Archiving: CD vs. DVD

[rabble]

So, after lurking around for the last little while, and reading how ya'll keep your collections organized, stored, and archived (this thread (http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3276) has been of particular help), I've noticed that a majority of you out there archive to DVDs. I considered doing this for quite awhile, but realized it was going to be a pain in the ass to keep track of where any certain boot may be, much less the nightmare of organizing DVDs full of random artists - My question here being, do you use CD or DVD archiving, and why? I currently use CDs stored in slim cases with custom made spine labels, all stored in GINORMOUS tupperware containers. The pros being they're easier to sort, easier to find, and the impact of 500 CDs in slim cases with spine labels full of AWeSOME tunes makes me feel all funny and warm inside. The cons are, that's a shit ton of CDs to move around.

So how the hell do you do it?

[The Wicker Man]

I fill a 250 gig hard drive, then I archive alphabetically

[AndreaSueEllen]

i use cd's because i don't have a dvd burner. and yeah, its a lot to store. i'd much rather be burning everything to dvd, and just try to keep the same artist on one disc, doing a run at a time, if possible so that they are concurrent shows. even with the cd's i've got piles of cd's that have 2 different shows by 2 different artists on them.

[rabble]

i use cd's because i don't have a dvd burner. and yeah, its a lot to store. i'd much rather be burning everything to dvd, and just try to keep the same artist on one disc, doing a run at a time, if possible so that they are concurrent shows. even with the cd's i've got piles of cd's that have 2 different shows by 2 different artists on them.

I'm probably waaaay to crazy about it.. I will only archive one show per disc, whether it fills it up or not - Otherwise, it makes it a pain in the ass to decide where to put it.. Currently, my collection runs alphebetically by artist, then by date. Putting two artists or dates on one disc screws the system all up....

In other news, I just had the realization that I might possibly be incredibly OCD.... Just sayin'.

[starman714]

I number the dvd's data disc 1 , data disc 2 , etc.... then in my notebook where I'm recording the artists and dates I have for the eventual list I'll make , I annotate dd1 , dd2 etc. so I know where a show is...stuff that's already been saved to cd I keep by genre , more or less , like R.Thompson , Leo Kottke , Michael Hedges , say , all go in the same box as acoustic artists , primarily...prog. goes in another box , etc...blues...etc...

[rabble]

I number the dvd's data disc 1 , data disc 2 , etc.... then in my notebook where i'm recording the artists and dates i have for the eventual list i'll make , I annotate dd1 , dd2 etc. so I know where a show is...

Yeah, I do a similar thing with my back'd up DiVX movies, seems to work fairly decently.
I still like the impact that 1CD per show has, though, and as my 'boots are much more dear to my heart, I give them my best.....

[JayDub]

I would go f'ing crazy if I had to go back to archiving on cdr. It's easy to keep up with what's where if you use an excel file for your list. I list my shows alphabetically, and have a column for "disc number" If I"m looking for something, it's usually an artist, not a disc number, so an alphabetical scan reveals where the show is. But if I want to find out what all is on one specific disc, a filter in excel would make that very easy.

I highly recommend switching to DVDr. I've been burning intermittently for the last two days, and have half cleared an 80 GB drive. It makes things SO much simpler. No more splitting shows, because the show is 850 MB or something.

I can't stress enough how much simpler things are since I switched to DVDr.

[Evan811]

whats the point of archiving?

[AndreaSueEllen]

No more splitting shows, because the show is 850 MB or something.


nothing irritates me more than having to split up a show because its like 710 MB and the disc only holds 703.something. i need to find a good cheap external dvd burner...soon.

[starman714]

sounds interesting , jdub , but i have no idea how to do what you described...lol
but yeah , the dvd is definitely best , i just don't have the hdd space like wicker described so i move stuff a lot and so discs are full of misc. artists unless there's a run in a certain artist being posted and i want 'em all....

[starman714]

whats the point of archiving?

what if you want to seed the show yourself someday ? plus you can make copies w/out adding a gen to it...

