Will my CDs and DVDs last forever?

Will my CDs and DVDs last forever?

Jeff Colen (President, A Sharper Home, Inc.) gives expert video advice on: Why doesn't my VHS tape play anymore?; Will my CDs and DVDs last forever? and more...

Any physical medium, whether it's a DVD or a CD or a VHS, will degrade over time. VHS tapes last less time than a DVD or CD but the other part that will make things challenging in the future, if you are storing things on DVD or CD, is that the standards change for how these things are played back. The fact that the disk works on equipment from 2007, doesn't mean that that same disk will play on the equipment in 2020 or 2025. So it is a challenge. We see it happening with some of our oldest stuff that is out there. It will be interesting to see what sort of solutions come up over the next five, six years.