8mm Forum: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

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Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on August 21, 2014, 09:35 AM:

I watched two movies yesterday. One was a 9.5mm Pathe short, on a 60ft cassette and printed sometime in the 1920’s. It ran flawlessly.
The other was a DVD of the Doris Day/James Cagney musical Love Me Or Leave Me , which I purchased about 4 years ago. It also ran flawlessly - until the last 15 minutes of the film when the picture started to disintegrate and finally totally lock up. Visual examination of the DVD showed no scratches at all, just a slight discoloration over some areas of the disc.
Another case of disc rot, and another example of the temporary nature of digital storage media..

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 21, 2014, 11:01 AM:

At the beginning of July, I had to start empty the flat of my late aunt. Someone stoled (among other things) her computer. What had not been stolen were the old photo albums. All the recent digital pictures are gone (more than probably erased). It let me think of what happens to all you leave on a computer. It is so easy to erase that if you are not close to the persone to whom it belonged you will probably not keep it. That includes videos. Someone would probably think twice before throwing films reels, but probably not before cleaning a computer. And if someone wants to save your pictures or films he must have your password, which of course is not oftent the case. How many people make print papers or enough copies of their pictures stored on a computer ? How many save the videos taken with a phone ?

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 21, 2014, 12:15 PM:

... which is why it's SOOOOO important to make what we refer today as a "hard copy" of any photo's or files that we create with digital media!

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 21, 2014, 02:25 PM:

The thing, Osi, is that you end with a box, a card or a USB key but nothing you can see easlily like a photo album. People will throw away more easily an object without soul than pictures. It takes you one second to open a photo album. Checking what is on a digital medium can take several minutes. That can make the difference if the material ends in hands of someone who has no relationship with the previous owner.

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on August 21, 2014, 02:46 PM:

I've probably had about a .5% or less fail-rate on commercially pressed media over the years (not counting laserdiscs which were buggier summer picnic), but I've had hard-drives fail many times. I agree, backup is essential and burned media is a different animal than pressed.

All thing go away eventually though, twenty years ago I never heard of vinegar syndrome.

I don't have kids, and never will, so I actually find the notion of my family photos kicking around with no one to recognize them after my death kind of lonesome. I know I already find it a little sad when I see full family-albums orphaned and kicking around antique stores.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 22, 2014, 11:55 AM:

I've never had a problem with my laserdiscs. I have heard that they could be capable of getting mildew or mold to them? I've never had it but I've heard of it.

Posted by Vidar Olavesen (Member # 3354) on August 22, 2014, 12:27 PM:

I have several LD's with laser rot myself. Almost only older PAL discs though

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 22, 2014, 03:02 PM:

I take my still cameras's SD cards regularly to my local Jessops where I print the best onto 9" x 6" glossy prints.
If I order more than ten prints they cost £0.35 each. A small price to pay for a permanent print.
Jessops tell me they are not done with printer ink, their equipment does indeed use chemicals.

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on August 23, 2014, 12:22 AM:

I was under the understanding that laserdisc "laser rot" was a problem associated with the glue that sticks the two sides of a disk together, "de-laminating"

Some of my disks rotted, but some had flaws right out of the shrink-wrap.

Posted by Vidar Olavesen (Member # 3354) on August 23, 2014, 04:17 AM:

I never had a bad new disc, only the really old ones I got when I bought my LD player. It's a bit like snow flakes on my bad discs

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on August 23, 2014, 09:19 AM:

This particular disc ( Love Me Or Leave Me ) was fine when I last ran it about 6 months ago. So the disc rot process appears to suddenly happen, and makes the disc useless in a very short period of time. This is not encouraging for the longevity of my DVD collection.

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on August 23, 2014, 10:16 AM:

Not the same animal. Lasediscs used different adhesives and a different manufacturing process than DVD or CD. It's also thought laserdiscs ungainly weight was an issue. "Rot" was more common to earlier titles, and some manufactured for Criterion in the UK.

They later began to over-correct for the problem of de-lamentation by slathering them with so much glue, that you could get disks with a sticky rim.

The reject-rate of laserdisc in the factory was always alarmingly high, far past CD, DVD, and BD. It's one of the factors as to why they were so costly, and kind of a sad waste of materials.

