WOW CHEAP MEDIA BURNS AT 16x

[Tidy]

I just went to fry's and picked up a 50 spindle of 8x DVD+R's (GQ) for 19.50. I hate buying GQ media but i needed some right now. Well I have done some testing and I have gotten stable 16x burns 10 discs in a row on my DVR-108. You might consider giving them a try. they identify as prodisc though . Hope they have a better shelf life than the regular GQ's. My experience has been 25% failure within 6months.

[lordsmurf]

I bet a couple tests will show that your data is kibble.

[steve2713]

My experience has been 25% failure within 6months.

Yes, and you'll failure rate will probably only get even worse by burning at such a high speed. I'm not sure why people are so obsessed with burning media as fast as it will possibly be burned. Do you have a LiteOn drive? If you do, you should do PI/PO tests on the media burned at 4x, 6x, 8x, 12x, and 16x, then decide whether or not saving 2 minutes on a burn is really worth the difference in burn quality. You'll probably find that your burns at 16x have high error rates in PI/PO tests (not actual read errors).

Also, 40 bucks for 100 GQ discs doesn't seem that great when you can get 100 RICOHJPNR01 (Ridata 4x DVD+R) for $29 after rebate, shipped.

Don't take my post as a bash on you, I'm just pointing out my experiences, particualarly with cheap media. You'll probably get MUCH better burns if you limit them to 8x rather than pushing their limits to 16x, and the difference in burn times is really not that great.

[steve2713]

Yeah, Lordsmurf, what you said... :P

[Tidy]

Care to lay a cash wager on that? I have done 5 copy offs per disc and have had no problems with them whatsoever. I have now burned 5 movie backups as well and they all seem to play okay. Granted I have run through them at 32x so there are a lot of skipped frames. I think the 5 copy offs per disc is proof enough that it is stable for me at least.

[Laddydaddy]

steve2713 wrote:

Also, 40 bucks for 100 GQ discs doesn't seem that great when you can get 100 RICOHJPNR01 (Ridata 4x DVD+R) for $29 after rebate, shipped.

.
Where did you find that deal? Supermediastore has them for $39 after rebate with free shipping. I like $29 even better!

[Tidy]

Hey I said I need them now. My mail order media has not shown up and if you need a decent in store alternative this could be it. I normally write G04's at 16x with no problems.

[Tidy]

Fortunately for this application they do not need the long shelf life they only have to live a couple of weeks to make it through the mail. Oh I thought I mentioned in my original post that I am using a Pioneer DVR-108.

[steve2713]

Tidy, I'd love to put a 'cash wager' on it, as you say - to do immediate copies of freshly burned discs tells me NOTHING of the true quality of the burned discs. I absolutely GUARANTEE that you're going to have more problems with discs burned at 16x vs 8x burns. You may be able to copy them now, but you may be regretting saving 2 minutes per burn a couple of years from now. Just because you CAN burn them at 16x doesn't make it a good idea.

[steve2713]

Laddydaddy - http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-132-344&depa=0

[lordsmurf]

If you need something now, then pay for your impatience or lack of foresight. I have to do this myself.

Shell out the extra couple of dollars that it takes to buy something good. Fry's has Maxell (MXL), Fuji (TY), TDK (TTG, TDK), and quite a few others. In fact, they probably have one of the largest media supplies of any brick-n-mortar store. They have 8x Fuji (PRODISC) for $15-20 for a 25-pack. Not a bad price by any means. I remember when $20 only bought 2-4 discs.

And one more thing. Data "going bad" in the magic 6-12 months is not disc rot. That is a phenomena reserved for pressed metal media, not dye-based media. This "rot" problem is more often a lack of verifying data (as I bet you've not done), or a sign of a failing reader somewhere (so many people use one player and think lasers stay clean all the time and last forever).

[Tidy]

I understand what you are saying unless I am in a crunch I usually stay at 12x. Honestly the discs I am burning only need to last a couple weeks not a couple years. Normally as I said I use G04's or Ritek 8x +R's (don't member model number). I appreciate everyone's concern but honestly as long as they last me a couple weeks it is not the most important thing in my life. Just thought I would mention this in case anyone was in the same crunch I am.

As for purchasing items with rebates, not for me . I never seem to get the rebate checks.

[Laddydaddy]

Thanks for the link Steve. That's a great price.

[steve2713]

Tidy, looking at your initial post, if they are truly Prodisc, then that is a solid price for that media. I've never used Prodisc, but from what I've read it is about the same quality level as Ritek, which is to say above average. However, this changes nothing I've said about burning above its rated speed. I would personally never burn above a media's rated speed, as you're just asking for instability down the road, if not skipping, etc. immediately. The exception to that might be the upper class media such as TY and MCC.

[lordsmurf]

I understand what you are saying unless I am in a crunch I usually stay at 12x. Honestly the discs I am burning only need to last a couple weeks not a couple years. .