[shopkin]

whats the point of archiving? :wtf:

i use DVD's now as well...they hold alot more shows,too many cdr's
as for keeping track... i print a directory for each dvd...duh

i need to find a good cheap external dvd burner...soon.

got mine on ebay $100.00

[rabble]

nothing irritates me more than having to split up a show because its like 710 MB and the disc only holds 703.something. i need to find a good cheap external dvd burner...soon.

If it's that close, and you use Nero to burn your discs, an overburn is a generally safe way to fit that extra little bit onto a disc - The newest Nero will automatically ask you if it's within the safe range if you'd like to overburn.

I will second that it's annoying as all hell to split a show onto two discs, especially when it's close.... If it's a HUGE 'boot (ie the 10 Disc Beatles BBC Sessions by Purple Chick, or Bob Dylan & The Grateful Dead Rehersals 6 disc set) I just burn it off onto one DVD.

[lucasweb]

I archive to DVD-R and then on my etree list i make a note about which number dvd it went on, easy as that

[pigonthewing]

whats the point of archiving?

I don't think that's a crazy question. I don't archive either. Think about it, if the music is this easy to get now, do you really think it will become harder as computers shrink and speed increases? I'm pretty sure that in three to five years you're gonna laugh at bit torrent the same way you laugh at 5.25 floppy disks.

[ilikechikin]

i don't archive, but maybe i should. its almost like a waste of a CD if i do that now. i have one CD-RW that holds 1 show at a time ( :lol ). it might be smart to start archiving, but i don't have the money for dvd+r's (much less cd-r's) and i don't have a dvd burner (yet). i just want to get an external hard drive in a few years that's 300 gb or so, so i don't have to worry about archiving that much.

when i first started collecting a few months ago i screwed myself over big time by downloading and burning a bunch of nirvana mp3 shows. about 2 months ago i realized that if i ever wanted to trade or seed, i couldn't. even then when i started downloading from EZT and here, i didn't keep my gens. 1 month ago i started keeping track of everything and labeling it all thoroughly.

[rabble]

I don't think that's a crazy question. I don't archive either. Think about it, if the music is this easy to get now, do you really think it will become harder as computers shrink and speed increases? I'm pretty sure that in three to five years you're gonna laugh at bit torrent the same way you laugh at 5.25 floppy disks.

Regardless, we're a damned long way off from on-demand live lossless shows on the 'net. IF we see something like that, it's going to be a good 10-20 years. I'm more than happy to archive in the meantime.

[rabble]

On a related note, if anyone's interested, I've attached my template for slim spine labels - They're EXACTLY the right size, ~65 per sheet. I have a friend who runs a business that does a copious amount of shipping through UPS, and they hook him up with BOXES of free sticker paper, 2x sheet, which he doesn't use. Let me know how it goes for you if you end up using it..!

[dcbullet]

I don't think that's a crazy question. I don't archive either. Think about it, if the music is this easy to get now, do you really think it will become harder as computers shrink and speed increases? I'm pretty sure that in three to five years you're gonna laugh at bit torrent the same way you laugh at 5.25 floppy disks.

Archiving makes trading very, very easy. I have done numerous trades where we will trade several shows on 1 DVD. The DVD is burned with directories of each show and those directories have shn/flacs, info.txt files (with lineage 99% of time), artwork if any, etc.

That way it saves me and my trading partner a lot of time EACing and then burning 12-15 CDRs. I don't know if he can use EAC right, or if he burns 40x speed. This way the final burn to CDR is the end-user's responsibility.

[pigonthewing]

I’m not knocking archiving, people. Someone has to do it, right? All I’m saying is, I don’t, and I’d venture to guess the great majority don’t, do it either. I burn my CD and then I make sure to take pristine care of them. If I want a CD just to listen to in the car, I burn it and treat it as such, which is without a care, because I know that at home are my “original” copies. As for Mr. Rabble, I wasn’t talking about “OnDemand” or “PayPerView” lossless music on the net. I was simply stating that file sharing, legally or illegally, is only going to grow and rate of transfer are only getting faster. Point being, you have access to a bigger pool at a quicker rate. It will be like the internet, if it’s not already, there’s so much shit out there that you don’t even know where to begin.

