There has been some controversy about the expected 100-year shelf life of the organic polymer dye recording layer used in CD-Rs. A recent article in PC Active suggests that some CD-Rs become unreadable in as little as two years due to dye fade. Further testing is required to determine the extent of the problem, which seems to depend on the variety of dye that is used. The best dye type seems to be Phthalocyanine which is very durable.
Cyanine (which looks blue or blue-green) is the most widely used, is the cheapest and appears to be the most problematic. The remaining dye types (such as Formazan and AZO) appear to provide intermediate results.
The dyes used in some DVDs are similar to those used in CD-Rs, and so it would be reasonable to expect problems similar to those noted above.
Related posts:
November 9th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
just keep on!