Bad DVD media

[PhoneMatt]

Lately, there have been many posts about the quality of DVD material, or should I say the lack of quality of most DVD material. I've got to ask- why is it so crappy? These companies could, maybe, get away with this 5 years ago, when people with DVD burners were in the small minority. Today, DVD burners are in every machine sold, and cheap enough to put into any machine that will take them. With all of these burners around, why do we have only 2 choices of decent media? (OK, I'm counting MII Verbatims because the jury is still out on them.) If every brand of gasoline, except 2, made your car sputter and stop, how long would these companies stay in business? Besides telling everyone we know to avoid the major crap brands, what are we as consumers to do? Buy crap, then return it and get a refund? (The stores would get tired of that very quickly, but would they act on it?) Write to the company and complain? (Would they really care?) We are being sold garbage and told that it is gold. I, for one, am getting tired of it.

[zoobie]

it's all in the dyes used...I think...the cheaper, the more profit
distributors rely on consumer ignorance IMO
I've never made a coaster yet but I'm sure I will eventually

[jman98]

I have a different opinion from zoobie. I don't think it's the dyes. Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden, generally considered the best, use completely different dyes. I think it's a manufacturing issue. I have the impression that with some manufacturers, they just accept "good enough" and "it mostly works" from their discs. I have a friend who sometimes gives me DVDs he makes. It's of old stuff not available on VHS or DVD, but it is of some interest to me and my brother. He sends me a copy via mail and I am supposed to make a copy for my brother. I almost always have to use multiple DVD drives to read his discs because of all the horrible errors on the discs. These are fresh burns and not generally scratched. He uses CMC made DVD-R, which is one of the worst discs on the market. They have sector errors from the moment they are burned. Quality control on them must be crap. Note that in standalone DVD players, they play OK, which masks the fact that the discs have bad sectors. It's only when you try to copy them that you realize how bad they are.

Made In India Verbatim DVD+R DL discs seem OK. I have used them. They are ever so slightly more prone to make coasters than Made In Singapore DVD+R DL discs by Verbatim, but they still seem OK. At this time it is not difficult to find single layer Verbatim discs made in Taiwan. In fact, the DVD+R DL discs are the only thing I personally know of that is made in India right now.

What can you do? Well, returns won't probably help. Unless a LOT of people do it. My best friend honestly thinks that cheaper is better for DVD discs and he thinks that only fools pay what I pay for Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden discs because to him "they are all the same". We'll see. Perhaps in another year or two he will come crying to me and say that his old DVDs are worthless because he can't play them. Then I will say "I tried to warn you about it". My suggestion is to buy only good quality media you trust and mail order if necessary. If nobody bought CMC made discs, they would surely go out of business. Educate people about bad media and don't buy it. I don't think writing to the companies will matter. If CMC, for example, really cared what the consumers thought, they would make better media in the first place.

[Video Head]

It works the opposite. Now that everyone has a DVD burner, everyone wants the lowest price media available. The same thing happened with blank VHS tapes. When it was only the early adopters who made up the market the manufacturers had to produce the highest quality media they could. Early adopters understand quality, they will only buy quality and they will pay for quality. The average consumer buys the lowest price on the shelf, and since they became the biggest market that is where the manufacturers focus their attention. The manufactuers mearly adopt to market trends. When DVD burners where $700 and a single DVD -R was $2 quality counted...not now.

[SCDVD]

One of the issues is that a lot of people burn discs that they don't even know are bad - yet! They "backup" movies and stick them on the shelf to watch another day and they sit there untouched for very often a long time - in many cases the attempt to play it is yet to come. Meanwhile they feel all warm and toasty thinking they have a backup of their movie(s).

[orsetto]

It works the opposite. Now that everyone has a DVD burner, everyone wants the lowest price media available.

All too sad, and all too true. Awhile back I think a senior forum member made the significant point that crap media had ALREADY taken over the market by the time we started noticing it. Here we were, obliviously buying our TY discs online and paying a little extra at stores for Verbatim, talking about PIE errors and quality burns, while ALL AROUND US thousands of consumers new to DVD burning *completely* accepted crap media as a fact of life: they think this is how it always was and don't think it the least bit odd. Annoying, inconvenient, but "just the way it is". I cannot, cannot believe how many of my friends, relatives and business associates will calmly go thru a 50-pak cakebox, discarding 30-50% of them that don't burn correctly or fail a week after burning, because they think this is "normal" for recordable DVD.

In the past month alone since the holidays I have "inherited" half a dozen cakeboxes they received as gifts or whatever. They haven't been able to burn them so they give them to the "expert" and assume he just knows the secret to making them work. All of them ID as CMC: TDK, Staples, etc, and all are so bad they get vomited right out of my burners as "unrecognized discs"- they don't even attempt a burn on this garbage media. I have tried 'em on PC-installed Pioneer 710, 112, 109 drives, Mac Mini Superdrives, and standalone recorders Pioneer 510, 533, 633, 640 and JVC DRM100 and DRMV5. No dice. This is a farce: in my daydreams, CMC is dragged into some sort of world tribunal and divested of all their factories. They were annoying enough when they made crap that barely burned or burned badly, now that they've moved on to platters that aren't even recognized as legit blank media they really need to get out of the business: for all intents and purposes they are being fraudulent and misrepresentative of what they're selling. Don't even get me started on the train wreck they've made out of Verbatim DVD-R media: this year it went from "neck-and-neck with TY" to "don't bother if your burner was made before late 2006". Thanks a lot, CMC, love you guys...

