Dual wifi modem router vs DVDs?

[Frito Ray]

I have a large number of old family movies and videos that were transferred to DVDs a few years ago.

They are stored in a sideboard drawer on which the TV sits.

For convenience, I would like to place the new cable dual wifi router/modem a the sideboard beside the TV, right over the DVD drawer. It’s one of those routers with backup batteries that are on 24/7.

Will any harm come to the DVDs (…or the TV) from being exposed 24/7 at only a few inches of distance?


BTW…I don’t care what this set up does to the WiFi signal strength. I always do my intenets surfing at the same place and get the full three bars at that spot.





All the articles I found were concerned about how such a set up would be detrimental to the WiFi coverage (which I don’t care about), and not if it could be detrimental to the history stored on the DVDs.

 

[Columbo]

A couple thoughts for you.

A nearby wireless signal should not degrade your recorded optical disks, especially as their data substrate layer is almost certainly primarily non-metallic in composition.

But I have a bigger data storage consideration to point out.

Unless your discs are specifically certified for archival lifespan, optical disks do for the most part degrade over time from the mere intrusion of atmosphere into the transcription layer. This occurs starting at the disc edges, which are not air-tight.

Some of the best blu-ray blanks now coming out of Japan are archive-rated for a century. And they are expensive. But the regular recordable blanks from the neighborhood office supply store can start degrading in a matter of 10-15 years, depending on storage conditions and manufacturing quality. The timetable will be most impacted on how you store the discs, with temperature and humidity the primary factors.

Recordable optical disk production other than for high-capacity blu-rays is not a manufacturing priority anymore, and most blanks are now coming out of China, and are not of the same overall quality as the older US, Japanese and European blanks were.

Relevant to your situation, the concern with substrate degradation is more pronounced with "recordable" discs that rely on laser writing into a heat-mutable substrate ... typically either an organic dye, or phase change alloy ... the ones typically used by the home movie digitizer houses, or that you buy at every office supply store. Re-recordable discs are just an improved version of the same general technology, but with PCM materials that can be reused.

Conversely, commercially "pressed" optical discs, the kind you see at the store with feature movies and music albums on them for purchase, are less susceptible to this form of deterioration. And being pressed, are based on a more durable metallic data layer. These disks are actually pressed with stampers into metallized polycarbonate substrates, much as the old analog vinyl and shellac records once were.

The color sheen of the written side of the disk is usually the tell whether a disk is pressed or of a recordable type.

I can almost guarantee that your family video library is on recordable (non-pressed) optical media.

But all optical disks, no matter the form, are at risk of eventual substrate deterioration, whether over years or many decades.

The best protection to personal data on optical discs is to rip backup copies to several backup digital storage formats. That may include online cloud storage, hard or solid state storage drives, and additional solid state portable storage formats, in addition to your master optical copy, and whatever additional optical copies (clones) you can burn.

You can never have too many backups where irreplaceable data is concerned.

 

[SamplingNature]

I imagine you'd be fine with enough airspace/airflow between each unit and the storage space. I had a PC with the router and modem inches behind it for years with no issue.

I also watched my ex kill three DVD players by placing cloth placemats under them in an effort to "make it pretty" before she realized I wasn't talking out of my ***. Heat kills electronics.

I'm also going to second what Columbo said. You want redundant storage for those photos. Not only do discs degrade, I'd be surprised if they aren't completely obsolete in a few years. A lot of services you may already have (Amazon, Google, etc) may already have free or affordable cloud services, and there are other affordable options out there. Solid state hard drives are another opinion you could look into.

 

[Frito Ray]

I want to thank you both for your thoughtful replies to my question…I was a bit concerned about getting called a tinfoil hat wearer.

Good to know that my recording are going to be safe.

I‘ve been aware that they are due to be copied to another media. In the 80’s I had old Brownie films transferred to VHS tapes, and in the latter 00’s I copied the tapes to DVDs with a Panasonic DVR (loved that machine!) then made copies to sent to family members. So at least there are several copies around. It’s on my ever-lengthening to-do list.

Out of curiosity I just took a look at the DVDs and saw no “made in China” on the disk…neither did I see any other country of origin for that matter. Just TDK DVD-R, 1-16x 4.7GB, made in 2005. There is also alphanumerical along the inner hub and inner reflective layer.

A nearby wireless signal should not degrade your recorded optical disks, especially as their data substrate layer is almost certainly primarily non-metallic in composition…

…Conversely, commercially "pressed" optical discs, the kind you see at the store with feature movies and music albums on them for purchase… are based on a more durable metallic data layer.

I do have some commercial CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays in the drawer as well. Could their metallic layer be affected?