How long will CDs & DVDs exist?

Answer 1

As a media format? A loooong time. CDs have much better clarity than downloaded music, and for many of us, they are the preferred way to acquire music for our portable digital music players (after all, you can't accidentally delete a CD, or have it get wiped out by a hard-drive crash). There's even some new format that's supposed to compete with CD, but it's so irrelevent in today's market that I can't even remember what it's called.

And in spite of what the makers of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray would have you believe, the market really isn't ready for a shift to High-Def media, as it requires an investment of thousands of dollars to get both an HDTV and an HD-format media player, which is right out of the price range of the lower class, and something of a luxury for most of the middle class.

DVD and CD won over VHS and casette tapes respectively for one reason, and that's that they don't wear out through use alone. None of the their supposed successor formats offer anything as important as the knowledge that you won't have to replace your copy of your favorite album/movie two years from now because you just play it too much for the media format to endure.

Now, as for the physical discs themselves, that's less cut and dried. I've got a Warner Bros. DVD that wouldn't play properly in my old DVD player because it shipped with a huge separation between the layers in the center half of the disc (tried returning it 3-4 times and kept getting the same problem). DVDs are made with a two-layer bonded hub that tends to develop cracks and splits that are collectively known as "DVD Rot" when subjected to too much stress (that's why you should only ever clip them into actual DVD cases and not CD jewel cases). Both CDs and DVDs are vulnerable to scratching, if you're careless or let people mistreat your stuff. CD-R and DVD+/-R format discs go bad from age because they are recorded through a photosensitive layer that turns black when shot with a recording laser, and that photosensitive layer degrades over time. CD-RW and DVD+/-RW format discs do not use a photosensitive layer, but rather a heat-sensitive layer (heat it to one temp and it turns clear, heat it to another temp and it turns opaque), so much like CDs and DVDs, their average lifespan is something of an educated guess if not mistreated, except that constant recording and re-recording will eventually render them unusable. I'd point you to a HowStuffWorks article on this, but the appear to have seriously changed their format and the specific article that I remember reading doesn't appear to be listed anymore.

Answer 2

If you mean technology .. They are going to last a while...because it's very cheap and most of the optical players are backward compatible.

If you mean a CD or DVD.. generally good ones will last 75-100 years if properly taken care of in a safe or smth.

Answer 3

with the way technology is these days..probably not long...there is already IPODS and MP3'S!

Answer 4

good question. nobody knowwwwws