Cheap DVD-R media DOWN UNDER

[tpham]

Can anyone tell me where I can get cheap DVD-R media (preferably Ritek or Shintaro) in Melbourne Australia.

[bartman]

You can buy Shintaro from JB Hi-Fi....at least here in Canberra...for $30 for a box of 10 in jewel cases. If you want the stores in VIC, here they are (grabbed from the JB website)

Brighton
459-467 Nepean Hwy, Brighton, 3186
(03) 9596 7500
Camberwell
758 Burke Rd, Camberwell, 3124
(03) 9882 1372
Chadstone
Shop B17, Dandenong Rd Chadstone Shopping Centre
(03) 9569 9303
City
289 Elizabeth Street Melbourne 3000
(03) 9670-3611
City (Duty Free)
360 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, 3000
(03) 9670 1414
Dandenong
21 Cleeland St, Dandenong, 3175
(03) 9793 6977
Eastland
Shop L027,Eastland Shopping Centre,171 Maroondah Highway,Ringwood, 3134
(03) 9870 3488
Frankston
32 McMahons Rd, Frankston
(03) 9783 5820
Heidelberg
37 Burgundy St, Heidelberg, 3084
(03) 9459 6311
Highpoint
Shop 1115, Level 1, 200 Rosamond Rd, Marybyrnong Road
(03) 9317 8277
Keilor
18 Centreway East Keilor 3033
(03) 9336-2066
Knox
724 Burwood Hwy, Ferntree Gully, 3156
(03) 9756 0377
Nunawading
428 Whitehorse Rd, Nunawading, 3131
(03) 9872 3799
Prahran
282 Chapel Street, Prahran, 3181
(03) 9521 4166
Preston
Unit 16 Northland Homemaker Centre, 19-33 Murray Road
(03) 9471 3511

p.s. to the moderators....if you think this is advertising then feel free to edit.....I don't work for JB but like to shop there

[tpham]

Thanks for your response...I am trying to get them at a lower cost...at the moment Centercom is selling Princo x4 speed for only $2.20 in 50 spindle. I haven't bought them as yet because of two reasons...I don't think Princo are that reliable and two they are out of stock. In saying that Princo are not so reliable, I have doubt in whether Shintaro are more reliable since these are bottom of the range writable DVDs.

[bartman]

I'm trying out some Shintaro's now ($28.50 for 10 so I can't complain) and I have used Princo's in the past. They are ok as long as you observe some simple rules...(learnt these from experience)

1) the disk must be clean....and I mean VERY clean. Any little specks will result in under-burnt areas on the disk (looks like little dark splotches) and the movie will jump at that area (data isn't too badly affected since the error correction can usually handle it). I've burnt disks that I thought were spotless and yet somehow the tiniest speck of dust screw's up the whole disk...use a lint free cloth to clean the sucker before burning....some players may not have a problem with this though.

2) don't burn right to the edge....If I'm burning a movie with Princo's or Shintaro's I make sure the whole thing is under 4.1 gig...othewise the last 5 - 10 minutes of the movie skips or is jerky....again some players can handle this better than others (my $500 Philips player can't...my $100 XMS can)

These are just my experiences and mostly with the 1x media (of which there is a lot of floating around)...they may have picked up their game with their 2x and 4x media...but then, maybe not.

[w00tski]

shintaro media IS princo, its just rebadged, check the media code thing in advdinfo. when i was down in melbourne (could not find them in the sydney store for some reason), i pickedup one and it was simply a 1x princo disc in a shintaro jewel case. only $3 but it was 1x media. If you can, just get a sample quantity of princo's, maybe say 5 or 10 discs.... I bought princo 4x media and found 2 things, my sony burner will rarely write on the media at 4x, but when it does write at 4x, the results arent that great. So i write them at 2x media and the burn is fine, all the way to the outer edge of the disc (latest firmware helps here). If you got the pioneer drive, it should write to princo's at 4x all the way to the end no probs...

[tpham]

Thanks guys...I've just purchase the A05 last week and have upgraded the firmware it so that it'll write at x2 for x1 DVD-Rs. I am mainly interested in getting x1 speed DVD-R of good quality cheaply. I know I am asking for too much, but, if its out there I want to know about it. Simply put it, I think retailers are marking these prices up too much. I am simply trying to find a retailer that isn't marking his prices too high. By the way, I purchased a spindle of 50 x1 MaxData (which the retailer claimed to be x2). It had a media type code of x2 but write speed of only x1 - I wasn't too happy to find this out. I paid for x2 but only got x1 but didn't make a fuss because the A05 wrote them a x2 anyway. These MaxData only cost $1.80 each. I haven't had any problem burning them at all, I haven't really watched the burnt movies yet, but there doesn't seem to be any problem. My only concern with MaxData is that it looks on the poor quality side. If you look at the whole spindle you can sort of see left over residue stuck on the rim of the DVD-R - not too impressed. But, for what I paid what can I expect.

