ISO approved a global standard for optical media archive life testing, suitable for reliable long-Term storage of important Documents, images and data.

Jointly developed by the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) and Ecma International, the approved ISO/IEC 10995, is a global standard for optical media archive life testing for recordable and rewritable DVDs. The standard will enable the optical storage industry to offer reliable archival-grade optical discs to help end-users select the media life expectancy best suited to their application requirements.

The standard defines procedures for media archive life testing and classification, and then fast track the archival-grade optical disc testing specification through the ISO process.

OSTA established the Optical Disc Archive Testing (ODAT) Committee in 2005 to enable a broad team of industry experts, including global manufacturers of 120mm optical media and drives, as well as university and government participants, to define the test methodology. In 2006, OSTA and ECMA agreed to work together to fast track the test methodology, initially approved as ECMA-397, through the ISO process.

"Optical discs are an excellent archival medium for secure, removable, portable storage of important photos and documents," said David Bunzel, President of the Optical Storage Technology Association. "Approval of this global standard is an important milestone in our goal to enable end users to more easily identify and select archival-grade optical media, and we encourage industry-wide implementation of this standard to assist them in their purchase decisions."

"Ecma is pleased to have had the opportunity to fast-track the finalization and approval of this standard, which is designed to assist the market in clarifying differences in optical media quality," said Istvan Sebestyen, Ecma Secretary General. "Our TC31 committee was chartered in the 1980s to develop optical disc and disc cartridge standards, and has been involved with virtually all of the CD and DVD read only and recordable/rewritable standards. This experience contributed to our ability to finalize this media archival life test in a relatively short time."