Alston Grove

Some of my media has worn out and some is on the verge of obsolescence. Media deteriorates from common environmental factors like heat, moisture, and light. For CD and DVD discs, oxidation is often the reason for failure. Magnetic media seems even more susceptible: small electric fields, dust, and mold can also weaken it. For tapes, simple things like using “pause” too much or leaving the tape partially wound can weaken the signal. If the media doesn’t fail, it may still become unusable as the format loses support. I have a bunch of Video 8 tapes and no way to play them. I may have to send them to a service like Home Movie Depot to get them digitized and recorded on modern media.

My plan is to go gold — to store everything on archival gold DVD and CD media. They actually use gold in the reflective layer, which is naturally inert and resistant to the environment. The dye used to write the data is also specially formulated to be very stable and accurate. Some archival media come with a scratch-resistant coating on the surface as well. Using N.I.S.T.’s (National Institute of Standards and Technology) accelerated aging process to test these media, they are expected to last 100 years for DVDs and 300 years for CDs. Based on those tests, my idea is to convert movies to DVD and store photos and other files on CD. I bought a spindle of Vertbatim Ultralife Gold Archival discs and a solvent-free pen for labeling them. Now, if I can just keep the kids from treating them like frisbees, I’ll be golden.