Office Depot Brand sale buy 1 get 2 free RITEK G05

[Mahime]

I just purchased Office Depot Brand DVD-R on sale buy 1 get 2 free deal for $36.99. I was told the disk where Imation Brand. I brought them home popped one in the drive and using Nero’s CD-DVD test found out they were Ritek G05. OK lots of bad publicity from VideoHelp.com about deterioration of the dye and generally bad experiences with this brand.

I also have Fujifilm DVD-R Printables. According to NoCoasters.com this is a second class media. Although my burns test as 100% good using Nero's testing, every backup I made (Lost-Season 1) using the Fujifilm DVD’s have at least one stutter in it . And the RitekG05 posts all mentioned that they were using the printable DVD’s. Can it be the stuff they use to lay down on the media to print on that is causing the problem?

Bottom line is I do not want to find my backups have deteriorated 6 months from now so am considering returning the Office Depot ‘bargain’. Just curious if anyone has any thoughts on this.

[rumplestiltskin]

I don't have trouble with Ritek discs. I -do- have trouble with Verbatim and other brands that, more often than not, are "printables".

All of my old burned Riteks (2+ years old) are readable. I've also found Memorex to be good. Of course, YMMV.

[Tom Saurus]

I just started using Ritek G05 DVD-R's. So far they seem to be working fine. Before this alot of my DVD-R's were PRINCO's. According to nomorecoasters Ritek are 2nd Class Disc's and Princo's are 3rd Class. My favorite kind of blank DVD's are Sony's. I think there are are printable Sony DVD's out on the market, maybe someday I will be able to buy some. Sony Blank DVD-R's are First Class Discs according to nomorecoasters.

I am looking forward to getting the Epson 220 Printer so I can print on the Ritek G05 Printable DVD-r's.

[koolaidwa]

see, all the new stuff is 16x media

[INFRATOM]

I always buy made in Japan per everyones recommendation. Fuji +R 8X 50 pack was on sale but printables were made in Taiwan. Also someone said Verbatime was good even though they are made in Taiwan , Office Max had a sale 50 pack16X= $15 , 25pack16X= $8. FYI office max has coupons if I had it could have saved $25 for above $.. purchase too
I burned some I got freeze ups I guess 16x is too fast , I hope they are not like TDK .

[lordsmurf]

Some burners still don't do well at 16x, regardless of media. Try 8x or 12x. Verbatim is fine.

Best Buy this week has FUJI on sale, MIJ TY discs, for $15 per 50 pack. That's the deal of the week. BB sent out a lot of 10-20% coupons to people too this week, so it may be a few bucks even less.

[cyflyer]

So why did you buy them in the first place if you've read so many bad things and had doubts about them ? Because like many others you persuade yourself that everyone else must be wrong and you will be the exeption and have got a bargain and top notch dvd media. When will people learn that cheapness = crap = waste of time and money.

And to those that keep saying "Ritek/el-cheapos- I got no coasters" , how do you test this ? Do you just pop it into the standalone and if plays for awhile assume that its not coaster ? Cos thats the impression I get from evryone that says that. Wrong !

[lordsmurf]

how do you test this ?

The simple answer is most of them DO NOT TEST and therefore don't know. A lot of people just assume that if the disc burns and the program reports no errors, that it is a good burn.

Go one further ... they stick the disc in a drawer for several months, until they get time to watch it, and then they put it in the player, only to discover the disc does not work. Then they run around yelling "my disc went bad" as if it was ever good to begin with.

This is how so much misinformation on DVD media gets started. People don't pay attention to what they use and how they burn, they don't test, and they don't really know that much about the technology.

Every time I go to the store to buy blanks (especially Fry's), I see somebody buying the no-name stuff because it's on sale, and often if you suggest they buy something better, they'll hit you with the "it's all the same" non-sense. Even if it only saves 50 cents, they will still take the cheaper pack.

[Super Warrior]

I just started using Ritek G05 DVD-R's. So far they seem to be working fine. Before this alot of my DVD-R's were PRINCO's. According to nomorecoasters Ritek are 2nd Class Disc's and Princo's are 3rd Class. My favorite kind of blank DVD's are Sony's. I think there are are printable Sony DVD's out on the market, maybe someday I will be able to buy some. Sony Blank DVD-R's are First Class Discs according to nomorecoasters.

I am looking forward to getting the Epson 220 Printer so I can print on the Ritek G05 Printable DVD-r's.

Princo disc are a lot worse than third class, and Ritek is a nice quality and reliable media,its about 3rd.

[Heywould3]

Some burners still don't do well at 16x, regardless of media. Try 8x or 12x. Verbatim is fine.

Best Buy this week has FUJI on sale, MIJ TY discs, for $15 per 50 pack. That's the deal of the week. BB sent out a lot of 10-20% coupons to people too this week, so it may be a few bucks even less.

this is actually a good deal.. i got 3 packs.. and although they are not japan.. they have all have had good scans.. BUT as LS says .. DO NOT bur at 16 i burn all mine at 8x. i cant seem to get good burns at 16x

i have a liteon cross flashed to 1653s was 1633s. ive tried different media at 16x and none have been good.

