Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists

Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists

by Fred R. Byers

October 2003

Copublished by Council on Library and Information Resources and National Institute of Standards and Technology

Contents

National Institute of Standards and Technology
About the Author
Author's Acknowledgments
Quick Reference Guide

1. Introduction

1.1 Scope of This Guide
1.2 Use of Terms: Information, Content, and Data
1.3 Comparative Stability of Optical Discs and Other Media
1.4 CDs and DVDs: Operation and Variety

2. Ensuring That Your Digital Content Remains Available

3. Disc Structure

3.1 Polycarbonate (Plastic) Substrate Layer
3.2 Data Layer
3.2.1 Data Layer in ROM Discs
3.2.2 Data Layer in R Discs
3.2.3 Data Layer in RW and RAM discs
3.3 Metal (Reflective) Layer
3.3.1 Metal Layer in RW, ROM, and RAM Discs
3.3.2 Metal Layer in R Discs
3.3.3 Metal Layers in Double-Layer DVD-ROM Discs
3.4 Lacquer (Metal Protective) Layer (CDs)
3.5 Optional Surface Layer

4. How Long Can You Store CDs and DVDs and Use Them Again?

4.1 CD-ROM, DVD-ROM Discs
4.2 CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R Discs
4.3 CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM Discs

5. Conditions That Affect CDs and DVDs

5.1 Environmental Conditions
5.1.1 Temperature and Relative Humidity
5.1.2 Light Exposure
5.1.3 Moisture
5.1.4 Organic Solvents
5.1.5 Magnetism, X-rays, Microwaves, and Radiation
5.1.6 Individual Disc Storage
5.2 Surface-Handling Effects
5.2.1 Scratches on the Laser-Reading Side of CDs and DVDs
5.2.2 Scratches on the Label Side of CDs
5.2.3 Scratches on the Label Side of Single-Sided DVDs
5.2.4 Fingerprints, Smudges, Dirt, and Dust
5.2.5 Marking
5.2.6 Flexing
5.2.7 Application of Adhesive Labels
5.2.8 Disc Surface Printing
5.3 Wear from Disc Play

6. Cleaning

Appendix 1: Commercially Available CD/DVD Disc Types
Appendix 2: Optical Media Drive Types and How They Handle Different Disc Types

Glossary
Bibliography

Tables

Table 1: Disc type, read/record type, data layer, and metal layer
Table 2: Dye type and color appearance—CD-R discs (recordable discs)
Table 3: Recommended storage parameters from different sources

Figures

Figure 1: User-removable storage-media timeline
Figures 2, 3: Layers that make up ROM discs
Figures 4, 5: Layers that make up R discs
Figures 6, 7: Layers that make up RW and RAM discs
Figures 8, 9: Two types of double-layer, single-sided DVD-ROM construction
Figures 10, 11: Two types of double-sided DVD-ROM construction
Figure 12: Printable or markable areas of the disc

Source: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/contents.html

Join Me in Making History ...from Michael Moore

Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 3:37 PM

Friends,

This is it. The time has arrived! At midnight tonight, you can be one of the first people ever to legally download, for FREE, a brand new, feature-length film. It's my new movie, "Slacker Uprising," and I'm giving it to you as a gift of thanks for coming to my films over the 20 years I've been a filmmaker.

It's also one of my contributions to help get out the vote November 4th. That's why I'm giving you my blanket permission to not only download it, but also to email it, burn it, and share it with anyone and everyone (in the U.S. and Canada only). I want you to use "Slacker Uprising" in any way you see fit to help with the election or to do the work that you do in your community. You can show my film in your local theater, your high school classroom, your college auditorium, your church, union hall or community center. You can have your friends and neighbors over to the house for a viewing. You can broadcast it on TV, on cable access, on regular channels or on the web. It's completely free -- I don't want to see a dime from this. And if you want, you can charge admission or ask for a donation if it's to raise money for a candidate, a voter drive, or for any non-profit or educational purpose. In other words -- it's yours!

"Slacker Uprising" chronicles the 62-city tour I did leading up to the 2004 election. It is electrifying to see the tens of thousands of young people who were ready then for the uprising -- and who, this year, are actually making it happen. This is my concert film tribute to the young voters who are going to save this country from four more years of Republican rule.

There are a number of ways, beginning at midnight tonight, that you can download or stream "Slacker Uprising" thanks to our distributor, Brave New Films:

1) Blip.tv will provide standard resolution streaming, free of commercials and advertising.
2) Amazon Video on Demand will provide a high quality version of the above stream.
3) iTunes will make it easy for you to download "Slacker Uprising" on your iTunes, iPod, or Apple TV, and view it there or transmit it to your television. This way, the film can be portable as well as for home viewing.
4) Hypernia is providing bandwidth, servers and management to host "Slacker Uprising" online, so you can download the film and view it at any time or burn it onto a DVD.

I am fortunate to have all these great people bringing you my movie for free. There will be no ads and they have all agreed to supply their services free of charge. All of them wanted to be part of this historic moment when the first major feature-length movie is being released for free on the internet.

(For those of you who don't download, there will be a low-cost DVD available.)