[AmeliaK]

I'm very new DVD burning (just purchased the A06). Purchased Pinco 4x 50 DVD-R spindle for $100 (ie $2.00per DVD).

I can give you a number, but you should be able to get this at any Swapmeet. This sunday its at the Melbourne Showgrounds.

Kind Regards
Amelia

[WildParadise]

Anyone about Quebec, Canada??

as all the links i have found are in california and ship to us only

[tpham]

Hi AmeliaK...would you be able to do me a great favour and tell me if the write speed on these Princo are really x4 as they claim to be. My experience is that the write speed aren't always what they claim to be. You should be able to determine the write speed when you're burning the DVD (x4) or you can use the following freeware program Dvdinfo which is in the tools section of dvdrhelp (http://www.nicsoft.com.au/download/dvdinfo.zip)

Thanks in advance,

Also, could you give me the number...I don't often go to swapmeets...thanks

[gavmiester]

Have to say a big yes to check those speeds.....Ive gone through two spindles of 100 of the x4 Princos, but they only burn at x2....this is with the standard Sony burner

[tpham]

That SUCKS...I feel for you gavmiester. This is the very reason why I am asking a lot of questions before I will actually purchase my next batch of DVD-Rs. I've already been burnt with my purchase of MaxData. The thing is, why should I paid for DVD-Rs which claim a x4 write but will only actually write at x2, when I can buy x1 write and actually write at x2 on my A05.

[bartman]

I used to buy Legacy brand DVD-R's. They came in a DVD case and were 2x and I could get them for around $4.30. I used to get them from a website (www.dcss.com.au) but he closed down for some reason. If you can find those they should be cheaper now plus you get a proper DVD case....never had a coaster with them except for where I screwed up the authoring or my PC crashed halfway through a burn.....

They were cheap (for the time)...they said they did 2x burn....and they DID do 2x burn. Seems these days that the cheaper the disks the less reliable the speed rating, which is a shame.

Let me know if you find any...I've been looking for the last 8 months but haven't seen them anywhere....

[feeras]

In any case, what 4x media are guaranteed to be written at 4x? Particularly on an A06 too...
I also purchase a 10 piece 4x Prino spindle but have tested any of them. I'm still using a -RW for testing the encode and authoring.

Cheers,
feeras

[feeras]

whoops, should be " have not "

[AmeliaK]

tpham
I have emailed you the Phone number, not sure if I am supposed to post phone numbers here

As far as Burn speed goes, I have only done 5 DVDs on -R media all at x4 on the A06 no problems at all. The rest of my burning has been limited to -RW at x2.

I basically did my testing using the -RW media untill I was satisfied that the DVDs were compatible with all three of my Standalone DVD Player.

Kind Regards
Amelia

Burn baby burn

[techie]

Hi Guys, I have tried the Princo 4x media in the Sony 500a and found no matter what speed they are unreliable(I have the latest firmware) I have also used shintaro 4x and not one of them has failed, even burning right to the end. I will not comment on if they are the same media or not as I don't know. But I had 10 Princos and 8 fails 1 failed at the end but still plays in my wintel DVD player. All 20 of my shintaro 4x have worked fine at 4x.

You can buy Shintaro at Digiworld in the City (Melbourne)
http://www.digiworld.com.au/
224 LaTrobe Street
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Australia
(03) 9663 6699

They sell them for $39.95 for 10 in cases or $35.00 for 10 in sleaves

[w00tski]

PRINCO = SHINTARO
please check the media code with ADVDINFO

[nerdboy69]

I am Melbourne based and use Sony burner.

Swap meets are the best option.

For cheapies, I can thoroughly recommend "Sigma" (from Melody group - stuffed if I know what the code is on the media, I am just reading labels here).
DVD-R's @2x are $2 a pop. Yet to have a coaster.
DVD+R's @2.4x are $3 a pop. Yet to have a coaster.

DO NOT buy "InfoSmart" as I had 30% coaster rate.

Princo is disappointing, and yes, Sony burner will burn 4X at 2X despite what Nero says on screen. Every thread I have read on the topic says the same.

For my burner, I now use the +R's if I am in a hurry (takes just over 20 min for full disk @ $3 a pop Sigmas), and the -R's if I don't give a rats. For some reason the +R's seem to take less time on the lead-in/out.