[harley2ride]

How about posting one of those scans... Most G05 scan's I've seen on this forum were not very good. But that was months ago. Maybe they have improved quality control. Biggest complaint back then was inconsistent dye. Bunch of good dvd's, then a bunch of bad ones in same bundle... I used to love the Ritek g02's and G03's..

[INFRATOM]

Those Verbatime is rated 16x , I will burn them at 8X Thanks for the info also on Bestbuy sale I bought $20 per 50 pack(Thanksgiving Friday), they should match price and refund me the difference if the purchase is less than a month.

[cyflyer]

Maybe they have improved quality control

Yeah, and maybe aliens will land in my backyard LOL.

[BSpielbauer]

I just purchased Office Depot Brand DVD-R on sale buy 1 get 2 free deal for $36.99. I was told the disk where Imation Brand. I brought them home popped one in the drive and using Nero’s CD-DVD test found out they were Ritek G05. OK lots of bad publicity from VideoHelp.com about deterioration of the dye and generally bad experiences with this brand...
Bottom line is I do not want to find my backups have deteriorated 6 months from now so am considering returning the Office Depot ‘bargain’. Just curious if anyone has any thoughts on this.

What follows is partly a cut and paste of something I wrote about two months ago. I decided not to try to keyboard my thoughts all over again.

Some people here may have missed this article, or perhaps have forgotten it altogether. It is an interview with Tim Smith, Sales and Marketing Manager for Ridisc. In it, he makes the following statements:

"Question: Tell us why the Original Ridisc go5 was discontinued so quickly?"

"Answer: The original success of the Ritek dye (proliferated by the success of RiDisc) wasn't unnoticed by competitors, and other brands started to jump on the bandwagon. Very soon Ritek DVD of every grade possibly was flooding into the market. Media of B quality, C quality, and even worse, was all being sold as Grade A Ritek media and very soon, customers began to lose faith in the dye and the brands that carried the codes G04 and G05.

"It didn't help that even Ritek themselves knowingly sold discs of lesser quality (even with their own brands) into the market to customers that didnt care about quality just as long as they made money. Even Ritek's European Branch office, Conrexx Technology BVBA, was held responsible for introducing the notorious 'Down Grade' disc into Europe.

"In an email to our DVD Recordable's guru Flash, Ritek Taiwan remarked:
'We have same feeling that this should be a dumped DVD-R material, should be scrapped and would have no possibility to re-ship to market.'

"As a result, the customers who had once trusted the codes G04/G05 began to look elsewhere for an alternative, as they no longer had faith in the Ritek dye. In a sense, Ritek and RiDisc became victims of their own success."

+++ end of snippet +++

In order to fully understand this issue, it helps if you also read the entire article -- to provide some context for all of this. The article appeared last February, and was widely discussed on most forums such as this one. Here is a direct link:

http://cdr-info.com/Sections/News/P...px?NewsId=12652

My thoughts: While my first impulse is to mistrust Mr. Smith's statements, since he is trying to answer customer concerns about why they suddenly stopped using some of the Ritek- manufactured stuff, I also read it a second time, and noted the folllowing: Mr. Smith makes quite a few statements for which he could easily have been sued, for libel and slander (since it was an oral interview that he knew would appear in print), if his statements were in any way false. He is quite aggressive in his criticism of Ritek's GO5 discs, and also some of the other more recent ones. The only conclusion I could come to was that he must have known that every word he was stating was truth. The article coincided with the first reports of burning problems and playing problems and rapid deterioration problems with the (then new) GO5 discs. The GO4s had been so rock solid for almost two years, at a bargain price, that most consumers who were fans simply switched to the GO5s when the 8X media hit the market. They assumed the quality would be the same. Coincidentally, Ritek was adding new factories to manufacture their discs at the same time, and also then began allowing some of those "problematic" factories to begin to make some of their other discs, as well.

I have more than 500 GO4s sitting on my shelves. I backup all of my purchases, and we do not use the originals. Those GO4s were incredibly consistent, and stable, and reliable, and my Pioneer burner seemed to love them. For about 20 months.

Then, the GO5s were introduced. I avoided them, waiting until I was convined that 8X burning was settling down and firmwares were updated and the 8X speed was going to be stable, and "safe." I had just bought my first 100 GO5s when this article appeared. I experienced my first coaster in seven months on disc number 8. I read the article. I ended up selling them, for about $.05 per disc, and I even warned the buyer why I had decided to sell them. I switched to Taiyo Yudens, and have avoided the problems that some (not all) people ran into.

Bottom line: I suspect that SOME of the GO5 stuff is coming from the same factories they always used, so SOME of the GO5 discs out there are terrific. Excellent. And, for those who happen to get them, they are a phenomenal deal. I also suspect that SOME of the GO5 discs on shelves right now still have the same problems with quality control back at the factory, and that this can lead to quick deterioration -- if you just happen to purchase stuff made in one of "those" factories.

I decided not to take the risk.

-Bruce