DVDs are more like CDs in their construction, and I've got CDs that are now 30 years old, and I've never had one go south.

Again, who knows how long stuff will last. CDs and DVDs may eventually corrupt, but chances are the majority of properly manufactured discs will outlive us. All acetate-film will also probably breakdown at some point, no matter how it's stored it or what it's cleaned with. It's just the nature of things with a cellulose base. We know films are already prone to shrink, become brittle and fade. So no storage medium is eternal.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 23, 2014, 10:38 AM:

Sorry to hear that Paul .... [Frown]

I should have mentioned, one flaw that I have noted with my laserdiscs, is that they can occasionally "warp" and while they will still play, they will tend to skip near the end of one side or the other.

I've kept that collection just for the simple reason that, on my old school "Sharp-vision" projection TV, they actually look better in most cases, than the DVD of the same titles.

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on August 23, 2014, 10:59 AM:

They recommend storing laserdiscs straight up and down on their edge and not flat or stacked if it's any help.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 23, 2014, 11:33 AM:

Timothy, I must be unlucky. I have several scratched cds. But the worse is that I had several cd players quickly out of order. The one I have now is a (portable) "all in one" (cd/radio/tape). Surprisingly, this one (though not an expensive model) seems to last as I bought it more that 10 years ago. I have some dvds scratched as well but proportionnally less than cds.

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on August 23, 2014, 12:18 PM:

It's odd, I treat my DVDs and Blu-rays like they're priceless, and my CDs on the other hand take a beating. Usually not to the degree that playback is an issue. At least most Cds and DVDs can be resurfaced for a few bucks at my local used media store.

I suppose it all depends what kinda care we extend both on the medium and what plays it.

I expect players to croak, I had projectors die too (worn sound-heads and gates, dead amps, bulb sockets that corroded from heat, and of course belt issues). Projectors you generally get fixed if you can afford to and the parts are still drifting around. Disk-players we tend to re-purchase. Its a matter of availability.

I suppose one of the best features of projectors is that they are more hardware driven, so more simply repaired. Disk players on the other hand are cheap if you want them to be, or expensive if you're a top-of-the-line sort.

The one thing I can say about disk technology, is that it's at least been backwards compatible. It's convenient that I can pop a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray in the same player. That was never terribly practical with film. My Eumig did a nice job of playing 8mm or Super 8mm, but sadly had a self-contained sound-head that couldn't be cleaned, and the bulb socket corroded twice. The sound-head thing really annoyed me, because if it eventually produced really dim sound, and I had to snip films if they needed to be removed from a faulty self-threading.

I'm not trying to start a film VS disk debate, because people should collect and use what they like and are comfortable with. Again, it's all gonna bite the dust some day, whether it's laser rot, planned obsolescence, vinegar syndrome, or a burned out motor with no replacement.

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on August 25, 2014, 08:20 AM:

Well said, Timothy!

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 25, 2014, 08:40 AM:

It seems that my preeceding message was not published. Timothy, I asked you what you mean by "resurface". Is that putting a product on the disc or a more elaborate technic ? That could be an interesting solution. I bought and tried a "home repair kit" but it was completely inefficient (it consists on putting a liquid product on the disc). However, I discovered that a cd that cannot be played anymore in my cd player can be copied on my computer. I discovered that just before going on holiday so I have to check if it works will all the cds or if I was just lucky with the one I tried.

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on August 26, 2014, 03:39 PM:

Hey Dominique,

Some used CD and DVD shops have resurfacing machines that buff away surface abrasions on the underside of your disks. I have had some pretty scuffy disks returned to "like new" condition. There are probably on-line services that do it too.

The process is not recommended for Blu-ray, as they have a protective scratch coating on the bottom. I've never had a scratched Blu-ray, even when they arrived off the hub in transit, so it's been a non issue for me.

Most decent CD and DVD players do multiple scans of a disk so that if there are only minor scuffs, it doesn't effect playback. So I wouldn't bother with disks that don't actually have playback issues.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 26, 2014, 11:11 PM:

Thank you, Timothy. I will check that.

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