Do you like DVDs or digital viewings?

I am a recent digital convert.

Previously I loved DVDs.  I have a collection of around 300 DVD and Blu-ray.  I love owning them with all the extras such as commentaries and off cuts and other background information.

The number one problem with DVDs is that they decay and become unreadable.  I store them at room temperature with no excessive dampness, I don't scratch or do anything to them.  But, I try to play a favourite and they stop with messages about no disk in drive or the just get stuck at certain points.  I have tried cleaning them, that helps temporarily but later they fail again.

Now, I have joined the 21st century and I stream onto my tablet.

media degradation is a real issue with optical or magnetic media (ie CDs/DVDs and hard drives). I've worked my whole adult life in IT and have a few suggestions on how to minimise this issue.

1 - make a backup of your DVD to hard drive. You can use free software like DVDFab to do this (there are about a half dozen "buy me" prompts but you can cancel these and use it to create a backup fine.

2 - If you can afford it, have 2 disks with your backups and replace these every 3-5 years, or simply buy a newer disk to replace one of the backup disks and keep the older one as a secondary backup. Disks are cheap now (about £60 for a good brand portable 4Tb disk) and this has space for around 1,000 DVDs.

3 - remember to keep backups of your documents, spreadsheets, photos, videos and whatever else is important to you - I do these monthly and use the same disks to back up to. They have saved my bacon on several occasions when a disk on my laptop has died or been lost/stolen.

4 - keep a copy somewhere offsite. Maybe leave and older backup disk with a family member and just grad it once a year to copy your current backup disk to. This will save you from losing everything in the event of a fire / burglary / malicious attack on your data (eg where it gets encrypted and the hackers want money to decrypt it..

I know cloud storage is an option and I do use it for stuff I am actively working on (docs, spreadsheets etc) but there have been several experiences where cloud providers have lost data of my colleagues (through the cloud suppliers fault) and a backup was not available. Luckily my directive to keep local backups saved them, but I just don't trust cloud suppliers fully.

Just my 2p worth, I hope it helps

media degradation is a real issue with optical or magnetic media (ie CDs/DVDs and hard drives). I've worked my whole adult life in IT and have a few suggestions on how to minimise this issue.

1 - make a backup of your DVD to hard drive. You can use free software like DVDFab to do this (there are about a half dozen "buy me" prompts but you can cancel these and use it to create a backup fine.

2 - If you can afford it, have 2 disks with your backups and replace these every 3-5 years, or simply buy a newer disk to replace one of the backup disks and keep the older one as a secondary backup. Disks are cheap now (about £60 for a good brand portable 4Tb disk) and this has space for around 1,000 DVDs.

3 - remember to keep backups of your documents, spreadsheets, photos, videos and whatever else is important to you - I do these monthly and use the same disks to back up to. They have saved my bacon on several occasions when a disk on my laptop has died or been lost/stolen.

4 - keep a copy somewhere offsite. Maybe leave and older backup disk with a family member and just grad it once a year to copy your current backup disk to. This will save you from losing everything in the event of a fire / burglary / malicious attack on your data (eg where it gets encrypted and the hackers want money to decrypt it..

I know cloud storage is an option and I do use it for stuff I am actively working on (docs, spreadsheets etc) but there have been several experiences where cloud providers have lost data of my colleagues (through the cloud suppliers fault) and a backup was not available. Luckily my directive to keep local backups saved them, but I just don't trust cloud suppliers fully.

Just my 2p worth, I hope it helps

because people designing mechanism and cover are not the same people, HQs attract a special kind of 'brainiacs'.

That's why I chose my LG Blu-ray player - the main tray door has a cover which reduces the chance of dust getting inside.

Remember the VHS days when after a few years there would be a fair amount of dust and gunk on the internal mechanism because the gap around the flap was big?

Dragon said:

I have discs that I burned 15 years ago that still play perfectly

me too

But DVD/CD playing devices are not as resilient, and it's problematic to dust them inside, and they get dusty if unused for too long. Then they start making grinding noises when you play something and die spitting broken CD out

What I'm trying to say is AVOID DUST INSIDE, and wipe CDs before use is what helps

As long as you keep any optical disc in good condition, in its case and out of direct sunlight or extreme temperatures, they can last a lot longer than you think.

I have discs that I burned 15 years ago that still play perfectly because I keep them at an ambient temperature and out of sunlight. Always use a soft permanent marker - Sharpie pens are the best as they write very well onto the label side of blank discs.

Also doesn't hurt to give them a gentle wipe with a lint free cloth before you play them too.

I watched all episodes of all series of Stargate 3 times  I know all events, history by heart now. I have them on hard drive. SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe, and all movies too. I wonder how long those stay usable. Excluding production faults of course. In the past some series of hard drives among thos bigger ones had over 15% of chance for a production fault, that was causing the disk to stop working after less than a year. But I didn't buy any of those 

Many, many of my printed DVDs have failed.  Almost my whole collection of Stargate Atlantis will not play. Although my Stargate SG-1 disks are fine.  Several episodes of Fawlty towers are unplayable, a few episodes of Chuck and likely lads have rotted.  My biggest disappointment was season 5 of Orphan black, I downloaded seasons 1 to 4 then I bought season 5 on Blue-Ray from HMV, brand new in original packaging. Straight from the packaging they gave errors, all three disks, I cleaned them, they played one day, next day errors.

as far as I know printed DVD disks (as opposed to writable ones) are fairly long lived. It is after all aluminium sealed in plastic. If the seal is good it will last for a very long time if stored in a dry place with reasonably consistent temperature. If the original seal was bad disk rot becomes an issue and DVD-R etc will only last about a decade I'm told because their chemicals degrade on the disk. magnetic tape lasts a lot longer so long as you stop it from getting too hot. A few printed DVDs are made with gold not aluminium ... these should last basically forever if well stored.

For personal information such as documents and photos I have a triple back up strategy, 

1. Desktop pc
2. Laptop
3. USB stick.

My problem is films and TV programs on commercial DVDs.  No backups and money wasted when I cannot play my favourites.