This past Thursday we held the world premiere of "Slacker Uprising" in Ann Arbor (you can read about it here). The response was incredible and I want to encourage you to screen this movie with large groups. I believe it will inspire our get-out-the-vote efforts at a time when we need to get millions registered in the next two weeks.

Thanks again for all your support over the years. I hope you'll like my new film. It's all yours, anytime after midnight tonight. Enjoy!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
SlackerUprising.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. I'll be doing a live chat, tonight at 11:00 PM ET, on Daily Kos, in the hour countdown leading up to the internet release of my film. Hope to see you online!

Stop The Cycle Now!

SToP THe CycLE Now!
CDs, DVDs, and the Reduction of Optical Media Waste

Rationale:

Electronic waste products count among those toxic materials and hard-to-recycle plastics. The 21st century’s mind-boggling technological obsolescence issue and voluminous amount of electronic production pose additional problems to our currently ill managed waste disposal system. This IEC material seeks to address this issue by providing alternatives in production and disposal of one of the most common electronic media – the optical discs.

Green Living Tips (2008) notes that “CDs and DVDs are made from various lacquers and aluminum and sometimes gold; but by far most of their weight is the polycarbonate plastic - yet another plastic made from crude oil.” For this reason, they are incredibly challenging to recycle. It is said that they don't break down readily and over time can release Bisphenol A, a toxic chemical which has health implications (Green Living Tips 2008).

Being a popular data storage format, CDs and DVDs proliferate almost everywhere. Music, video, data discs and increasing amounts of advertising material nowadays come on CD and DVD media. Furthermore, with the high level of poverty in the Philippines, the selling of cheap pirated CDs and DVDs has become an alternative livelihood to those who want to cash-in extra income. Thus amassing CDs and DVDs has been more popular to most Filipinos than renting these.

This IEC material seeks to inform the general CD/DVD buying/using public of the alternatives of reducing the production of CDs and DVDs thus contributing to waste disposal management of these electronic wastes. Moreover, as the IEC material provides insights on CD and DVD waste reduction, it also partially seeks to address the growing concern over media piracy in Metro Manila.

References:

Eco Geek Blog. (2007). Where Do CDs Go to Die? Retrieved 20 August 2008 from
http://ecogeekblog.greenoptions.com/2007/06/28/ask-the-ecogeek-where-do-cds-go-to-die/

Green Living Tips. (2008). DVD and CD Recycling. Retrieved 23 August 2008 from http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/245/1/DVD-and-CD-Recycling.html

Mid Sussex District Council. (2008). Top Tips for Reducing Your Waste and Recycling. Retrieved 23 August 2008 from http://www.midsussex.gov.uk/page.cfm?pageID=6150

Novey, Levi. (2008). Pirated DVDs Sold in Peru Will Pollute the Country for a Long Time. Retrieved 20 August 2008 from http://ecoworldly.com/2008/07/28/pirated-dvds-sold-in-peru-will-pollute-the-country-for-a-long-time/

Wikipedia. (2008). Bisphenol A. Retrieved 26 August 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

27 August 2008
ESS535M

Where to Buy Your DVDs: Post Good Earth Fire

The DVD retailers from the Good Earth Plaza are now dispersed in Quiapo and adjacent areas. Here are some text msgs from the DVD girls of Good Earth Plaza:

5 Sep 2008

"mga suki my mga bgo kming dvd blue ray,c malou 2?lumipat na kmi sa emerald second floor stall N7."

30 Aug 2008

"Mga suki c malou 2 ung suki nyo sa dvd,lumipat na kmi sa shoppers gold,hrap nang good earth.second floor stall N 7.d2 nlng kyo pumunta,marmi kmi bgong blue ray,slamat"

30 Aug 2008

"ngbkaz n kmi sh0opersgold... jehan 2"

27 Aug 2008

"Hi kuya god pm musta c lyn poh e2 lumipat n poh kame sa NBI dhil sunug na ung robnson"

08 Aug 2007

"Kuya dun kmi li2pat odeon mall kz nasunog ang g0odearth.."

BitThief

BitThief
A Free Riding BitTorrent Client

BitThief is an ongoing project of the Distributed Computing Group at ETH Zurich.

The project deals with incentive problems in peer-to-peer filesharing systems. The lack of incentives to upload potentially results in a total collapse of the network, implying that it is essential for a completely decentralized system to incorporate protocols that ensure a fair sharing of resources. We developed a BitTorrent client that free rides on BitTorrent, that is, it downloads from BitTorrent swarms without contributing any resources itself which illustrated that the BitTorrent protocol currently fails to prevent uncooperative behavior as it does not provide any countermeasures against free riding clients.

We argue that the BitTorrent protocol has to be modified in order to effectively prevent selfishness.

Our proof-of-concept client BitThief is a byproduct of our HotNets-V paper "Free Riding in BitTorrent is Cheap".

