>Thats something that has been puzzling me in this discussion, whats this
>about CDROM being better archival than CDR? Kodak is saying 100 years for
>their CDR I think.
Lifetime estimates are all, in reality, just estimates. Most of them
have some good scientific reasoning behind them, and usually take
"accelerated aging" tests (high temperature/humidity/light situations)
and extrapolate these results to more normal storage conditions.
Indeed, the lifetimes of CD-R's are estimated to be at least in decades
if not longer, but these are all estimates. Real pressed CD-ROM's have
been around for about two decades now, and except for a few manufacturing
snafus early on, they are known to be good for at least that long.
In addition, CD-R's occasionally have interchangability problems -
a brand X disk burned on a brand Y recorder might very well be unreadable
on a brand Z player. Interchangability isn't a big problem for fairly
recent CD-ROM readers, but for, say, someone hooking up an ancient RRD40
player it may very well be an issue. Pressed CD-ROM's tend not to have such
interchangability problems (though certainly I think we've all run across
cases where brand Z player won't read one disk, while brand Y will.)
I tend to agree that CD-R's are probably good enough, but better is always
the enemy of good enough, and real CD-ROM's would be better if there's
enough volume to justify them.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa_at_trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
Received on Thu Jul 29 1999 - 11:15:27 BST