You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.AltTabDelete wrote: Sat Mar 22, 2025 2:11 pm I take that to mean that not only data burned to an optical disc, but the factory formatting of that disc
I had always associated "bit rot" with data added to an optical disc, never associated it with the factory formatting.
A CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM is just a plastic circle. It is a laminated layer of foil designed so that one laser can burn little holes into the plastic and a different laser can scan for those holes. Considering that the dimensions of those little divots on the plastic are smaller than the width of a human hair, it's no surprise when a minute manufacturing defect or environmental factor renders a single disc unusable. They are plastic, not perfect. Durability is a metric, not a guarantee. This is why bathtub curves exist. Most DVDs will last for years. Some DVDs will fail immediately, some will fail over a short period of time, some after a few decades, and eventually every DVD will degrade until it is unusable. They all just take different amounts of time turning into trash.
Blank DVDs can be bought in packs of up to 100 and retail for around 35 cents each or less. All of this is starting to sound like the guy who counts his matches. As the old joke goes:
Dear Acme Matchbox Company,
I have been counting the number of matches in each 60-match box of Acme matches I've purchased for the last 11 years. Sometimes I find there are 58 or 59, sometimes there are 61, and occasionally there are 62 matches in a single box. Are you folks crazy?