http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/05/0 ... index.html

Thursday, May 6, 2004 Posted: 2:04 PM EDT (1804 GMT)



Mark Irons holds out a damaged music CD.


NEATO CD/DVD Labels, Media and Cases
Your source for recordable media and media labeling supplies. Huge selection of...
http://www.neato.com

OfficeWorld: Recordable CDs - Much More
OfficeWorld.com search results: CD recordable disc. Over 35,000 business...
http://www.officeworld.com

Find CD-R Media on Sale
Batteries.com has recordable media at discount prices. Plus check out our huge...
http://www.batteries.com

CD Recordable Disc
ElectroGalaxy.com: Same-day shipping, online inventory. Galactic selection, at...
store.electrogalaxy.com



RELATED
• Interactive: The fragile lives of compact discs

FACT BOX
"CD rot" Dos:
1. Handle discs by the outer edge or the center hole.
2.Use a felt-tip permanent marker to mark the label side of a CD.
3. Keep discs clean. Wipe with cotton fabric in a straight line from the center of the disc toward the outer edge.
4. Return discs to their plastic cases immediately after use.
5. Store discs upright (book style) in their cases.
6. Store discs in a cool, dry, dark place with clean air.
7. Open a recordable disc package only when you are ready to record.
8. Check the disc surface before recording.


YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Technology (general)

National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)

or Create your own

Manage alerts | What is this?


(AP) -- Dan Koster was unpacking some of his more than 2,000 CDs after a move when he noticed something strange. Some of the discs, which he always took good care of, wouldn't play properly.

Koster, a Web and graphic designer for Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, took one that was skipping pretty badly and held it up to the light.

"I was kind of shocked to see a constellation of pinpricks, little points where the light was coming through the aluminum layer," he says.

His collection was suffering from "CD rot," a gradual deterioration of the data-carrying layer. It's not known for sure how common the blight is, but it's just one of a number of reasons that optical discs, including DVDs, may be a lot less long-lived than first thought.

"We were all told that CDs were well-nigh indestructible when they were introduced in the mid '80s," Koster says. "Companies used that in part to justify the higher price of CDs as well."

He went through his collection and found that 15 percent to 20 percent of the discs, most of which were produced in the '80s, were "rotted" to some extent.

The rotting can be due to poor manufacturing, according to Jerry Hartke, who runs Media Sciences Inc., a Marlborough, Massachusetts, laboratory that tests CDs.

continued,,,,

NP 4 me!!