DVD Media - Durabilty

[Ian Tucker]

In the middle of last year I changed from SVHS tape to DVD as my 
preferred means of storing data, particularly movies.   I did this for 
several reasons, one in particular being that I believed I was moving 
to a more stable storage medium.   Since that time however,  I have 
seen an article in an English Mac. magazine which hinted DVD's are not 
a stable form of archiving and if I remember right, Erica alluded to 
the same thing in one of her postings.     The List has recently 
contained discussions on the merits of storing movie footage back to DV 
tape.

What is the problem with DVD durability?     I realise a disc is prone 
to physical abuse in the wrong hands,  eg.  tried hiring a DVD from a 
library or a Video/DVD outlet ?   However,  I imagine the comments 
being made are deeper than that .   Is it to do with the organic dyes 
that Erica has  referred to in at least one of her postings?

To date, I have only burnt around five , or six DVD's and these have 
been Apple brand.    If, in fact, DVD's are unstable, where do I go 
from here?   Surely saving movies back to DV tape, as mentioned above,  
can only be a temporary thing and the intent there was to save the best 
quality data  for possible, additional editing some where in the 
not-to-distant future.

Ian Tucker