on 8/9/05 8:54 AM, Jerry Hartke at jhartke@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
One key problem is that there are no standards for drives, only
for media
quality. What determines whether a drive is acceptable or not,
other than
complete loss of functionality?
That's a great point and one many persons do not consider when burning
archival discs.
At IU we make our archival concert recordings to Masterlinks. We
burn a test
disc when the machine is new as a baseline, and then twice yearly
test discs
on each machine to monitor the status of the burners. We see a steady
decline in burner performance, after about 18 months the E22 count
begins to
spike. At about 2 years we begin to see E32s. We replace the
burners before
this point. We burn a lot of discs - perhaps 500 per year on each
machine,
but the important point is that burners have a limited lifespan and
need to
be monitored on a regular basis.
--
Konrad Strauss
Director of Recording Arts
Associate Professor of Music
Indiana University School of Music
http://php.indiana.edu/~kstrauss
http://www.music.indiana.edu/department/audio/