Pioneer does not seem to have the hassle with Princo. I have a friend with a A05 burner and he has no hassles with 4X at 4X.

Cheapest Supplier I use is:
Landmass Shipping & Trading Pty. Ltd.
Peter Hou
Unit 20, Commercial Rd, Highett, Vic 3189
Tel: 9553 0671, Mob: 0412 738 668

He operates out of a warehouse unit and is always at swap meets (very friendly Asian couple).

[AmeliaK]

I have only purchased one spindle of Princo DVD-R media and so far no problems burning at 4x with the Pioneer A06.

Kind Regards
Amelia

[tpham]

@techie

If you use the DVDinfo program you should be able to see that the Shintaro are actually manufactured by Princo....

[TerminalVeloCD]

Unless Shintaro have changed their manufacturer, the manufactuer's ID on these discs will either be PRINCO or TDK (fake TDK).

TerminalVeloCD

[nerdboy69]

Just did some Media Code checks on some of my DVD's:

Melody 2.4x DVD+R - CMC MAG R01 (Same as Verbatim Datalife)

Melody 2x DVD-R - CMCMAG. (similar code to Verbatim & others - not specifically listed though)

Databank 4x DVD-R - RITEKG04 (Dark blue labels from supplier I listed in previous post above, but only seemed to burn 2x on my Sony even with 2.0f firmware)

[tpham]

Also,

CONIA = PRINCO

[AmeliaK]

Wow, it sounds like every thing is Princo

[lordjarjar]

Some media info for Xbox backups. Xbox is very fussy with a lot of media and I found that Melody 2X and Princo 2X and 4X work consistently with either games or movie backups for Xbox. I still can't get any DVD-RW to work with my Xbox. The media that does not work with my Xbax are infosmart, digimedia 1X and maxamax 1X.

Princo 4X -R in my experience is very reliable and good value for your money at about $2.00 each (I have pioneer A05). Also the Princo 2X -RW is incredibly cheap at $3.00 from the swapmeets.

[tpham]

I don't know why but I can't seem to get myself to trust Princo. I've never used them before so I've never had any problem with them. It's just that too many people have had problems with them. If I stick to the cheaper brands I can't see how I could avoid them...the manufacturer seems to make so many brands...

[KISSMAD]

Technology Warehouse Australia has Shintaro DVD-R in boxes and spindles. They are in Canberra.

http://www.techwarehouse.com.au

[pb]

I have a Sony DRU500AX with original firmware 2.0C and the only -R disks that burn at 4x are Verbatim ($7.50 by mail from PAW) or Pioneer 4X. Ive tried all the others and the Sony does not allow 4x. I have bought Ritek and DupEZ from PCX in Sydney by mail and they seem good (2X as stated). I'm in Brisbane, I think some place is selling Verbatim's 4X for $5.50 or $6, can't remember where, i'll check the paper on Saturday.

I cannot find -RW 2X any where, any idea's people??, I usw +RW's as they are fast and reliable (2.4X). I think there is a firmware upgrade for the 500AX, but don't know if this allows +RW 4X?? anyone know??

[blacardi]

Just tried to copy 1:1 with nero of a movie-backup that worked perfect on all standalone dvd players.

One month ago i made a backup op my movie. That backup worked flawless (backed it up on a princo). Now it just works on some of the standalone players...

When i try to rip the movie with DVD-decryptor, it comes up with read-errors near the end of the movie. After clicking ok, it finishes the job and states that the dvd was ripped correctly. None of the DVD-r's burnt with that rip worked... it freezes near the end of the dvd.

Copying the movie with Nero 1:1 does not give me errors... but the copies still does freeze near the end.


You all should check the original you are copying from if a backup fails near the end. I guess it's more likely that the source dvd-r is corrupted, so the destination will never be good.

[nerdboy69]

For cheapies, I can thoroughly recommend "Sigma" (from Melody group - stuffed if I know what the code is on the media, I am just reading labels here).
DVD-R's @2x are $2 a pop. Yet to have a coaster.
DVD+R's @2.4x are $3 a pop. Yet to have a coaster.

OMG. Did I say that? I just bought another spindle of the 2X Sigma media only to find the first 5 worked fine, and the rest have a visible defect on each of the disk which gets hit just after Lead-in. Everyone of these has failed (5 so far, and I am not going to attempt any more - will be returning the spindle for refund/substitute).

I notice that the physical disk itself looks different. The label is lighter (more white than grey) but the ink looks the same shade. I really hope this is just a bad batch, because I was happy to have found cheap reliable media.