The DVD-R vanishes

It's been a fairly long time since I started using digital media in my day to day life.
First DAT that ADAT then AIFF & SD II files on the Macintosh. Amazingly I had no problems with digital tape, few issues with audio files on the computer.

A few weeks ago while my wife was out of town I decided to toss in a DVD-R that I had recorded a concert on. I had left the last 100 or so burns on the spindle, which I knew was lazy and stupid, my lack of labeling was bad enough but this was a new low.

When I popped the disk in the computer spat it out. I tried again.. Spfitttttttt!! out it shot.
Shit!! No error message from the computer, no visible damage to the DVD-R. I was panicked. I started to go through every disk on that pile, all were bad.

After several hours of testing about 100 DVD-R disks on 4 computers running three OS' and two DVD player I realized something horrible had happened. But what was it? All good media, slow burns, verified and played back...

I have many disks here and the only ones that went bad were left on a spindle. I searched the Interwebs for clues but found no exact matches to my situation. I began calling experts and no one could come up with an explanation.

It then dawned on me... I have Pro Tools sessions and video work for myself and others backed up on DVD-R. I don't know where to begin.

This page talks about care for various optical media and is useful but does even hint at what I'm dealing with. I looked at various data recovery applications but didn't see one that looked good and was OS X. I don't know whether that speaks well or poorly for my chosen platform.

One thing I have seen over and over is that long term data storage should be done on hard drives, which leaves me to wonder what the fuck DVD-R's are for exactly. The other interesting thing is the CD-R is much more trust worthy and rugged, this is most likely because it's not trying to squeeze so much data onto such a small space.

Resume of the future

I think that with the advent of the compact disc there are many people who work in the audio industry who make their whole living dealing soley with the past.

The main "professional" thing I do is restoration and mastering of old Punk stuff for either re-release or as a retrospective release. I joke that my resume is begining to look like I stopped working in the late 70's or early 80's.

I find this work to be generally rewarding because as a fan I love the music it's self and as a musicologist I feel like I am helping to set history right.

As we speak I am listening to what should be the upcoming Terrorists release.