MooMooMooMoo

Also, if there is interest, should it go here or in "Hot Deals"?

My thinking is here, but I am not a mod.

I have noticed that recordable disc quality has gone down the drain the last couple years (even Verb, FTI & most TY's), so spending dollars wisely on them is more important than ever imo.

Thoughts?

sleepyhead55

Sure, I still use DVD-R's and would like to know the quality difference. I'm currently using my last few TY's and then I have a few Verbatim DVD+R to use up. After that, I'll have to buy a new spindle.

It should go in here as I don't visit "Hot Deals" as much.

ProfessorEcho

I would like it here as well though I rarely ever see deals on them, especially TY. I've been sticking with Verbatim AZOs which are still rated highly, but I'm getting to the point now where I don't care anymore. If a burn goes well, hopefully it will stay intact until I get around to watching it. I don't lose sleep over longevity worries anymore. I should live so long.

MooMooMooMoo

I just spent 30 minutes writing a post on this & accidentally deleted it before posting. I will return to this thread later, i am not happy with myself right now. I was hoping hitting the back button on my browser would bring back what I'd written, but that apparently doesn't work on this forum.

danwiz

I'd be interested!

MooMooMooMoo

OK, I'm going to try this again (I hate writing a long anything twice!). But since I started the thread........

What got me interested in this subject was really bad luck with common brands many years ago before I knew better. I had around 100 Maxell (made by Ricoh) DVD-R's go bad just sitting on the shelf (with no moisture or direct sunlight). The dye literally faded on the last 1/3 of the disc. They were unrippable, & only one of my players could read them (oddly it was a $35 Cyberhome!)

I also had a number of Comp USA, Comp City, Maxell & TDK "Consumer cdr's" (synonym for discs with the extra bit for the old stand alone recorders with SCMS) become completely unreadable.

So I learned (& became really paranoid on this subject!)!

Up until about 2 years ago, Taiyo Yuden was usually the way to go for both cdr & dvdr. Other brands that I know to have once been of quality include really old TDK cdr's when they actually made their own discs with the dark blue TDK dye, the very occasional Maxell that was made by TY & early FTI/Falcon cdr's.

For DVDr, IN THE PAST I had good luck with TY (including Maxell, Sony & Fuji made by TY's), VERB (mostly the FTI/Falcon made In UAE Verbs), FTI/Falcon & again TDK's that were actually made by FTI /Falcon & stated "Made In UAE" on the package. Unfortunately both appear to have completely disappeared from the USA market. If you are lucky enough to stumble across a cake of Verb's that state "Made in UAE", I highly recommend buying them! I believe FTI only made minuses for Verb.

Moving up to today:

The only decent cdr I've seen since the TY / JVC purchase are the "Shiny Silver Surface" TY Pro cdr's in tape wrap (aka JCDR-ZZ-SK). Since all the TY pro's share the same MID & dye, I have no idea why all other TY pro's I've tried suck in comparison, but they do. A minimum acceptable burn in my opinion (scanned for quality with Nero cd/dvd speed) would have a score of 99-100 & less then 100 c1 errors. The only TY still showing those results is the "Shiny Silver Pro" in tape wrap. Other TY's seem to average around a 97 score, and 600-2000 c1 errors.

The one caveat is the last batch I bought was several months ago; things could have gotten worse since then. Here are the 2 sources I've had the best success (both pricing & quality) with:

http://www.meritline.com/taiyo-yuden...--p-18204.aspx

http://www.supermediastore.com/produ...tic-wrap-100pk

Now on to dvdr's.

I do not know of a single dvdr of current manufacture that meets my standards (Score of 95 or better, less than 200 PI failures). The problem is definitely not my burner; the other day I found a "new old stock" Fuji branded TY - that burned within that range. That's also been the case with other NOS discs I've burned somewhat recently.

Falcon/FTI has become horribly inconsistent at best. In fact, the last 2 batches i bought were replaced by the company with batches that were even worse then the ones i returned to them (we're talking 1500-6000 PI failures per disc). The oem FTI Verbs & TDK's are also long gone in the USA. And all TY minuses I've tried for at least the last couple years were pretty dreadful.

Up until a few months ago, I was using new old stock TDK's made by FTI that a friend had bought when they were available & was selling to me at a very good price.

The same friend has told me to try current 8x TY DVD+r pros; he believes they are probably much better than the minuses. He did say to stay away from the 16x & the various TY value lines.

I plan to do so as soon as i have spare $'s. Debating whether to go for the cheapest option or the higher priced in tape wrap to prevent scratched discs by bouncing in shipping option.

Either way, Meritline seems to be the cheapest on these;

http://www.meritline.com/jvc-dvd-r-8...--p-44992.aspx

http://www.meritline.com/taiyo-yuden...--p-18488.aspx

http://www.meritline.com/taiyo-yuden...--p-18445.aspx

The printing surface SHOULDN'T make any difference in disc quality, but since I've found that for reasons unknown to me it does make a HUGE difference with the TY cdr's; I'd greatly appreciate feedback from anyone who's used these.

