Ken Durling wrote: Not magnetic tapes - the adhesive that holds the particles to the substrate deteriorates in 15 years or so. I know this from bitter experience. It also matters greatly if the tapes are stored head or tail out. The print-through resulting from long-term storage head out can obliterate material on neighboring layers. Cassettes - well they don't last long at all.
There have been library archive studies that have put a similar short life on CD's, and even less on DVDs - the laminate deteriorates. Obviously again, storage conditions make all the difference, just with like photographs. Ken ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------- Hi Ken, I agree with you but at the same time have cassettes I recorded 25 years ago that still play today. Yes, I do understand print through and with magnetic tapes that is a factor but this too varies depending on the materials used to make the tape, Chromium Oxide, Ferric Oxide, etc. DVDs and CDs will last longer but the key there as you noted is storage. Much like Ektachrome slides, light destroys CDs/DVDs. The trick is to burn your media at the slowest rate to ensure a better deeper burn (I do mine at 1x) and then store them in black sleeved binder and put them in a closet somewhere. Do this and they will last 25 years or more with no deterioration. By that time we will have replaced them with some other media anyway. :-) Peter K * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
