Hi, I bought a dvd burner probly about 18 months ago to back up all my old home movies and our new ones,we have 2 young kids so every moment is precious of course. Anyway now our kids are starting to watch TV we started buying them kids DVD,s(Wiggles,Hi-5,ect,ect)and because of the high usage they get i started to back them up and use the backups for everyday use ect,Now im starting to find that the back-ups are only lasting a few months before they stop working properly,Freezing going all blocky (lego effect) and just generaly acting as though they are scratched.I look at the disk and they look not too bad its only my wife and me that handel them not the kids and we try to be carefull.But my concernes are how long are my home movies going to last on dvd before they deteriorate,Luckily i havent been able to bring myself to whipe the digital tapes from the cam corder yet we have saved all those so far as well but we did have intention of just taping over themafter recording to disc. Im starting to wonder if i should get a external hard drive instead and put all the home movies onto that instead of dvd, I was under the impression that backup to dvd would last forever compared to on the tape,Now im not so sure,Has anyone else had experience with this problem aswell??? Ive been useing CloneDVD to back up my kids movies and just a program that came with the burner for the home movies,I havent played the home movies again yet to check if they are lasting but i have concernes.I also use DVD-R disc's if that has any bearing. Thanks. Oz "Bite off more than you can chew, And chew like hell!" Peter Brock. Yahoo Id. ozyoiy

You can try different brand of DVDs. Verbatim, Imation > stay away from Memorex and Generic brands.

Hi, Ive tried about 3 or 4 different brands of DVD over the last 18 moths or so but all seem to have the same life time,What i was wondering also is their some sort of protective coating that gets put onto stor bought dvd's as opposed to blank dvds,And why do my cd,s seem to last ok and not the dvd's?? Any other ideas?? Oz "Bite off more than you can chew, And chew like hell!" Peter Brock. Yahoo Id. ozyoiy

Hi Oz. Cds are manufactured differently than DVDs. Your player may be able to read the CDs easier than the DVDs so any imperfection in the DVDs show up while the CDs keep playing. It may be your player and not the disks. Can you test the problem disks by playing them in another player? Here is a link that shows the difference between CD disks and DVD disks. http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/manuf/rep_intro.htm Take care, Linda

Hi again. Another thought. Are you burning the disks at the fastest speed your burner can burn? Sometimes this will cause a problem. I have read that CD disks burned at a very fast speed sometimes won't play properly and the suggestion is to lower the burner speed. ( Your burner software should have a setting for choice of speeds. ) Maybe the same applies to DVD disks. Take care, Linda

Store discs away in a cabinet. They should easily last decades with the proper care. Be aware the the top of the discs are more sensitive to scratches then the bottom. That might seem illogical since they are read from the bottom. But the data is actually stored very close to the top.

I have copied some 200 movies to DVD-R disks using Clone dvd. After 8 months they all play perfectly. I only use one brand of DVD-R, Shintaro - because i was told by a heavy DVD user to use these and nothing else. I also play them in the budget players only, ones i can buy for $70 or less. Try Tevion from Aldi shop, it plays evrything faultlessly.