CD versus DVD: futureproofness

Off-topic
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What is the most futureproof: CD or DVD? There are two sides to this: technical longevity (CD or DVD ‘rot’) and format survival. As for the latter: who can still read a 5.25" floppy? It’s tempting to say DVD because it is the newest. But then again, DVD has been on the market for a few years, and has already a bewildering multitude of formats like -R, +R, +RAM, Double Layer, and more coming. CD (for data) has been relatively stable for more than 10 years or so.

I’m asking this because I want to make a ‘definite’ choice as to what to put our family photos on, and maybe other files to keep. Since hard disks keep growing it seems that the full collection can stay on hard disk, but that will be on my ‘own’ computer. So for the rest of the family to browse the pics they should be on something else, and CD or DVD seems the logical choice. Also if I make disks for grandparents and such. So, which one, CD or DVD? To complicate matters: some people (like my own parents) cannot read DVD’s, just CD’s.

Your opinions are appreciated.

Klaas Bil

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Re: CD versus DVD: futureproofness

With the price of DVD players, this part of the equation can be ignored. When you deliver the first DVD, you can give a DVD player as a present.

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I still have a working 5.25" floppy drive. Would you like a copy of Matlab for DOS? :wink:

Why don’t you just have the important family photos developed and put in a photo album? That’s pretty future proof, and everyone can read it.

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To answer the orignal question. The DVD is far more furutre proof than the CD DVD is the new standard for movies, however mp3’s are quickly becomingmore popular, and I bet will soon die off, and be replaced with chips, or mp3’s…

I can’t even read the smalle floppy’s, all i have is a DVD-/+rrw drive and a CD drive. However I do have an All in one: SD/MMC/SM/MS/MS-Pro/CF/Microdrive on the front of my compy, so I just upload all of my pics that way, without any extraneous software.

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I was thinking DVD drive in a PC. Several times, I’ve made photo CDs with html interface for participants in a music week or similar events. Wouldn’t want to hand out tens of free DVD drives.

Might be an idea for the important ones, good old paper can be read by anyone. But I want to make digital albums with all photos.

Just because it’s newer doesn’t mean it will stay around longer. That’s exactly my point - how long will the DVD survive before being obsolete, outdated etc.

Thanks for your replies so far, more opinions welcome.

Klaas Bil

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DVD’s are soooo yesterday.

There is yet another couple formats on the horizon, along with a new format war for supremacy, to make us guess which one will be the one will survive.

Some movies will be released on HD-DVD, and other movies will be released on Blu-Ray discs, depending on the studio/owner.

Blu-ray Disc counts 15 major backers on its board and offers single-layer discs of 25GB capacity and dual-layer discs of double that. HD-DVD has a lesser number of electronics companies behind the format and its discs are lower capacity at around 15GB for a single-layer disc.

HD-DVD players for movies are likely to be on the market before the end of 2005 before comparable Blu-ray Disc movie players, according to current commercialization plans. Disc production costs for HD-DVD are likely to be lower, say disc makers.

To date HD-DVD has picked up support from four major content producers: Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Studios, Universal Pictures, and New Line Cinema. Until this week the only major movie studio to announce support for Blu-ray Disc was Sony’s Sony Pictures unit. Earlier this week Walt Disney and its Buena Vista Home Entertainment division threw their weight behind the format.

In addition to Thomson, the other Blu-ray Disc board members are Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Koninklijke Philips Electronics, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi Electric, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony, TDK, Twentieth Century Fox, and Walt Disney Pictures and Television.

The largest companies behind HD-DVD are Toshiba, NEC, and Sanyo Electric, and it’s also backed by the DVD Forum.

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I see both the CD format and DVD format surviving for a while. You’re going to be able to buy a CD or DVD drive for a computer for a many decades to come (I hope). People have so much data and stuff on CD or DVD that the format is going to have to stay around for a long time. Libraries are archiving data on CDs and other optical storage. They will need to be able to read those disks 50 years or 100 years from now. They have plans for copying the data from old disks to new disks (or new media) as the disks get to the end of their archival life.

There will come a time when computers will no longer come stock with a CD or DVD drive. They’ll have the next new format whatever it is. But you’ll still be able to get the drives. At that time you can start thinking about transferring all the data you have on CD or DVD to that new format. I just recently transfered the data from a bunch of floppies to CD. The floppies were in some cases 20 years old. It was getting to the point that I wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them were not readable due to age (and in fact, one of them did have problems and I couldn’t read a part of the disk). Eventually any media is going to reach the end of it’s storage life and you’re going to have to transfer the data to new media.

The new tech like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are compatible with the old DVD and CD format. Meaning the new drives will be able to read the old disks. I expect that style of backwards compatibility will continue as there are more advancements. At least I hope that type of backwards compatibility will continue. I’ve got my photos and other data backed up to CD and DVD right now. I want to be able to read those disks in 20 or 40 years.

For info on the care and handling of CDs and DVDs for archival use check out the 50 page PDF document here:
NIST: Digital Data Preservation Program. There is also info here about proper labeling. Using an adhesive label or using the wrong kind of pen can decrease the storage life of a CD or DVD. If you’re worried about the longevity of the data on the disk then pay attention to what he says about labeling.

For longevity, the CD-R and DVD-R (or DVD+R) disks are going to last longer than the rewritable versions. If it’s data you want to keep for many years then put it on a write once kind of disk.

On computers the CD drive is still more common than a DVD drive. Lots of older computers do not have a DVD drive. Eventually that will be less of an issue as old computers die away, but for now the CD is more universal.

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i think either way would be fine for a long time in the future. Optical drives are great because they can be made backwards compatable very easily, it’d be stupid not to. The cd has been around for 20-ish years. still the standard. Most people don’t even have cd burners yet, though they are getting much more common. Not too many have dvd burners. Any optical media should be fine.

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thats the best idea ive seen yet…

wont PC’s be obsolete one day too?

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I pray every night that that will never happen in my lifetime…

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Off-site network storage would be best for digital storage longevity. In the future we’ll probably have access to our data from anywhere, buy our music, movies and such online and storage media will be obsolete. But for now, I see that most optical drives will be compatible with the older standards starting with CDs. The new drives for HD will also read CDs and DVDs. So, the big question is how much data do you have to store? I have both a DVD burner and a CD burner, and I write more CDs than DVDs because I’m not writing enough data on a disc to may it worthwhile to “waste” all the space available on a DVD.

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You’re stuck in the past man…

PCs will probably become obsolete, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be replaced by something else… it’s like worshipping the typewriter back when they were new hoping that they never go away.

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Sorry.

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For the end user maybe. But that online storage will have to use some medium for the actual storage I think? If anyone on these fora knows that it must be you.

Anyways, thanks all. I wasn’t aware how easy it is to make optical storage devices backwards compatible. My conclusion is to use a DVD if the intended recipient has a DVD drive /and/ the amount of data is too much for a CD, and to use a CD in all other cases.

Klaas Bil

Today (30 December) is the last day this year that is not the last day this year.