New claims for optical media

It has been shown that CD-R which use (a) a gold reflective backing
layer and (b) Phthalocyanine dye (P-dye) can be stable for up to
25-years when burned slowly, following a prescribed procedure
(described elsewhere).

    <URL:http://www.delkin.com/products/archivalgold/cdr.html>

Kodak's claim of 100-year lifetime (I've seen up to 250-years
somewhere) for their Gold/P-dye CD-R (Ultima) has never been
substantiated to my knowledge:

    <URL:http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/faqs/faq1632.shtml>

I believe consensus has settled on 25-year lifetime for the Ultima,
in practice.

It has been said that because Phthalocyanine dye is not being used
in DVD-Rs that they can not be "as archival" as Gold/P-dye CD-R.  I
usually say: "no more than 2.5 years."  However, I'm known to be
hard on optical media (because I've had them fail when I went back
to use them).  As a side note--of the 50-60 or so HDD I've owned
since 1993, two failed in 1996 (just at 3 years) and now, 12 years
later, I just had another fail at 3 years of use (a premium-brand
10,000-RPM type); many of my HDD are 5-8 years old and still
working.

So, I was looking over the most recent Calumet Catalog and saw that
they are passing along Delkin Devices' claim that they make the only
archival DVD-R and BL-R.  It seems they have more scratch-resistant
coatings but no P-dye layer, as far as I can tell.

Delkin claims that their DVD-R are "archival" (with gold reflective
layer and 10x more scratch resistant topcoat, but no P-dye layer)

    <URL:http://www.delkin.com/products/archivalgold/dvdr.html>.

Delkin claims their Blu-Ray BD-R is "archival" (gold reflective
layer and a ScratchArmor (c) 50x more scratch resistant, no P-dye
layer)

    <URL:http://www.delkin.com/
        products/archivalgold/archival-blue-ray-delkin.html>

Delkin White Paper on optical media technology dated 2005:

    <URL:http://www.delkin.com/
        pdf/user_guides/archivalgold_whitepaper.pdf>

Delkin CD-R test results using ANSI/PIMA IT9-27-1999 claims
300-years for their "eFilm" CD-R under proper storage

    <URL:http://www.delkin.com/
        pdf/user_guides/archivalgold_testresults.pdf>
    (report not dated).

    **** Moderator's comments: The above URL have been wrapped for
    email. There should be no newlines.

Does anyone have experience of direct operational knowledge of these
Delkin Devices "archival" optical media.

Tim Vitale
510-594-8277


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:33
                Distributed: Saturday, December 6, 2008
                       Message Id: cdl-22-33-017
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