Researchers at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology have developed an optical disc with a capacity of over a petabit of data, equivalent to well...
Blu-Rays were more of a pain because of the format itself; Handbrake itself wouldn’t do the job, I had to use MakeMKV to get a huge mkv file then wash it through Handbrake to compress it to an mp4. Not a single one failed.
Movies on DVD, out of ~300 discs, I had a total of 6 fail because the discs are somehow damaged, most were visibly scratched and wouldn’t play back in a normal DVD player either.
TV shows on DVD, out of ~150 discs, ~40 of them partially or totally failed, many had visible disc rot. And there was definitely a pattern that boils down to “cheaper discs tended to fail.” Older discs from earlier in the format’s life proved more reliable, I think because, for example, my copy of Friends was purchased in the mid-2000s relatively early in the “TV shows on DVD for binge watching” era, some 60 discs in total, no failures. Smaller runs of shows that not a lot of people bought that were kind of plunked out on DVD for the nine people that bought them like Kolchak: The Night Stalker or The Greatest American Hero? 50% failure rate. An interesting one is my copy of Stargate SG-1. I own some seasons from an earlier pressing that came in individual standard plastic cases in a cardboard box, you know what I mean? Those were reliable, only one disc failed because of scratches caused by mishandling. I own some seasons from a later re-release in those slimmer 5-discs-in-a-cardboard-foldy-thing, and more than half of those are unplayable due to disc rot.
Meanwhile I have CDs made in the 80’s that still play just fine.
Real, good quality, factory-made discs, maybe. Anything else (from bad quality factory stuff to writable discs), not so much.
And backups where not done on factory-pressed discs.
The same promises we got with CD then.
Last year I ripped my whole DVD collection.
Blu-Rays were more of a pain because of the format itself; Handbrake itself wouldn’t do the job, I had to use MakeMKV to get a huge mkv file then wash it through Handbrake to compress it to an mp4. Not a single one failed.
Movies on DVD, out of ~300 discs, I had a total of 6 fail because the discs are somehow damaged, most were visibly scratched and wouldn’t play back in a normal DVD player either.
TV shows on DVD, out of ~150 discs, ~40 of them partially or totally failed, many had visible disc rot. And there was definitely a pattern that boils down to “cheaper discs tended to fail.” Older discs from earlier in the format’s life proved more reliable, I think because, for example, my copy of Friends was purchased in the mid-2000s relatively early in the “TV shows on DVD for binge watching” era, some 60 discs in total, no failures. Smaller runs of shows that not a lot of people bought that were kind of plunked out on DVD for the nine people that bought them like Kolchak: The Night Stalker or The Greatest American Hero? 50% failure rate. An interesting one is my copy of Stargate SG-1. I own some seasons from an earlier pressing that came in individual standard plastic cases in a cardboard box, you know what I mean? Those were reliable, only one disc failed because of scratches caused by mishandling. I own some seasons from a later re-release in those slimmer 5-discs-in-a-cardboard-foldy-thing, and more than half of those are unplayable due to disc rot.
Meanwhile I have CDs made in the 80’s that still play just fine.
They last very long as long as no humidity catches it tho.
Real, good quality, factory-made discs, maybe. Anything else (from bad quality factory stuff to writable discs), not so much. And backups where not done on factory-pressed discs.