Re: Digital Storage

I worked in Hewlett-Packard's digital imaging and data storage divisions for 15 years. I developed technical documentation and training for the HP CD and DVD writers. I have the first CDR I ever burned on an HP beta unit in 1995 and it is still readable. The horror stories of bad discs are exagerrated in my opinion. One of biggest causes of bad discs is writing on them with laundry markers. The acid in that ink eats into the coatings. You should never write on the disc. Either use a Lightscribe disc writer and discs or put them in sleeves and write on the sleeve.
Also, buying cheap discs at Walmart or Office Depot is not recommended. Delkin makes gold archival discs and there are others as well.
And remember, color film is not archival quality either. The slides that photographers like Kindig and Perry shot in the 30s and 40s have already deteroriated (some to the point of being almost worthless).