download Link:

http://s2.gimehost.com/v/5434801/ebookv2.zip.html

[3] The Unofficial HWZ Surviving DVD Media Durability Scan Thread

Filename: ebookv2.zip
Filesize: 10 MB
Version: 15 June 2006
Last Page of e-book: 12
md5 checksum: 14652c226020be65d3f41e46ac9033e2

Download Link:

http://s9.quicksharing.com/v/4618437/1ebookv2.zip.html

***Please verify the md5 checksum of the file that you have downloaded to ensure that you have downloaded the correct file.




There are some minor issues in viewing the latest version (15 June 2006) of the e-books with Adobe Reader 6.0 and 7.0.

In some PDF files, Adobe Reader will report "A drawing error occurred.".

You may want to try the FREE Foxit PDF Reader 1.3. I have tested it and there should not be any problems in viewing the PDF files.

To download the Foxit PDF Reader, click on the following link:

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/download.htm