Re:The long road to recover Frogger 2 source from tape drives
by Clamchop on Thursday May 25, 2023 @05:27PM
(#36076472)
The recording is made in the dye layer, a chemical change, and the dye degrades (particularly in sunlight) so the discs have a limited shelf life. Checking Wikipedia, it appears azo dye formulations can be good for tens of years.
Melting polycarbonate would call for an absurdly powerful laser, a glacial pace, or both, and you wouldn't have to use dye at all. I'd guess such a scheme would be extremely durable, though.
Living in South Florida, ambient temperatures were enough to erase CD-Rs - typically in less than a year. I quickly started buying the much more expensive "archival" discs, but that wasn't enough. One fascinating "garage band" sold their music on CD-Rs and all of my discs died (it was a surfer band from Alabama).