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  1. Member
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    Mar 2003
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    Ritek G03 at 1-2x and ProdiscS03 at 4x were, at the time, shockingly good discs at a time where discs in general were much more expensive and TYs were more expensive than average (especially during the 1x-2x period, but reasonably priced Verbatim discs came along as Prodisc faded away). Before and after, both companies made lousy media, with Ritek's drop being so massive that it caused a giant revolt and a ridiculous press release where Ritek claimed all of the bad burns were from fake discs even though most people were using Ritek's branded discs. Would someone who knows a bit about the technology behind the disc quality be able to explain why each company only was able to make 1 decent run of discs and otherwise made crap?

    Thanks!
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  2. Banned
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    Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then. Before I learned anything about media, I just assumed that all discs were the same. I usually bought Verbatim (lucky me), but sometimes I couldn't find them or something else was on sale and I bought that. I've recently been going through some old media so I can copy stuff I care about off of poor quality discs and burn it to some high quality Verbatim discs. I've got some Memorex discs and I only bought the brand once. Worst media I ever bought. Got more coasters from it than anything I ever used. I ripped 3 of them yesterday to re-burn and I was shocked that I only found 1 problem area on one disc and telling DVD Decrypter to re-read it did the trick. The other 2 discs had no problem areas, which really shocked me.
    I don't trust these discs long term, but a few years after burning they were still OK.

    It could also be that Ritek and Prodisc farmed out their manufacturing run to a higher quality company for a while, which led to the good discs. Then they switched to a cheap company to save money and the quality suffered.
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  3. Not to be glib, but it really is a question of "follow the money". When DVD was only burnable using pricey burners installed in pricey computers, most mfrs put out a quality disc because most consumers paid the stiff price required for the media. The minute CE mfrs began blanketing the world with standalone DVD recorders and cheap home PCs with DVD burners, more and more "average" users needed blank DVDs and price wars ensued. Unfortunately there is a certain threshold where economies of scale no longer work and these factories started pressing media to meet a price point at the expense of quality. Ritek and ProDisc positioned themselves as OEM suppliers to several of the major brand names in magnetic media, such as Memorex, which made them first in line to fall when price-cutting became the norm. Today pretty much all media is pathetic, requiring an absolutely up-to-date burner to cope with the increasingly lousy tolerances and dismal dyes used on most blanks. Here and there Verbatim still manages a good run but even they have gotten swept up in the price wars and are cutting corners right and left to compete for space in OfficeMax flyers with the likes of Memorex and (yucchhh) TDK.

    Taiyo Yuden (TY) is the only brand left with even a nod towards consistent quality and compatibility with older recorders and burners. There are a number of theories why this is so, the most common (but undocumented) belief being the company prides itself on its reputation and is not dependent on the blank media business for a huge slice of its income. They are content to have a small share of the market at slightly higher break-even prices. (For now anyway: who's to say next year.) In the distant past, there were some cases where the slightly lower reflectance of TY media caused reading problems with some older drives and players, but I think now that is a non-issue. The most important quality of TY media is that it will burn well in nearly any hardware because it has been purposely held back to 8x speed, which is much more compatible across the board than 16x. The dye formula has also not been tampered with in a very long time. Potential "reflectance" issues are compensated for by most any current or future DVD player or computer drive: I don't worry about this at all and use TY for all my archival recordings and PC files. Compared to the insane cost of "gold" media, I'll take my chances with TY.

    Going forward we are beginning to hear reports of 22x media replacing the current 16x. Given the rotten state of 16x media, one can only hope 22x is some kind of breakthrough in price/performance. If it isn't, we can kiss all our older hardware goodbye because it ain't gonna burn the new 22x nohow. Cross your fingers.
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  4. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Ritek never was good. The "good discs" were still problematic in terms of readability/reflectivity, meaning players would reject them. The "goodness" of the disc was largely a rumor started by those who "scan" media, a process that is not all that reliable in terms of determining actual disc quality. Ritek has always made its own media.

    Prodisc is more complicated, as the discs really were good. And they still are, just not maybe to the heyday of the PRODISCS03 or MCC02RG20 days. Consider that now Prodisc makes Verbatim media, so their own media may have been nothing more than a practice round for dealing with Verbatim (as both the Prodisc and the Verbatim were to Mitsubishi specs). As with others, prices have cut profits, so "follow the money" is sage advice, and it is likely an issue of less-strict quality controls letting more crappy Prodisc slip through into the disc spindles being sold. As with Ritek, Prodisc makes its own media.

    "Gold media", since I see it mentioned, is a product made for stupid people. Gold is less reflective of the available metals, and the dyes on those discs is crap compared to TY and MCC. But hey, "if it's gold, it must be good!", right? Again, a product for stupid people. Like DVD labels or "safe for DVD" markers.

    I don't find Verbatim to be cutting any corners. If anything, they've ramped up production to keep pace with the craptastic media made by CMC (to CMC specs) and Ritek.
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