Hi there,
I was just wondering if the Bluray discs have been developed well enough to have the same amount of lifetime expectancy as Taiyo Yuden DVD-R’s or are they a lot weaker with a short lifetime expectancy?
I just remember someone telling me to stay clear of these Blu ray discs and was wondering if this is still the case? Or maybe things have improved a bit now?
Thank you.
In my opinion, the Blu-Ray are going through the same problems that the recordable CD came out over 15 years ago, and then when the the recordable DVD(+/-) was released during the 1x days, around 2002, I believe?
When manufacturers first started producing these optical discs on a major scale (Where they cost around £1 a piece back then) the dyes used to produce the discs were still in it’s nappies and haven’t really formulated enough to actually become stable for the long term. Certainly some may still have a few good discs, but the paranoia that discs degrade over weeks/months was simply down to bad manufacturing and formula which wasn’t quite perfect.
Not that the formula is fantastic obviously, but newer discs are expected to last far, far longer than the discs that came out when they first released. Take the humble CD-R - The formula has now developed enough to actually be a stable, reliable format. DVD’s are simply playing catchup. Say what you like about CMC and Ritek, their dyes are now far more stable than they were years ago.
The same is happening, again, with Blu-Ray now; It simply hasn’t being around long enough to certify how long these discs will last. I haven’t got a Blu-Ray player, let alone recorder, but do a lot of intensive television recording on my cheap and cheerful DVD Vistron recorder., using Maxell (Using RitekF1 dye) discs and have had no serious problems with them. Only really one or two failures from the 100 I’ve used. Give or take 
I advise stay away for several reasons. One of which is the sheer cost of Blu-Ray, with prices now falling to £1 a disc. Sure, that doesn’t seem much, but over time, and doing lots of burning it does add up. How many people do you know have Blu-Ray players? The dye isn’t stable enough, and the fact is for storing intense amounts of data a portable hard drive will (in theory certainly) outlive a Blu-Ray disc and economically they work out better value for money than a spindle of Blu-Ray.
Discs are dirt cheap now. You can get a CDs and DVDs for less than 10p a disc if you know where to look (Obviously not Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim ) and many people refused to upgrade to Blu-Ray because there isn’t any point shelling out for all new High Definition when a DVD is good enough. Films are more expensive than DVD, and for many of us the picture quality and extra sound quality are simply not enough to tempt us into Blu-Ray.
Until Blu-Ray recorders and discs come competative with DVD recorders and discs, their ain’t a prayer I’m moving onto Blu-Ray. The market is in downloadable films, and I’ve ONLY just moved onto DVD myself! (Bought recorder last year).
In short - Stay far, far away from Blu-Ray.
I don’t see a reason to go all panicky about blu ray longevity. If you haven’t used them, or read the technical articles about the format, it is pure speculation to say that the blu ray disks are time bombs ready to detonate at any time.
The Verbatim brand blu ray disks (non LTH) are proving to be a good choice at the lower end of the price spectrum. The vast majority of those burning blu ray who have used these disks, are pleased with their results. It is a bit early to have meaningful user reports on longevity with them, but at one time the same situation existed for TY cds or Verbatim dvds. So far so good is about the most we can say for the Verbatim bd disks.
If you have more money to invest in blank blu ray media, the Japanese made disks sold under the Sony and Panasonic brands have also had good reports from end users over the last three years.
There is nothing wrong with the technology, not any more than for dvds at the present time. But blu ray has limitations in storage space and hard drives have surpassed them easily in that regard. I don’t really see much use for the format beyond blu ray video, but in that limited area the blank media works just fine.
By the way, HD video blows most dvd video out of the water.
So, to sum up, if you need a backup of a blu ray video on a disk, rather than in a hard drive, the current technology works well enough. Blu ray’s inherent limitations on size and its price versus hard drives makes it a less attractive option for data storage. And flash drives beat it for ease of use when making temporary copies that need to be transported/shared by means other than over a network.
Kerry56,
Okay, perhaps I did overexaggerate about the Blu-Ray disc longevity. I never said that they were time bombs however, but it’s like you said yourself, it’s too early to say how long the Blu-Ray disc will last. What are we in now, 4x?
Certainly there is nothing wrong with the format in itself, Blu-Ray gives excellent quality video which blows the DVD out of the water a lot of the time. Don’t get me wrong HD video is a wonderful thing, but is it worth kitting my house out with Blu-Ray players, as well as re-purchase my DVD collection (Mind, you can still play DVD on a Blu-Ray player) and High Definition televisions? Never.
And again as you said yourself; Hard drives and flash drives often outweigh the cost of a blank Blu-Ray disc, particularly if you need to to write then write again, and again…
To it’s credit however, once Blu-Ray has fallen to DVD prices I might consider investing in them for their apparent superior scratch-proof surfaces.
[QUOTE=jason69uk;2593511]Hi there,
I was just wondering if the Bluray discs have been developed well enough to have the same amount of lifetime expectancy as Taiyo Yuden DVD-R’s or are they a lot weaker with a short lifetime expectancy?
I just remember someone telling me to stay clear of these Blu ray discs and was wondering if this is still the case? Or maybe things have improved a bit now?
Thank you.[/QUOTE]
Opinions and misinformation aside, Blu-ray materials and manufacturing have progressed to where you can expect a reasonable lifespan from them. Panasonic and Falcon have released accelerated aging tests of their media rating them at 50+ years. While this may be overly optimistic, those same tests have been a good indicator of comparative CD and DVD longevity among brands over the years. Similar to Mr. Bronson’s 10p a disc CDs and DVDs, there are Blu-ray manufacturers using less sophisticated machinery and cheaper materials to churn out media that is highly unlikely to have the same kind of durability.
I would advise you to stay clear of the bargain basement BD-R’s, just as you should not expect to get more than you paid for from CD’s or DVD’s ;).
My rule of thumb for even the generic blue rays is about 3 years ablsolute minimum. I think the market preference for LOW COST does put pressure on quality & longevity in the media. Consumers didn’t want to pay $3-$10 for cd-r and DVD media so the substrate used for them changed from a metallic backing with substrate dye applied to it to just imprinting the dye between two layers of polycabornate (plastic), then spraying a lablel coating on top. (some are blank mainly seen with cd-r & dvdr than with current blu-rays, injet printable or logotop)
BTW the brands I’ve heard that are good are:
verbatim
taiyo yuden (if you can find who sells their blu ray stuff)
I’ve also heard about good scans with TDK (imation?) brand BD-R. Also scans have not been as accurate a deciding factor in logevity tests compared with cd-r & dvdr’s… we just don’t have enough data & time to prove that scans correlate to logevity yet and that’s one reason why blu-ray manufacturers have shunned adding the feature. If you want to warehouse data, I suggest backing data up on multiple (cheap) hard drives which you swap out at regular intervals and buy every 2-3 years. Also, I’ve been heard that the drives should be utilized once every several months so the bearing dont’ cease up. Run a sector scan to prevent low power saving drive timeout.
Last, but not least… my first Blu Ray discs were burned late 2010 (optical quantum 4x), So I’ll update you in about 5 years to see how they’ve hold-up in the logevity index. Should BD-R drives go under $50 by then I’ll likely buy another that SCANS MEDIA! One more recommendation, if you can possibly avoid it, don’t write on a disc with a marker! I’m just putting post-its over the sleeves with the contents.