BeAll load times...

[Savant]

OK, I have a batch of BeAll discs I purchased from Meritline, and I have been doing some test burns. I'm finding that they take longer to load on my set top player than my Princos did last year. It takes about 30 seconds for them to start playing, and I'm wondering is if this is 'normal' for these discs or not. If anyone else uses them, if you could respond with your experience on load times I would appreciate it.

I'm just a little worried that longer load time may mean lower overall compatibility with other players.

Regards,

Savant

[Fatboy]

Are your Beall discs made by Samsung.

If so check the media code, as I have been stung in the uk with retailers selling same looking discs (purple ish bottom and a blank silver top) as Samsungs BUT THEIR NOT !.

I have good sucsess with these discs working in over 15 makes of DVD standalones with no problems and no large spin up or access times.

How are you burning them and what with, Recordnow Max 4.5 has been rock solid for me every time ! (no coasters or problems)

Cheers,,

FatBoy

[Savant]

Yes they are genuine and I bought them from Meritline.

00 42 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 50 00 02 57 0E 14 .B...@....P..W..
87 88 80 00 03 42 65 41 6C 6C 20 00 04 47 30 30 .....BEALL ..G00
30 30 31 00 05 88 80 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 001.............

Actually I believe Samsung spun off the BeAll brand into its own company, so that is why you don't see their name on it anymore.

I'm burning with Prassi Primo DVD 2.0 and that was what I used for all the others. (I'm burning on a newly purchased A05) The access times are fine, it's the initial disc read time that is about 30 seconds.

I'll try another burning program, but I can't see how there would be a change when I was using the same builds to burn (on an A03) and had shorter load times before.

Regards,

Savant

[VinnySem]

BeAlls make up the majority of my library, and they load as quick as a pressed DVD in my Phillips DVD player.

[mkelley]

Yep, what VinneySem said (except that I play them in Sony and Apex).

It sounds a little squirrley to me -- have you tried burning another brand of disk recently? It may be your burner is acting up.

[Savant]

I actually was using an A03 and bought a new A05 specifically to address any possibility it might be my burner. I'm surprized that I had problems with them since people have such good things to say about them. However, they really didn't perform well at all and I have decided to RMA them. I think I'm going to change back to DVDPRO certified media since I have yet to have any trouble with those.

Regards,

Savant

[VinnySem]

Were you able to burn those at 2X in the A05 without hacked firmware?

What make/model is your set top player?

One more question, just confirming some info I read in another post. Did you buy a spindle pack, or the jewel cased ones? If a spindle, were they branded top or silver? I read a post where someone bought a spindle that came branded instead of the silver shown in the picture.

[Savant]

The Bealls would only burn at 1x. I don't use hacked firmware so I can't comment on that though. One of my set-top players is a JVC XV-521BK which plays anything I throw at it without a peep. (including Princos) I bought the spindle packs from Meritline. They come 50 to a spindle and they were definately UNbranded. The outside of the cakebox looks like like the image on this page: http://store3.yimg.com/I/meritline_1743_5254669

Frankly I was disappointed with the Bealls since I had expected superior quality. My burns with Princo and DVDPRO gave me shorter load times than this and no coasters. I had some loads that too nearlya minute to come up.

Regards,

Savant

[mkelley]

Sounds like you might not have gotten BeAlls.

The 100 (2 50 packs) I bought from meritline all burned 2x in my Sony and work just fine.

[Savant]

No, these are DEFINATELY Bealls. The media info confirms it. (keep in mind Meritline has an exclusive arrangement to sell them from what I understand)

What I figure has happened is that these discs have never really been tested to work with the Pioneer burners. I've heard good thing from others, but now that I look back I recall these people who commented had different burners.

Let's be honest here, if I can burn cheap Princos and not ahve trouble, it's obvious that these discs really haven't been properly tested to work with Pioneer burners. They work, but the quality is marginal and not what I would expect.

Well, I guess the lesson is to stick with what you know works. I'm going to go back to DVDPRO discs (I'll use the Pioneer certified brand this time) and I'm sure that will prevent any problems.

Regards,

Savant

[VinnySem]

I have an A04 and hacked firmware, and I can burn the BeAll disks @2X no problem. The Sony burner will burn just about anything @2X.

The quality of the BeAlls is far from marginal. I have not made a one coaster since I started using them, and I burn disks to within 50 meg of capacity. I like to squeak out every possible bit

I think the Samsung media sold at Rima is Samsung OEM, which is made by BeAll. I don't know if Meritline has an exclusive, you can also buy BeAlls at shop4tech.com.

[Savant]

I can only go by my experience. I have an A03 and I tried with 3 versions of Pioneer firmware. Marginal burns. I then bought an A05 (which has the latest firmware) and the same. Marginal burns. Some will play, some won't, and the ones that do play take almost a minuet to load. Some wouldn't even play on the burner. Ths is ALL at 1x, not 2x.

Perhaps it's a bad batch. I noticed that the center rings didn't look that great and the outer edges showed small globs of acrylic. Anyway, theyre going back. Like all media, people find what works for them. Until the industry gets the process 'down' I suspect we'll have problems like this for a while to come.

Regards,

Savant

[tphaggerty]

I have a spindle of 50 BeAlls (these are branded with a white, logo'ed top). They won't burn at all in my A05 right now, both tries locked up the burning software (tried in MF2 and in Roxio v6), then coasters. I am on 1.30 firmware, haven't tried the hacked firmware yet. Ritek G03s burn fine, I got the Bealls based on the supposed longevity.

At least one other user on a different board has the same problem, but haven't seen an update yet. I have the hacked firmware but haven't tried it yet.

[VinnySem]

I have a spindle of 50 BeAll printable I got from Rima. I'm about 1/3 of the way through it and I've made not ONE coaster, this is with my Pioneer A04. I started burning 1X on these, then discovered the hacked firmware, I've done about 15 of these on the hacked 2X4all firmware without a single hitch.

tphaggerty, those branded top disks, did you get them from Meritline/CDRDVDRMedia? Also, try the very latest version of Nero, or RecordNow MAX to burn DVD-Video disks. In my experience Roxio leaves much to be desired for DVD-Video burning, only good for data disks.

[wot_fan]

I am almost through with my third 50 dvd-r spindle of BeAll media. So far only 2 coasters made during burning and those could have been caused by something other than bad media. All of the dvds I have burnded load in my Pioneer DV-C505 as quickly as a pressed dvd.

BTW, the first two spindles were branded. The third just has a silver top. I bought the third (and 4th) a month after the first two. All were purchased from cdrdvdrmedia. ADVDInfo gives the same info for both the branded and unbranded:

00 6A 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 50 00 02 57 0E 14 .J...@....P..W..
87 88 80 00 03 42 65 41 6C 6C 20 00 04 47 30 30 .....BEALL ..G00
30 30 31 00 05 88 80 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 001.............

I am extremely satisfied with the BeAll media. I have played my backups in a number of different players and have yet to find one that won't play.

[tphaggerty]

I have a spindle of 50 BeAlls (these are branded with a white, logo'ed top). They won't burn at all in my A05 right now, both tries locked up the burning software (tried in MF2 and in Roxio v6), then coasters. I am on 1.30 firmware, haven't tried the hacked firmware yet

I took the plunge and went to the 2x4all hacked 1.30 firmware and now the BeAlls burn fine. Just to test, I burned the first one at 2x, it works fine, but I think I'll burn the rest at 1x. Seems wierd that I had to go to hacked firmware to burn these even at 1x (wonder if I reflashed the official 1.30 whether it would work). Everything else works fine, including -RW at 2x with Pioneer RW media.