Have you thought about saving your stuff on a flash drive? The great little things that go on your keychain. I just bought one and it's 4 Gig. It will hold tons of pictures. I even washed mine in the washing machine by mistake and it survived. I read that a DVD/CDR has a short shelf life 5 to 8 years. I save to them, but don't rely on them. I try a take all of my pictures of my kids with 35mm film. Negatives have a very long shelf life, many years beyond me.