[starman714]

Archiving makes trading very, very easy. I have done numerous trades where we will trade several shows on 1 DVD. The DVD is burned with directories of each show and those directories have shn/flacs, info.txt files (with lineage 99% of time), artwork if any, etc.

That way it saves me and my trading partner a lot of time EACing and then burning 12-15 CDRs. I don't know if he can use EAC right, or if he burns 40x speed. This way the final burn to CDR is the end-user's responsibility.
yeah , i'd rather trade the d/l files as well , for the last reason cited , it's their own burn they'll be listening to in the end.
i'm thinking about just getting a better sound card and speaker setup on my box and just archive stuff once and be done with a lot of xtra cd's bought etc. , then just listen to the files right off of that on my pc w/ foobar or whatever else can play 'em....
of course , there's the added problem of my archive discs being handled a lot more.....

[dorrcoq]

If it's that close, and you use Nero to burn your discs, an overburn is a generally safe way to fit that extra little bit onto a disc - The newest Nero will automatically ask you if it's within the safe range if you'd like to overburn.

I use Nero and have often overburned audio files. But it doesn't seem to allow the option when you burn a data disc. :(

[rabble]

I use Nero and have often overburned audio files. But it doesn't seem to allow the option when you burn a data disc. :(

6.0 and above does for me, but if I remember correctly I had to change something in the preferences to allow it...

[dorrcoq]

6.0 and above does for me, but if I remember correctly I had to change something in the preferences to allow it...


HMMMMMMM, I'll have to re-check then, because I have Nero 6.1something and could not find the option. If you can look at what you changed and let me know, I would appreciate it. :)

[starman714]

yeah , i don't think it was possible with nero 5.5 as far as data overburn goes
which may be a good thing...some of my audio overburns were coaster material for the last few minutes on 'em...

[rabble]

HMMMMMMM, I'll have to re-check then, because I have Nero 6.1something and could not find the option. If you can look at what you changed and let me know, I would appreciate it. :)

File > Preferences > Expert Features (Tab) > Check "Enable Disc-At-Once CD Overburning"

Well, damnit, it only works for DAO.

So that's sorta it....

[lostboy]

I archive about the way JDub does to DVD+R, and keep track in a word file (with hopes to move up to an Access database). Sometimes I have enough shows to put one artist to a DVD, but usually I just try to lump similar artists. And list the shows alphabetically in the file.

Right now I have the DVD+Rs in slimline cases, in old 5-1/4" disk holders.

[dorrcoq]

File > Preferences > Expert Features (Tab) > Check "Enable Disc-At-Once CD Overburning"

Well, damnit, it only works for DAO.

So that's sorta it....

Yeah, I've got that setting already. Still doesn't work for data discs - anything over 703 MB I get the message that it is too much data for the disc. Oh, well.......the DVD burner is long overdue anyhow :D

[reece]

I burn my CD and then I make sure to take pristine care of them. If I want a CD just to listen to in the car, I burn it and treat it as such, which is without a care, because I know that at home are my “original” copies.

I archive and then do pretty much the same except I archive the lossless files instead of an audio. But then I burn an audio disc and when I need more room in the car or whatever I send it to a friend or offer it as a freebie or something.


...file sharing, legally or illegally, is only going to grow and rate of transfer are only getting faster. Point being, you have access to a bigger pool at a quicker rate. It will be like the internet, if it’s not already, there’s so much shit out there that you don’t even know where to begin.


I get shows and sometimes it'll be months before I listen to them other than to check quality. I'm just a little paranoid about relying on the web to have a particular show whenever I want. There are a few shows on the archive that I haven't downloaded 'cause I know it's there. But in the back of my mind I think "what if this site goes down? Anything can happen and where will I get this show?" So for the most part I tend to grab a show when it's available and not worry about it.

[reece]

So how the hell do you do it?


Currently I archive to cd-r's but that's only until I get a portable harddrive.