Dumb DVD-r question

[Mikey]

Was talking to a buddy.

He said a burned blank DVD-r can be erased (not always) if it's in front of a running microwave oven.

This doesn't seem right to me, I thought only something magnetic can be erased like that -- ie a tape.

what do you say ?

[toyman]

I thought the -r stood for re-recordable upto so many times.

[kennermike]

Im not an expert but their is a difference between DVD+R & DVD-R.DVD-R can be erased

[ctc]

>This doesn't seem right to me

Me either; especially since the emissions from a microwave are pretty low. -R and +R has something to do with recording.... I dunno what, but a freind of mine said "+R is more of a European thing...." I use +R disks all the time.

RW are the reusable ones.

Don C.

[jacoblb]

Never heard of such a thing even in regards to DVD-RW/DVD+RW rather than DVD-R/DVD+R. Perhaps there's some confusion about the media.

[MicromanZone]

Im not an expert but their is a difference between DVD+R & DVD-R.DVD-R can be erased

100% not the case. The difference between DVD+R & DVD-R is marketing; one group of companies worked on one standard and another on the other. Nothing more and nothing less. DVD+RW & DVD-RW can be rewritten.

That said I seem to recall that DVD+R had the capability of being used as a DVD+RW only in certain drives and only with certain software. Again that was part of the marketing.

Also note that prior to DVD+R being invented, DVD-R was just referred to when spoken as “DVD R” (aka: “DVD ARRRRR!!!”) What DVD+R did was allow marketing to slickly change that to “DVD MINUS R!” I mean who wants to buy a “minus” when you can buy a “plus!” This one goes up to 11!

As far as longevity, I never heard of the microwave story. I do know that the pigment used for the media is photosensitive; that is how it can be “burned.” So if you leave a pile of CD-Rs and DVD-Rs out in the sun, it will degrade over time. Heck, I have personally had DVD-R media go bad on me stored in a drawer away from the sun as well. And happily the first incident of that happening was on something non-vital so from that day forward I bought a huge stack of the best media I could find (Taiyo-Yuden) and burned two copies of what I needed archived as the slowest to medium speed. That’s the key also; faster is not quality and I am fairly convinced that burning at the slower than 1/2 rated speed for the drive gives a better burn.

The best long-term solution for backups I have found past tapes (which have their own issue) is simply buying multiple hard drives of different brand and backup that way. Unless dropped or abused, hard drives will last longer than any burnable media. And when you spread your bets between brands it gives better chances since you can never predict which company is making the “lemon” hard drives nowadays.

SSD and Flash media stink for long term storage as well. I have had Flash drives simply become unreadable for no reason.