[zowie]

How are people labelling their CD-R's?

On the library/archive groups I've belonged to, they say to only write in the clear center area, and with a CD-R pen (water based ink felt tip, not alcohol baseed like most). Other methods, e.g., writing on the silver part - top surface, of course - or heaven forfend using a stick-on label, compromises the lifetime of the disc.

However, I'm finding it to be a real PITA to only use the little center area. Hard to write, even harder to read back later.

My personal policy is only to copy commercial CDs that are out of print. If there's something I want that's available I pay for it. Thus I want my CD-R's to last for a good long time.

 

[stallion11msu]

I've been writing for years on the "meat" of the CD with a small sharpie and have never had any problems whatsoever. Just my two cents.

 

[LobsterSan]

Quote:

Originally posted by stallion11msu I've been writing for years on the "meat" of the CD with a small sharpie and have never had any problems whatsoever. Just my two cents.

As have I. Never really seen any data loss on those discs, or audio skips or anything like that.

BTW, what is the big deal with using a sticky label? does the adhesive burn through the disc and chemically kill the data wells? I don't see why that would be such a problem. I mean, commercial discs have silkscreen or laser junk written right on them -- are those not susceptible to data loss as well? (i mean, yea, in maybe 50 years or so the plastic on the CD might degrade... but beyond that?)

besides, i figure that the changes in data storage medium will keep up fast enough that i'll be writing my data to new mediums (meaning i'm not going to lose my CD data in 25 years because it will all be on DVD or some other thing...). I foresee DVD-R being at the same level that CD-R is now in maybe 2 years or so, and I can just transfer my data there.

 

[zowie]

That's exactly it -- concern that the stickum will cause the outer plastic protection to decompose faster.

Good point about transferring the collection to a future format. But it assume there'll still be no meaningful copy protection technology in the future to stop this, and it may not be a realistic project for people with huge collections.

 

[LobsterSan]

How about a system of printing on a label that goes on the little clear plastic area in the middle? It shouldn't be too difficult to use adhesive labels and cut them out. You could use a photoshop template or something to keep it standardized. Using a printer would make it much easier to write/read, and the stickums wouldn't harm the data portion of the disk.

 

[Mr.PD]

I write on mine with a CD marker. I don't worry where I write on them and I don't buy that you shouldn't write opposite the data area.

The only reason I don't use the stick on labels any more is because I have concerns about them coming off in a car cd player.

 

[Pepsione1]

I print mine. $8.00 for like 3,000 of them

, easy, clean, cheap & fast.

 

[dokebi]

Where pepsi?