As far as dual layer dvd9's, it appears Verb is the only option left that has any chance of not being crap. Again, Falcon/FTI used to be excellent; even their value lines. And again they have gone downhill & become inconsistent.

Even with Verbs, I ordered a batch of the very highly regarded AZO 2.4x's that Best Buy was blowing out a few months ago, & over 1/2 of the discs in the cake box were scratched the first time I pulled them out.

That's my long winded summary of the current horrible state of the market (I have no idea why it's changed so much for the worst in the last 2 years); looking forward to other's comments!

TheBang

I would guess that the demand for burnable media has plummeted in recent years, and there's simply no market or margin for it anymore, thus quality has suffered. With $/GB going way down for HDD, large media arrays have become the standard and 4.7 GB optical media is just too small and inconvenient.

JoeDoakes

If quality has gotten worse, my guess is that, with streaming and dvr, a lot fewer people are recording to disk, and those that are tend to be less sophisticated. As to your post, could you explain the technical points you make in your post (I've tried to edit it to just leave them) and explain how you tell. It would be a big help. Thanks

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I'd say if quality has suffered it's because companies have found that they can spend less to produce lower quality products that people will still buy for the same price.

sleepyhead55

I just have a few general comments.

The Verbatim DVD +R I've owned were manufactured in Singapore, UAE and India. I played one of the Singapore one the other day and the only problem I had was that the DVD/BD player took a while to read the disc, no image or playback problems after that. The India ones I bought felt a little flimsier than the other two. And it had a funky chemical smell. No problems with the UAE ones as of now. Also, do know which countries currently manufacture, the Verbatim DVD+R that Amazon currently sells?

The TDK DVDR's you mentioned, were they grey? I bought some like five years ago and didn't notice any problems playing them then. Of course that could have changed by now.

On Verb's DVD9, at least you got lucky that your discs were only scratched. I bought a 15 (or 10 pack) from Best Buy years ago and about 30% of the discs were defective or had bad burns.

I've had a few bad burns (2 or 3 out of a 100) with the TY I'm currently using.

Last question, if I'm solely depending on amazon.com as my source for DVD R (or DVD +R), which would be the best "bang for buck" brand or type?

MooMooMooMoo

@sleepyhead:

I was told that FTI (Made in UAE) was only doing minuses for Verb. I've also personally never seen any VERB UAE +'s. Where did you get the UAE +'s? Are they still available?

The TDK UAE's were about 2 years ago. Only source i know of in the USA was Meritline. Printing surface was white; packaging was a grayish white; BUT they used the same packaging other than the UAE statement when they stopped using FTI.

I'm not a Verb expert (other then the FTI -'s); but I've heard the India ones are the worst, with Taiwan being the 2nd worst.

Bang for the buck is usually Meritline or Supermedia, but both have AWFUL CS. I ended up buying a cake of TY +'s today from Amazon for $3 more than Meritline. ML's site was not working for me most of the day. it appears the reason was an incompatibility with the tons of Google scripts they run & today's XP security updates. If they had politely told me that, I would have just waited until tomorrow. Instead, the (apparently) Asia based CS treated me like an idiot, both by phone & email.

Even sadder, is I will probably still buy from them in the future due to pricing; although a number of folks apparently learned about TDK dropping FTI the hard way; Meritline "forgot" to change the picture that said "Made In UAE...."

For Meritline or Supermedia, you can use the links I posted above. Here's the link for the purchase I made on Amazon today (same product as 2 of the links on my last post above). If Amazon is definitely your vendor, this was the best price I could find on Amazon for TY pro +'s (MAKE SURE YOU BUY THE PRO'S, NOT the value line!!) & the 3rd party seller has 99% fb which is pretty hard to get on Amazon.

I so hope they're quality discs......... If not I am out of ideas & really p.o'd at myself for some of the um...... "content" I wasted quality discs on!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

MooMooMooMoo

Nero makes free software (variously known as CD/DVD speed, Disc Speed & other similar names) that does the scanning.

There is also a lot of controversy as to which burners give accurate scans.

Many people feel true Benq's are the only way to go. In my experience (repeatable results & a correlation between results, scratches &/or lack of & actual problems) that has not been the case. Also, some burners are more accurate scanning dvdr's while others are more accurate scanning cdr's.

I have been told true Plextors do a good job scanning cdr's, but they require Plextor software that only runs on XP & newer & my only ide box is still on Win 98 (& afaik all true Plex's were ide, they were outsourcing by the time of Sata) so I've never scanned with a Plextor (though they are the ONLY cd burner I will use).

For dvd scanning I get pretty much the same (& I believe accurate) results with both Sata & IDE Optarc 7200-a & 7200-s. For CDR scanning I only use the IDE Optiarc 7200-a (of the drives that are currently available to me).