This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it. If the data is bad, it's bad. If it's good, it's good. It will not magically disappear. If the disc is bad, it'll be bad the second the laser hits the dye.

Burning higher than the disc is rated is not smart. There are speed rating for a simple reason.

16x DVD burners are by far one of the most retarded things in stores right now. There is no media to even test these things with.

[Tidy]

Thank you lord smurf you mentioned something that made me recheck my DVD Identifier!! I misread it they are not Optodisc but PRODISC!!! So if I am reading your post right I did a good thing. I got the same discs fuji sells for twice the price in a GQ spindle!!


Please do not assume I am some end user jughead that needs to be talked down to!! I understand laser technology MUCH better than the average person though I am no expert. The discs are not refusing to read due to the laser being dirty. I have tried them in multiple set tops, rom's, and burners and they read in nothing when 6 months ago they read just fine in all of my friends machines as well as mine!!

To be honest I have noticed that in these forums any time a user mentions something that they do that may be out of the ordinary and it works for them there are tons of posts from the regulars that do nothing but waste everyones time restating why their faster performance or non standard procedure is going to fail. Also exceptable faulire rates and longgevity are different for everyone. I would hope that all these obviously very intelligent people would keep that in mind. I have to admit I have seen a lot of very intelligent users in these forums. Maybe we could all try being a little more friendly?

[Tidy]

Laddydaddy - http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-132-344&depa=0

These are 4x Ricoh's the one's I bought were 19.50 + Tax for 8x Prodisc

[steve2713]

I'd rather have Ricoh 4x media over 200x Prodisc, Ritek media it would probably be a toss-up for me. I guess that as you've made apparent already, the ability to burn as fast as the media will possibly allow is of more importance than the burn quality, so for you the GQ might be 'better'. Better media - no. Can be burned faster - apparently, yes. Although I know that a lot of people burn the Ricoh media at 8x (of course I burn it at 4x).

Also, the Ricoh media is $29 AR, while the GQ will cost you about $42-$43 after tax. I know that I'd rather pay $13 LESS for BETTER media.

[Tidy]

Man you just said in an earlier post that this media was of about the same quality.

Forget it I give up

[steve2713]

Also exceptable faulire rates and longgevity are different for everyone.

I agree and I think we understand now that your levels of 'acceptable' burn quality are lower than what most people on this site might consider acceptable.

As an example from my experiences, it is different from this situation but it goes along with what I've been saying:

I bought 200 Sonic discs, the MUST001 media code, because people were raving about them and they are only $19 shipped per 100 discs. Many people were claiming that they were 'successfully' burning them at 6x and 8x, even though they are sold as 2x discs, and they are identified as 4x discs. I burned a couple of discs at 4x, the discs had zero errors and could be easily ripped and copied with no issues whatsoever. However, on watching one of the 4x discs on my standalone player (which is not picky at all), the disc played perfectly until it reached the last 10 minutes of the disc. Then it would freeze up every 3-4 seconds to the end of the disc - VERY annoying and not watchable. I tested the 4x discs for PI/PO errors, and they were very high, especially past ~3.9gb. That prompted me to A) burn all of these discs at 2x from here on out, which has resulted in all subsequent discs playing perfectly on my standalone and having much lower PI/PO results, and B) buying 200 of the above mentioned Ricoh media, as saving $10 per 100 discs is definitely not worth all of my time spent on reburning discs because of problems with skipping and freezing of video. Do you see where I'm going with this?

[steve2713]

Man you just said in an earlier post that this media was of about the same quality.

No, I said that I considered RITEK media to be of similar quality to Prodisc (from all that I've read anyway). The media that I'm speaking of is actually RICOH media, which is (much) better quality than the Ritek media I've used (not that the Ritek I've used was bad, just that my burns with this Ricoh media have been REALLY good so far).

I should be more clear here: almost everyone that is buying this media that I linked to above is receiving RICOHJPNR01 media code, rather than Ritek media. A few people have gotten Ritek R03, but the overwhelming majority have gotten the Ricoh media.

[Tidy]

My bad I must have misread your post.

So what can I use to do this testing and where can I get it? Now you have me curious darn it. Honestly they play fine on my standalone as well so far. These are training videos so I don't care to watch them much HAHA. the training session is over in two weeks so no need for them after that.

[steve2713]

Well why didn't you just say so.... Training videos should self destruct in 72 hours...

[Tidy]

Well why didn't you just say so.... Training videos should self destruct in 72 hours...

haha I know what you mean man. I guess I did call them movies my bad. HAHA

I agree with you though totally under my personal use standards. I use only quality media, Ricoh, Ritek (I like it), and TY for my personal stuff.

