Re: [ARSCLIST] Fw: [ARSCLIST] Gold CDs

[Steven Smolian <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>]

Balancing the relative importance of belt, suspenders and buttons gives a
good starting point.

Here is my own instinctive weighing of the importance of the three basic
components

Surface    50%
Coating    25%
Dye, US storage conditions    25%

This is assuming the surface will not oxidize, the coating will not be
penetrated by the inks used in printing label information on it, and the dye
is the most stable available within the perameters of casually aware storage
conditions.

The slam-dunk is probably the gold surface.  Is there an argument against
this being an inflexible requirement?

Coating strength and longevity are related to how the disc is labelled, what
inks are used, and how finely applied.

The relative importance of these components will change in, say, a poor, wet
country in the equatorial belt with intermitent electrical power.

One further thought.  How well do the discs perform when recorded at slower
speeds when designed for higher writing speeds?  Are slower writing discs
available or, if so, how likely is it they will continue to be so?  Is their
recorded quality affected by the three components we are discussing?

Steve Smolian



----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Richter" <mrichter@xxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Fw: [ARSCLIST] Gold CDs


> At 02:41 PM 9/24/2004 -0400, Peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> >NIST just put a good document on storage and handling and the AES/ISO
Joint
> >Technical Commission is currently working on a Optical Disc storage and
> >handling document.
> >
> >As far as "archival" is concerned, on the Joint Commission, we've been
> >trying to do something about putting a reasonable definition in the
"Terms
> >and Definitions" section of a number of AES, ANSI and ISO standards
> >documents for years.  Unfortunately, the response we've gotten has not
been
> >promising.  Trying to define "archival" at this point impacts too many
> >previously published documents and , frankly, has too many political
> >ramifications in the industry for a "formal" definition to pass the
> >standards voting process any time in the near future.  This is why we
have
> >had to make do with phrases such as "medium-term life expectancy" and
> >"extended-term life expectancy".  You might notice that these phrases
don't
> >seem to have been picked up in advertising literature.  Oh well, a
consensus
> >on what archival means when referring to media would be really nice and
I'm
> >certainly open to any suggestions on how we all could get such a
definition
> >into a published standard.  Any ideas?
>
> http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/disc_care/index.htm
> is the second link on my page of URLs, following one to OSTIA. I assume
> that that is the document to which you refer.
>
> A practical term, not already preempted, should be available for
> "archival". Perhaps just "extended-life". True definition in terms of
> testing is probably not achievable; perhaps one could specify it in terms
> of required components. For example, at least two of gold alloy reflector,
> durable overcoating, phthalocyanine dye. ("Durable" could be defined in
> terms of test; alloy in terms of gold content.)
>
> Mike
> --
> mrichter@xxxxxxx
> http://www.mrichter.com/
>