C1 errors on cdr's are flaws that require error correction. C2 errors on cdr's are disc failures that require major error correction & often cause pretty major playback problems.

On dvdr PI errors & PI failures are a somewhat similar analogy; though all dvdr's are going to have some failures (whereas a cdr really should have 0 failures). Again, I prefer to see them below 200 failures per dvdr, but good luck finding that these days!.

Nero's "score" is based on how large (how bad would be another way to say it) the errors (cdr) & failures (dvdr) are; not how many their are.

Here's some good reading, though you will find disagreement with a good portion of what I stated above.

http://club.myce.com/f96/

One suggestion on the tech issues: imo (& again some folks disagree with this) always burn at the slowest speed possible, & with dvdr's buy the 8x, NOT the 16x or 18x (almost everyone in the burning community agrees with that).

And lastly, with the possible exception of Verbs, stay away from all mass market brands. There was a time when TY and as i mentioned above FTI made the discs for the big companies, but that time is long gone. At one time TDK also made SOME of their own discs; the true TDK (ironically the actual discs were unbranded) cdr's are the best I've ever burned. The main oem manufacturers today are CMC, Ricoh, Ritech & Pro Disc; & imo all 4 tend to be junk. Though supposedly at one time Ricoh made some good products; but those 100 Maxell dvdr's I had go bad many years ago were all Ricoh Japan's!

sleepyhead55

I bought the UAE Verb (DVD+R) a few years ago (2009 or 2010) from Amazon.com. I can easily identify them with the code on white ring. It starts with an A (it's kind of hard to read at this point). The Made in Taiwan (or Singapore) older ones I have contain a PAP6 letter code. The newer Made in India ones are easy to identify since they feature numbers in Black inside the white ring.

I don't think Amazon.com sells them anymore as I have only read India or Taiwan as the two main types which buyers are receiving.

MooMooMooMoo

I'll bet those were awesome discs. From when they started up (4 years ago?), until about a year or 2 ago, FTI were the best dvdr's I knew of.

TheBang

How do you guys feel about M-Disc for archival optical media?

MooMooMooMoo

I've never heard of M-disc!

ProfessorEcho

Deal Of The Day at Best Buy. It shows a picture of the Verbatim AZO brand, but not sure the picture will be right. If they send the DataLifePlus I will return them.

VERBATIM DOTD

sleepyhead55

One amazon.com indicates that it is not AZO type so buyer beware.

MooMooMooMoo

It appears that Super Media has dropped the cdr I was raving about above. i don't know if that means they're being discontinued, or that SM is just no longer carrying them. Meritline still shows stock:

http://www.meritline.com/taiyo-yuden...--p-18204.aspx

ProfessorEcho

The model number matched the AZO listing at Amazon, but I'll report back when my order arrives. It's easily returnable to a BB store if they send the wrong ones.

MooMooMooMoo

There's a little confusion with this one, but it APPEARS that www.cddimensions.com is offering a 100% free shipping sale through 3/28. The confusion is:

1. The email title says 5% off, but the body of the email replaces that with free ship several times (free ship would be a bigger discount in most cases)

2. There is no coupon code.

3. I went through most of an order without finalizing & it did show a shipping charge.

Their # is 888-395-6396 if you want to call & check before ordering. With the free ship their pricing is pretty competitive. I will likely do so if my finances permit.

kahuna

My personal choice is the Verbatim 16x AZO Dvd-r. Never had a problem with them.
Brought seven 100 spindles from Amazon back in early January for $18.14 each.
For burning Korean Drama episodes for family members or friends. I use to buy TDK 16x Dvd-r with grey tops. But when Amazon had their AmazonBasics 4.7 GB 16x DVD+R - 100 Pack Spindle for under $12 each. I brought 5 spindles and had one bad burn so fa out of 400 burns. If they ever drop that close to that price again I will buy more. So far (knock on wood) no complaints from any one about play back problems.

I use to buy 8x JVC/TY disc from Supermedia for my Panny dvd-recorder. But it was a pain to ship to a Aunt in CA. And then have her ship to me here in HI. So now I just use the Verbatim 16X AZO.

MooMooMooMoo

I've been in contact with CD Dimensions. Apparently the email was rushed out too quickly.
I am told the intent is to offer your choice of either free ship OR 5% off. They are going to email me
an official statement tomorrow that I'll post. This does look like a good sale.

MooMooMooMoo

Here's clarification on the CD Dimensions sale:
"We invite you to use a coupon code for either free shipping or 5% off your entire order-whichever
saves you the most!

Please use EASTERSHIP
OR
EASTER5 "

sleepyhead55

Yeah, the shipping rates to HI from retailers not named Amazon.com is absurd. Guess I'll just wait until Amazon has a sale on Blank DVDs.