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A comment on Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to the internet. Parent comment

Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by iamphilrae on Friday February 28, 2020 @03:46PM (#22446197)
Audio CDs can survive a bit of degradation to the odd data bits here or there; the music will just skip the millisecond of missing data and your ears won’t notice. Likewise with vinyl. Data discs on the other hand have the issue that if a single data bit is lost, a whole file could be corrupted, especially if it’s a zipped file.

In addition, printed audio CDs are of a different build than CD-Rs which have been found to not be as resistant to moisture and light.

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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by jandrese on Friday February 28, 2020 @03:56PM (#22446295)
It takes more than a single bit--there are Huffman codes built into the spec, but it is certainly possible for the bits to degrade enough to render a sector or even the whole disc unreadable.
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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by pmiller2 on Friday February 28, 2020 @04:43PM (#22446694)
If you're serious about using optical media as archival storage, you can mitigate this by incorporating your own error correcting codes into the data storage format.
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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by kevin_thibedeau on Friday February 28, 2020 @09:29PM (#22448317)
FWIW. CD-ROM has stronger FEC than CD-DA. It still won't protect you from bit rot, particularly on writable media.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM#CD-ROM_format

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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by rasz on Friday February 28, 2020 @10:46PM (#22448651)
CDROM bit rot is mostly the paint flaking off, but the real data is stored in the plastic. DVD should be even harder to bitrot because data is entirely inside the plastic. Burned disks are another story.
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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by dsego on Saturday February 29, 2020 @10:05AM (#22450886)
You must be joking. Try to scrape off the paint and keep the plastic, see if it works.
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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by rasz on Saturday February 29, 2020 @01:09PM (#22451954)
bitrot is paint flaking off, not someone purposefully scratching it off
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Re:Archivists are uploading hundreds of random VHS tapes to ... by kevin_thibedeau on Monday March 02, 2020 @09:40AM (#22464771)
It is primarily humid air diffusing through the platter and corroding the aluminum coating. The "bits" are sandwiched between two layers of plastic (one thin). The paint on the surface is irrelevant.
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