Note that, as it is a scientific project, we require measurements of the performance of our exploits. For that purpose, the client occasionally transmits data to our webserver. The transmitted data merely contains information about the time required to download files of any size. In particular, only a hash of the info hash is transmitted, which means that it is not feasible to determine what has actually been downloaded which is not of our concern. However, we advice all testers not to download any copyrighted material.

http://dcg.ethz.ch/projects/bitthief/index.php

Download your BitThief here:

http://dcg.ethz.ch/projects/bitthief/download.php

Good Earth Plaza: After the Fire

I'm re-posting Senor Enrique's blog on Good Earth Plaza Fire here. You can view more photos of the building at http://senorenrique.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-earth-plaza-after-fire_08.html

Those who grew up in Manila during the '60s will remember that Good Earth at the corner of Avenida Rizal and Bustos Street was the largest and first department store along Avenida that boasted having escalators in the building.

My brothers, cousins and I used to go to its coffee shop for a late morning merienda after attending mass at the nearby Sta. Cruz Church. I always ordered the shrimp salad sandwich served on toasted white bread.

However, I don't remember having bought anything at Good Earth. Ready-to-wear clothing was not popular back then as they are now; the trousers and button-down polo shirts I had were custom-tailored with fabrics purchased separately at Central Market. Also, my eldest sister who was then studying in Chicago used to send me Banlon and other knit shirts.

The building that was once Good Earth is now Good Earth Plaza which houses several establishments, including a motel on the sixth floor; unlike when it originally opened as just one huge department store. And at dawn last Monday, it was gutted by a fire.

According to a PDI article, it took firefighters nearly 22 hours to put out the blaze; finally extinguishing it at 3:00 am, Tuesday. The arson investigation division of the Manila Fire Department suspected the fire stemmed from pieces of rubber in the first floor of the building. Chief Inspector Myra Bico roughly estimated damages to property at P26 million.

The fire destroyed several stores inside the building, including Robinsons Supermarket and several stalls selling electronic items, cell phone accessories, pirated DVDs, and jewelry.

Although only the ground floor and basement of the eight-story building were damaged in the fire, thick smoke and intermittent rains made it difficult for firemen to battle the blaze. The fact that most of the stalls inside the building were closed made the job even more arduous.

The building's close proximity to the LRT's Carriedo Station forced the LRT 1 that runs above Avenida to suspend operations, then cut in half. Full operations only resumed the following morning, Tuesday.

Meanwhile, according to a GMA News report, the office of DOTC Undersecretary Guiling Mamondiong is considering filing a P700,000 damage suit against the owner of the Good Earth Plaza building. The P700,000, Mamondiong said, represents the amount of lost income for the disruption of the Light Rail Transit Line 1's operations.

On Tueday afternoon when these photographs were taken, many stall owners were in the vicinity to ask the authorities when they could possibly enter the building to collect whatever undamaged property and inventory they might have left. And sadly, many who used to work in the building also milled around to learn about the status of their employment.

Good Earth Plaza Fire

Mall fire disrupts LRT

Update: I received a text from one of the DVD maninindas this morning. "Kuya dun kmi li2pat odeon mall kz nasunog ang g0odearth.." The DVD retailers will be moving to Odeon Mall (formerly Odeon Theater) near LRT2 Recto Station. I was informed that it would take around one week to set-up their stalls at Odeon Mall.


Philippine Star - Tuesday, August 5The big blaze that hit a shopping mall in Sta. Cruz, Manila near the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 station disrupted rail line operations yesterday, causing inconvenience for thousands of passengers and revenue loss anew for the LRT Authority (LRTA).

The fire of still undetermined origin razed the eight-story Good Earth Emporium building, which housed the Robinson's Supermarket and the Paradiso Hotel located at the corner of Bustos street and Rizal Avenue.

The building, now owned by Colony Investors Inc., was built in the '60s and was once a famous landmark in the Sta. Cruz district. It had undergone several renovations, but old-timers still refers to it as the Good Earth building.

The fire, which reached the fifth alarm, started at the ground floor at around 5:22 a.m.

Melquiades "Mel" Robles, LRTA administrator, said they were forced to bypass the Carriedo station in the middle of LRT Line 1's morning operations at 9 a.m. when thick black smoke billowing from the burning mall made the loading and unloading of passengers impossible at the said station.

Robles said that the situation worsened at around 10:30 a.m., forcing them to implement "half-line" operations at the rail line.

The implementation had LRT operating only at the southern end of the line running from the Baclaran station in Parañaque to the Central station in Manila and back. The Monumento to Carriedo line was closed.

"In times like this, the safety of our passengers, as well as rolling stock - our trains - is of paramount consideration," Robles said.

As of 1 p.m., Robles estimated the revenue loss for the rail line disruption to be at P.7 million.

"We expect it to go higher since it seems that the fire will not be controlled any time soon," he said.

The rail line also suffered revenue losses when a fire hit the Puregold shopping mall near the LRT Line 1 Libertad station in Pasay City last July 17.

Robles called on the owners of buildings and establishments near LRT stations, to look into their electrical wirings and other potential fire hazards to avoid such incidents.

"We urge them to attend to fire prevention measures in their respective establishments so we can avoid such unfortunate incidents. It is also for their own good," Robles said. - Rainier Allan Ronda With Nestor Etolle/Philstar