Anyone used the M Disc, DVDs

[Bill Huber]

I just ran across this and am wondering if they are really any better then a good DVD.

I have some CDs that I burned about 8 years ago and I have a problem reading some of them.

I have now scanned in all my 4000 slides and want to put them on DVDs so the M Disc looks like it maybe the way to go.
I have all 4000 images on the cloud but I would like to have them on a DVD also, that way the kids can get to them without a problem.
I don't think I will be around in 1000 years to test them but someone could be. They say they can be read by any DVD reader.

You do have to have a drive that works with them but they are cheap, I saw an LG on Amazon for $20. The disk are a lot higher then most, like $3.00 each but then that is cheap if they really last that long.

http://www.mdisc.com/

Is anyone using them????

[Jim Koepke]

I don't think I will be around in 1000 years to test them but someone could be. They say they can be read by any DVD reader.

Some of my purchased music is on old 45 rpm records, 33-1/3 rpm albums, eight track cassettes, regular cassettes and a CDs. The only ones I can now access are mostly from CDs. I do still have a turntable but do not know where my pre-amp got to during our move 8+ years ago.

The DVD player will likely be around a little longer than Beta Max video recorders, but I wouldn't bet on it being in use a lot in 15 years let alone 1,000.

jtk

[Keith Outten]

Jim,

Most of the Television audio systems have the RC jack inputs that turntables use. I still have a turntable and an AKAI reel to reel tape that I can plug into my Bose TV sound system.
.

[Eric DeSilva]

I use the LG burner and M-Discs for backups (well, backups of the redundant RAID). Not too long ago my $9.99/year unlimited bitcasa account went to a limited 10TB account at $999/yr, which left me looking for alternatives. I actually used Amazon's Prime Photo Service to back the family pictures up to the cloud--Amazon is now hosting over 600 GB of pictures for me for the cost of Prime membership, which is justified by the shipping anyway. Color me a fan of that service.

Anyway, I needed a back up for my music library and the commercial photos my wife shoots (Amazon's cloud photo deal is personal use only), and landed on the M-Discs. So far, I've been pretty happy with the system (although the LG burner seems to want some update every time I restart my machine). The discs take a while to burn, but my checks on the burned content came out clean. It does get pricey when you are backing up a 6TB RAID, however.

So, I can attest they work relatively normally. As far as the claimed lifetime, check back with me in 999 years. When I first ran across them I just thought it was marketing hype, but I got behind them after reading the DoD test results backing up a lot of their claims, which are accessible on their site. Nothing is 100% safe, but this seems pretty solid.

I should clarify--I have the LG BE14NU40 external M-Disc compatible writer, which was about $150 when I bought it. It is USB3.0, so pretty fast. The internal drives weren't consistent with the computer case I own.

[Chuck Wintle]

I just ran across this and am wondering if they are really any better then a good DVD.

I have some CDs that I burned about 8 years ago and I have a problem reading some of them.

I have now scanned in all my 4000 slides and want to put them on DVDs so the M Disc looks like it maybe the way to go.
I have all 4000 images on the cloud but I would like to have them on a DVD also, that way the kids can get to them without a problem.
I don't think I will be around in 1000 years to test them but someone could be. They say they can be read by any DVD reader.

You do have to have a drive that works with them but they are cheap, I saw an LG on Amazon for $20. The disk are a lot higher then most, like $3.00 each but then that is cheap if they really last that long.

http://www.mdisc.com/

Is anyone using them????

maybe archival quality disks are the one to use. Have no idea where to buy them now. Kodak made them at one time but no more. Possibly the cloud it the best place or maybe an external drive just for that job.

[David Masters]

I haven't, but this sounds intriguing, and thanks for bringing it to my attention. I have tens of thousands of images that I've taken or digitized and recovered from old family slides. I tried storing them on a DVD and within 3 years, the discs were unreadable. I now keep everything backed up to RAID arrays. I store a fraction of my images on Cloud storage for off-site disaster recovery, but M Disc might be a reasonable supplemental off-site storage solution. I'm surprised how inexpensive the burners are. Like all of these technologies, I worry that lack of adoption over the long term will leave me with unreadable media as equipment breaks down and no replacements can be found.

[Ole Anderson]

A less expensive media option is DVD-RAM discs which claim a 30 year longevity and almost unlimited re-write capability along with a much tougher scratch resistant surface. I have used them extensively in our church video program with many discs being reused more than 20 times with hour long videos. Not all operating systems or DVD burners are RAM compatible.

[Myk Rian]

I just ran across this and am wondering if they are really any better then a good DVD.

For backups or long term storage (1,000 years), yes.

[Duane Meadows]

Jim,

Most of the Television audio systems have the RC jack inputs that turntables use. I still have a turntable and an AKAI reel to reel tape that I can plug into my Bose TV sound system.
.

Yes, but magnetic phono cartridges have microvolt not millivolt output! Ceramic phone cartridge? Yep, your ok. Magnetic not so much. And those preamps are harder to come by than they used to be.

[Shawn Pixley]

They make turntables with a preamp built in because few have the microvolt turntable input anymore. LOML/SWMBO is getting a lot of vinyl these days. Some artists are releasing a lot of music on vinyl. Mostly Indie recordings and Prog these days but some older artists are re-mixing or re-mastering their older catalogue.

Of course there at the turntables which export a digital signal. But I suspect the A/D converter is substandard.

[Curt Harms]

maybe archival quality disks are the one to use. Have no idea where to buy them now. Kodak made them at one time but no more. Possibly the cloud it the best place or maybe an external drive just for that job.

Here's one source for archival media:

http://www.mediasupply.com/cd-dvd-media.html

I think Jim's point about being able to find a player capable of reading DVDs in say, 50 years is a valid concern. Of course in 50 years there may exist a way to read DVDs without a spinning drive using some sort of laser scanner. The trick would be to recognize and decyper the data format. The Mdisc might well be worth the $ if they're stored in less than optimal conditions. I think most if not all LG drives will write Mdisc, any drive will read it. I did some reading on why optical discs become unreadable, it was pretty interesting. One thing I stopped doing is using paper labels.

[Eric DeSilva]

I looked at the DVD-RAM discs when I was going through my decision making process. I found the media was equally expensive, but the M-Discs stored five times as much and could be burned at 12X speeds.

[Bill Huber]

Thanks for all the input, it helps to get real information.

I ordered 10 M Disc and the LG burner we will see how it goes.

I guess I will come back in 999 years and give you some input on how they lasted.

[Myk Rian]

I guess I will come back in 999 years and give you some input on how they lasted.

You do that.
All my drives are Mdisc capable and I have a pack of discs. Just haven't burned any yet. Darned things are a bit pricey.

[Eric DeSilva]

It isn't just the output level that is a concern--a phono pre-amp will include an equalization curve that is pretty significant. Essentially, phono recordings are pre-biased, and that has to be undone at the pre-amp stage. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization.