Pictures on CD

[Dreaming of Disney]

I was watching my local news the other night and they did a consumer alert about how long your pictures will actually last on CD. They said that the average home computer user does not have the technology to burn pictures that will last more than 5-10 years. After this time the quality starts to degrade and eventally is lost.

Has anyone else heard of this? We just bought a new digital camera and I was looking at this as a great way to get my photos organized.

 

[safetymom]

You should always burn more than 1 copy of a cd when storing information. Store one away, this will act as your negatives. They will probably last longer than 5-10 years but you should buy quality cds. Every so many years you should reburn the cds anyway. You should also keep up with the technology. In 20 years who nows if you will even be able to read a CD. Does anyone still have a 5 1/4 floppy drive anymore.

 

[Dreaming of Disney]

Thanks safetymom,

Do you know if you can burn a CD from a CD-R? I'm kind of new to all of this technical stuff.

Also how would I know a quality CD from one that is not so good?

 

[tiger95]

I would recommend backing up your pictures periodically, just to be safe. Personally, I burn mine to a CD as soon as I download them from the camera. Then I back all my photos up monthly to a DVD, just to be safe.

You might want to verify that your computer has a CD burner. If so, burning to a CD-R will be fine. Most likely you have software such as Nero or EasyCD creator some where on the PC, you will use it to burn the pictures to a CD.

 

[bicker]

This is one reason why I'm happy I got a camcorder that records on miniDV instead of directly onto DVD. Barring magnetic fields, the data will simply last longer that way.

Definitely make a habit of copying every CD and DVD you make every five years. No sense in realizing ten or fifteen years from now that you've lost beloved photos.