Summary Report of ISO/IEC 10995 Test Program
Performed by Millenniata™ on Two Brands of Archival DVD-RIntroduction
Millenniata has established a new standard in digital data storage with the introduction of the M-DISC
family of inorganic archival optical media. As part of our on-going program to confirm the longevity
performance of the DVD and other optical media, Millenniata performed a series of tests conforming tothe ISO/IEC 10995 Standard Test Program. This test report will summarize the results obtained on twoorganic archival media brands.

Media Tested
The discs used in this test were DVD-R media selected with particular attention to the historicalmanufacturing quality of the brands, the cost of the media (assuming that higher cost equates to higherquality), and the data lifetime claims of the manufacturer. The first DVD (Brand A) is an archival gold discwith a claimed data lifetime of 100 years and a suggested retail price of about $2.60 per disc. The second
DVD (Brand B) is an archival disc with a claimed data lifetime of 30 years and a suggested retail price ofabout $2.85 per disc. (Prices are in U.S. dollars.)

Test Setup
The test conducted at Millenniata followed strict guidelines and standards that are set by the ISO/IEC
10995 Test Specification. The test conditions are summarized in table 1 below.
Test Number

1234

Test Stress Condition
Temp °C

% RH

85
85
65
70

85
7085
75

Number ofSpecimens

20
2030
20

Incubation
DurationTime
Completed

Hours
100 - 250
100 - 250
100 - 250
100 - 250

Hours
650
1150
2100
2500

Table 1: ISO/IEC 10995 Test Condition Summary

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Results of the Testing
Key values measured on the DVDs tested included Normalized Modulation, DC Jitter, and PIE Sum 8 Maximum.
Each of these values were measured multiple times for each specimen under each of the identified stressconditions.
Normalized Modulation is a measure derived from the reflectivity of the DVD in the written area. It is a measureof the difference in light reflected from the data marks and the area between the marks. A value of 60% isrequired to be within the standard DVD-R specification. As this value drops below 60%, the ability of a typicaldrive to read the disc may become impaired.
DC Jitter is a measure of variation in the beginning and end positions of marks made by the laser on a written
disc. The specified upper limit to this value on a newly written disc is 9%. While not a direct measure for theloss of data, as the DC Jitter increases, the ability of a drive to correctly recognize the edges of the data marks
is degraded and digital errors will increase.
PIE Sum 8 Maximum is a measure of the data read error rate for a DVD. The limit value specified in the test is280. All DVDs have a measureable error rate in playback that is automatically corrected by the drive. While thetypical DVD player will successfully read a disc with several times the 280 error rate, this value is specified in
the ISO/IEC 10995 Standard and is used as the failure specification in this test.
The test results below are only representative average values for the sets of DVDs exposed to each of theindividual test conditions. The curves in these figures represent a large number of discrete data points.

Figure 1: Normalized Modulation Average

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Normalized Modulation for Brand A was easily within specification for the duration of the test procedure.
Brand B however quickly fell to just below the specified limit, and stayed below for the remainder of the test.

Figure 2: DC Jitter Average

As can be seen above, Brand A shows a steady increase in DC Jitter on all of the test conditions. This is
not desirable, as eventually the ability of the drive to determine the length of the marks will decrease to thepoint that significant errors will occur. Brand B shows a sudden increase in DC Jitter at the beginning of eachtest, and significant variability thereafter. This is a much less desirable condition, as it indicates a quick andunpredictable failure mode for the discs.

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Figure 3 PIE Sum 8 Maximum

The PIE Sum 8 Maximum values for Brand A show a regular predictable increase in value as time is spent athigh stress conditions. It is easy to determine a predicted performance over time. Brand B shows much morevariability in the measurement.
To determine the expected lifetime of the discs, the PIE Sum 8 Maximum values for all discs experiencing
a particular test condition are analyzed and compared against the elapsed time in the test. Performing thisanalysis for the four different test conditions (see table 1) enables a scientifically rigorous estimation of thelifetime of the disc under various storage conditions.
The PIE Sum 8 Maximum test results displayed above demonstrate the significant lifetime concerns of theorganic archival DVDs tested. These values predict a significantly shorter lifetime than claimed for both brandsof discs tested. Following the mathematical analysis procedures specified in the ISO/IEC 10995 Standard, theentire collection of data taken in the test can be processed and reduced to a lifetime estimate for any specified
set of storage conditions (combinations of storage temperature and relative humidity). While this mathematicalanalysis is too extensive and laborious to be described in this summary report, the predicted lifetime results
are shown in Table 2 for various storage conditions. The typical values of 25°C and 50% RH are highlighted.

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Brand A

Brand B

15 °C

20 °C

25 °C

30 °C

35 °C

40 °C

30% RH

14.2

11.5

9.4

7.7

6.3

5.2

50% RH

4.6

3.73.0

2.5

2.0

1.7

70% RH

1.5

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.7

0.6

30% RH

7.8

4.9

3.1

2.0

1.3

0.9

50% RH

6.8

4.3

2.7

1.7

1.1

0.8

70% RH

5.9

3.7

2.3

1.5

1.0

0.7

Table 2: Average Predicted Data Lifetime in years (25°C and 50% RH is considered typical)

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