CD-Rs and DVD-Rs

[Dave2002]

Slightly to my surprise I find myself burning CDs and DVDs in modest quantities again.

I noticed that the Taiyo Yuden media seem to be in short supply, with one firm saying its stocks are low, but also with a warning to avoid fakes. There is, perhaps obviously, a danger that that firm might also be supplying fakes, but at a high price - kind of a bluff! Is there a reliable/reputable supplier of this kind of media right now? Maybe even the one I've found. Are the Amazon sellers reliable?

If those discs are going to be phased out/no longer available, are there any other recommended discs for good quality, long term storage which will continue to be available - at least for a while?

This now seems like a minefield to me - I hadn't noticed this creeping up. Obsolescence coming along, as "everyone" shifts to non physical media - except that I do know people who want CDs and DVDs. In the latter case I discovered, after a while, that DVDs are a real pain, as for video a significant part of the process is the MPEG encoding. I could barely believe how time consuming that is, though as MPEG is an asymmetric codec - the encode takes longer than the decode, on reflection that's not so surprising.

Supplying video files in other forms, for example, on USB sticks, seems a lot easier - but not everyone can deal with those.

[Bryn]

Some years ago Taiyo Yuden were effectively taken over by JVC. Last year they announced their withdrawal from the optical media business.

[Dave2002]

Indeed. Perhaps CD-Rs and DVD-Rs are really going to disappear from the shops in a year or so, though will that have an adverse impact on some people? Perhaps it doesn't really matter. If such media is still to be available, it'd be a shame if it's only cheap low quality media which will be sold.

[Bryn]

Supplying video files in other forms, for example, on USB sticks, seems a lot easier - but not everyone can deal with those.

One major problem with video on USB sticks is that most playback devices with USB facilities can only read from FAT 32 format. This limits the file size to 2GB. That's not much use for a day of Licht or a Wagner music-drama in high definition. I recently managed to download a 6GB+ video recording but had to re-format a USB stick to NTFS to take it. Even so, I still have to play it back through a computer. None of my HiFi units can handle NTFS.

[gurnemanz]

I own a several rewritable CDRs (JVC) which I have been using for years as the only means I could think of at the time for transferring analogue sound (radio recording, cassettes, LPs) from my amp to my computer. My Pioneer-609 CD Recorder is still in good order and somewhat to my amazement and admiration the discs still work faultlessly after frequent re-writing. I suppose they won't go on for ever and maybe I should provide for the future and invest in a few more discs if there is a chance of their becoming unavailable. Alternatively, there is probably another method I could use for doing this kind of digitisation.

[johnb]

DVDShopOnline (where I used to by my Taiyo Yuden discs from) have stocks but they say:

Taiyo Yuden Production Changes - Please note that we are now entering the transition phase between Taiyo Yuden branded products and CMC Powered by TY Technology branded product. This is as a result of CMC purchasing the production facilities from Taiyo Yuden Japan. Some of our stock is the traditional TY branded products, however, this is gradually being replaced by the CMC branded replacements. The discs themselves are manufactured on the same production facilities and to the same high standards, only the name on the packaging is changing.

I have no idea whether this is accurate but I found DVDshoponline to be a dependable supplier in the past.

[Bryn]

This might prove to be of interest.

[Dave2002]

One major problem with video on USB sticks is that most playback devices with USB facilities can only read from FAT 32 format. This limits the file size to 2GB. That's not much use for a day of Licht or a Wagner music-drama in high definition. I recently managed to download a 6GB+ video recording but had to re-format a USB stick to NTFS to take it. Even so, I still have to play it back through a computer. None of my HiFi units can handle NTFS.

Indeed, again. I noticed recently that we were slightly at odds over file sizes - but you are right - the file size limit is 2 Gbytes (usually comes up as 1.99 Gb, as that seems to be when things give up) - but strictly the volume limit, according to something I read today is actually 4 Gbytes. I guess this isn't quite the state of affairs nowadays, as many SDHC cards and USB sticks seem to work with FAT32 even up to 32 Gbyte or more. As we know, some devices span files over several different names, or find some other way round, but this again isn't always the case. For example, the "old" Zoom q2hd and q3hd camcorders - since they are classed as camcorders can actually keep going - using spanning techniques, whereas "standard" DSLRs and bridge cameras, which may actually have better video capabilities (though often worse sound) will give up when they hit certain limits - partly due to technology, and partly due to the EU!

I don't know whether any cameras will take cards formatted in any other format - even if it is "just" Win compatible NTFS. It seems silly to limit file sizes nowadays, when there is little real technological need to do so, and when it is quite feasible for some audio and video files to be really rather large.