Following a recent move, Dan Koster discovered that 15-20% of his collection of CDs, which he always took good care of, would no longer play properly. His collection was suffering from “CD rot,” a gradual deterioration of the data-carrying layer. It’s not known for sure how common the blight is, but it’s just one of a number of reasons that optical discs, including DVDs, may be a lot less long-lived than first thought. “We were all told that CDs were well-nigh indestructible when they were introduced in the mid ’80s,” Koster says. “Companies used that in part to justify the higher price of CDs as well.”
Koster has taken to copying his CDs on his computer to extend the life of the recordings. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to figure out how long those recordable CDs will work. “When you go to a store and buy a DVD-R, and this goes for CD-R as well, you really don’t know what you’re getting,” says Fred Byers, an information technology specialist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. “If you buy a particular brand of disc, and then get the same disc and brand six months later, it can be very different.”
Read the full story from CNN News.
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