Get your 1000-year DVD now.

[RJ Johnston]

We've talked about it before, but now it's here, the 1000-year DVD for about US $3.00:

http://www.zdnet.com/the-1000-year-dvd- ... 000009771/

[_Paz_]

Cool! Thanks for sharing!

The only thing I don't like about what I've read so far is that there is no way to label the disc, except maybe 'hand' writing around the inner core. The jewel case needs to hold the label.

Here's another link, it seems currently only DVD size data storage is available. They expect to produce BluRay data space size discs by summer, 2013.

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/creative-hardware/m-blu-ray-disc-offers-lifetime-of-storage/

Oh, and it takes a special writer to burn them. But they don't seem to be exorbitantly expensive.

[TreeTopsRanch]

Well maybe you can burn them today but can you really imagine trying to read that thing 1000 years from now?

[_Paz_]

Nah, I think I'll be pushing up daisies.

But I now find myself wondering if the photos I've saved to CDs and DVDs from trips along the Big Sur coastline and Yellowstone are still viewable. I've been counting on having them to paint from.

And I worry about selling a product that might not 'be there' only a few years down the road. If current optical storage fails that quickly, it would be better to print a book.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Well maybe you can burn them today but can you really imagine trying to read that thing 1000 years from now?

They might last a thousand years but I very seriously doubt that DVD technology will around in fifty years, never mind a thousand. Some other archival data storage technology will surely have emerged by then(?), but I very much doubt that I'll be around to witness it.

[Steve Grisetti]

I've still got my 1000 year floppy disc!

[Peru]

3 1/2 or 5 1/4?

[Bob]

8"

[Ron]

8"

Oh oh, now we're starting to age ourselves!

We're gonna scare the kids away!

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

[Peru]

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=8+i ... &_from=R40

[Chuck Engels]

I still have two 5 1/4 floppy drives and a bunch of floppy discs somewhere in a box. Last time I tried there was no way to connect them to a current system.

[TreeTopsRanch]

"no way to connect them to a current system"

Yes, and that will be the problem with those 1000 year dvd's.

[Dave McElderry]

"no way to connect them to a current system"

Yes, and that will be the problem with those 1000 year dvd's.

By then humans will have evolved so much that we'll just be able to look at the disc and see the video!

[_Paz_]

By then humans will have evolved so much that we'll just be able to look at the disc and see the video!

Funny!

Cold and rainy here yesterday. I went through about 30 discs and every one was okay. A copy of Windows 1998 operating system was the oldest at l4 and a half years. A Dreamweaver 3 tutorial was burned December 14, 1999.

Back in roughly 2001 Espon came out with their first archival printers. I think I had the 1270 and Carole Steele, then Adobe Photoshop forum host, who lives in England, had the one that used pigments rather than dyes. To test color management, which must have been a new feature in Photoshop at the time, we swapped files and printed our own and the other's images then mailed the resulting prints to one another. The results were fabulous. Except for the difference in the types of ink the two printers (both Epsons) used, the prints were identical. I opened the disc with my image file, one of my paintings, and the colors look perfect on my color calibrated screen today. The painting is downstairs. I see it every day. I could still make prints of that image with the files on the old disc.

I also have another 30 or so discs full of images from travels to Montana and countless others of photos taken closer to home. Haven't tried them yet, but now, instead of expecting them to be gone, I'm pretty confident they will be fine.

What a relief!

The discs have been stored in jewel cases all these years but the room they are in has been subjected to freezing through high heat and humidity. Now I'm wondering if all the discs that are supposed to have failed after 5 years or so are ones that have either been exposed to light often by having been taken out of their jewel cases, or perhaps if exposure to the laser itself makes them fail quickly.

The discs were Maxell, Imation and Memorex, all CD-R, speed writing ranges from 1 - 12 through 1 - 50, but I probably burned them all at 4x.