Lifetime estimates are all, in reality, just estimates. Most of them have some good scientific reasoning behind them, and usually take "accelerated aging" tests (high temperature/humidity/light situations) and extrapolate these results to more normal storage conditions. Indeed, the lifetimes of CD-R's are estimated to be at least in decades if not longer, but these are all estimates. Real pressed CD-ROM's have been around for about two decades now, and except for a few manufacturing snafus early on, they are known to be good for at least that long. In addition, CD-R's occasionally have interchangability problems - a brand X disk burned on a brand Y recorder might very well be unreadable on a brand Z player. Interchangability isn't a big problem for fairly recent CD-ROM readers, but for, say, someone hooking up an ancient RRD40 player it may very well be an issue. Pressed CD-ROM's tend not to have such interchangability problems (though certainly I think we've all run across cases where brand Z player won't read one disk, while brand Y will.) I tend to agree that CD-R's are probably good enough, but better is always the enemy of good enough, and real CD-ROM's would be better if there's enough volume to justify them. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927