[steve2713]

To do PI/PO (c1, c2 errors) you need to have a LiteOn drive(DVD ROM or DVDRW), or a Plextor drive. I'm not sure of any others that can do these types of tests, currently. I used to do all of my testing by using the Transfer Rate test in Nero CD Speed or DVDInfoPro - if you have no spikes in the transfer rate and have a very smooth rise in speed, it typically indicates a good burn. However, I've had discs that had what looked like a great Transfer Rate but had some skipping issues, and when tested for PI/PO errors had very high numbers. So for me the PI/PO tests are by far the most telling, along with actually playing the discs, of course.

[jtommyj]

I can only add my 2 cents here since i just got an NEC 3500 and have been doing some tests. I have a Lite-On 411s@811s to do K-Probe scans on. So some observations.

I know these tests are not an exact science but in my 5 discs i have burned on Fuji 8x +R Yuden000T02 discs, the 3- 16x burns were actually BETTER than the 2- 8 x burns with far lower errors and better PI/Pif specs.

Same for the Sony 08D1 1-8x -R discs. 16x burns show less errors than 8x burning for some reason.

The Verbatim Mcc03 are good at 8x but not so good @12x.

But the funniest thing is that on the Newegg Ricohjpnr01 4x burned at 8x gives me better results on my burner than the Fuji's, the Sony's,and the Verbatims and they are a whole lot less expensive.
So for me waiting the extra 2.5 minutes is well worth the quality difference.
They had the Verbatim 16x +R discs in Best Buy today and i almost picked them up to test but was too cheap since they were $27 for 25 discs which with tax is what you can get 100 of the Riteks for.

So everytime they go on sale from now on like now, i'll be getting 100 and stocking up.

Tom

[steve2713]

tommy, that is weird that you're getting results better with some of your media burned faster. What speed are you testing your discs at? I think that they may have some say in why you are actually getting better tests with the faster burns. I say that because I test all of my discs at 4x, and discs burned at 4x showed better results than the same media at 2.4x, while testing the same discs at 2x the media burned at 2.4x showed better tests than the 4x discs. Confused? Basically what that seemed to imply to me was that discs may 'prefer', or show better results, when tested nearer to their burned speed. I sincerely doubt that the 2.4x burns were of a lower quality than the 4x burns, I believe that the testing speed plays a role in this at times.

Retest some of your discs at 4x or even 2x and see if your results hold true, I'd be curious to know if the faster burns still test better than your slower burns.

[jtommyj]

I test all my discs in K-Probe at 4x with the PI sum @ 8 and the PIF sum @ 1. That seems to be the agreed upon standard for testing at CDFreaks so i do it that way so i have a point of reference to compare to others burning the same media.

I wouldn't test burn the discs @ 4x because to me it:
A) Doesn't make sense to burn 8x discs lower than their rated speed and
B) If 16 is really good and 8x isn't as good ,there wouldn't be any reason to go as low as 4x.

I may do one of the TY's @ 4x just for fun to see the results tomorrow tho and post back.

This isn't an anomaly either because over at CD Freaks there are others there who get worse burns trying to slow down the burn speed lower than the recommended max speed.

It's more than just the speed you burn at, it could be the write strategy for that particular media in that particular firmware.

After all, think of it this way. If you were NEC for example, would you worry more about tweaking the firmware better for the faster speed or lower speed ? They are thinking not many people are buying 16x burners to burn 8x or 12x media @ 4x if you get my meaning.


I even tried the Ricohjpnr01 4x discs @ 12x using a hacked firmware and that was junk and a coaster on 3 tries. So it isn't true in all discs that i've burned.
The Verbatim say on the spindle 8x but maybe 12x with the right firmware but the discs aren't getting good results @ 12 so i won't chance it.

Tom

[Tidy]

As I don't have a Lite-On drive I can not do the PI/PO testing but I ran the nero transfer rate test on a prodisc disc burned to the edge so to speak at 16x. I have not tried this before but I don't see any major spikes only a couple of extremely minute ones in transfer rate and upon playing the disc in a set top it works great.

[steve2713]

Thanks for the response - I still have a lot to learn myself I am suprised with you getting better tests on some of your faster burns. I wonder if your results would hold true with many other burners besides the NEC. I do know that the NECs are great burners, my main burner I use is still my NEC 1300a, it does a great job (although I just got an NEC 2100, I need to convert it into a 2510 ).

I should mention that I HAD read of some people actually getting better results at faster burns, but what results I had seen where people were getting better results with faster burns, the media used was always very high quality media, such as TY and MCC. I don't think I've ever seen better results with the cheaper media. I wouldn't think that you'd get better results burning most Ritek, Prodisc, Sonic :P , etc. media at higher than rated speeds. I'm sure there are some exceptions here, but in my experience cheaper media (which is all I use, frankly - I've never even bought TY media before) nearly always burns better when burned at, or often even below, it's rated speed.