BTW, those of you with three month old "miracle burners" that make flawless DVDs on coffee can lids: please refrain from remarks about "old hardware". This nonsense did not occur with CD-R, so it shouldn't be happening with DVD-R. I have an 8 year old USB-1 Sony external CD burner which will STILL burn any random media I throw at it, and this Sony was widely known as a horrible burner. So what's the excuse with quality DVD hardware? Why is CMC reinventing the wheel every 5 minutes with these damn dyes? There are a lot of excellent quality, still-serviceable proprietary burners that are embedded in some computer models and many DVD recorders which cannot be swapped out and changed at whim for this weeks "miracle $50 Samsung that will burn every conceivable media, until next week". A $300 recorder should not become instant landfill the day its 1-year warranty expires. It just ain't right.

Is stability SO much to ask for? Does it cost THAT much to mfr? Do they HAVE to pander to every cheapskate consumer? I mean, what could it cost to keep making the same discs that worked reliably in December 2006- a penny more per disc?

[SCDVD]

BTW, those of you with three month old "miracle burners" that make flawless DVDs on coffee can lids: please refrain from remarks about "old hardware".

These are nut cases who use this issue as a way to make it seem they have achieved some masterful skill that most could never expect to achieve. Some would even have us believe that they are so skillful that they can smear butt butter on a clear plastic disc and burn it just fine.

[redwudz]

My suspicion has always been that burned DVD creation is still on the 'cutting edge' of technology. And some few companies have found the combination that creates decent discs. And they guard those secrets, or maybe just patents, and others just try to copy their methods and formulas as best they can.

It seems even more evident with DL DVD discs. Apparently, of all the manufactures of discs on this planet, only Verbatim has the right 'formula' to make usable discs with any consistency. But that doesn't seem to stop other manufacturers, some with a average burning success rate below 50%, from selling their product.

For me, at least for now, I only buy the best quality discs and I have no problems, even with DL. I have plenty of older, cheap DVD burned discs that are now bound for the trash as unreadable. I've learned.

JMO.

[orsetto]

My suspicion has always been that burned DVD creation is still on the 'cutting edge' of technology. And some few companies have found the combination that creates decent discs. And they guard those secrets, or maybe just patents, and others just try to copy their methods and formulas as best they can.

Seems like a reasonable theory, and may even be totally accurate in the case of some mfrs. Though it doesn't explain the issues caused by the nightmare ascendancy of CMC, absorbing every other brand in creation outside of maybe Sony and TY (and they have their own problems lately). Up through December 2006, I used TDK discs almost exclusively, when TDK still actually made them. They were near-flawless, the 16x even burned well in 4x-era burners. Then, CMC took over TDK production. Within a couple months TDK quality stumbled badly with an average 50% bad burning or rejection rate even on newer burners. By this past summer and fall, all was lost and I saw many cakeboxes pass thru my hands in which every single disc was defective.

So the question becomes, if CMC (or whoever) buys the brand name, and buys the factories, wouldn't they also have bought or licensed the formulas too? Why didn't they continue making the exact same product? This has occurred countless times now: there was always a range of bad-better-best media, but in 2006 and prior years you had the choice of a half-dozen decent brands easily available on retail shelves. These were proven to work for most people. Yet within 14 months ALL of those brands became coaster city. Why? Shouldn't the technology curve make them MORE reliable, not less? What happened?

[bendixG15]

The reality is that all you can do is buy the disks that make you happy and screw the rest.

The general publick doesn't care about quality disks. Disks are only a plaything for them to be used with a technology they do not understand. They could care less about disk quality and the technology. The suppliers are just too happy to sell them crappy disks and make a buck out of it.

[videobread]

Can't remember the last time I had a coaster. I use TY and some Ver, all from rima.com. My Pioneer burners are current models and the firmware is up to date. I had problems years ago with Ritek. I don't use them anymore and have no more problems. If you have problems with media it is your own fault. Don't be cheap. Buy good media and replace that old burner.

[nwo]

Maybe there trying to move people onto the next new format by making crappy discs.

[lordsmurf]

One of the issues is that a lot of people burn discs that they don't even know are bad - yet! They "backup" movies and stick them on the shelf to watch another day and they sit there untouched for very often a long time - in many cases the attempt to play it is yet to come. Meanwhile they feel all warm and toasty thinking they have a backup of their movie(s).

And then these same people finally go to use/test a disc some months or years later, and then run around saying "my data disappeared" .... as if it was ever there to begin with!

I get so tired of seeing that.

[PhoneMatt]

That, Lord Smurf, is what started me on all of this. At work, my boss took her brand new Dell with a DVD burner and backed up all of her important files. ("Wow. I can fit a years worth of financial files on only 3 disks!!!") Unfortunately she bought Office Depot brand, without my knowing it. This was done in September, and guess what, the auditors are coming next month. Her disks are toast. (Happy ending, she did listen to me and did a second backup on an external hard drive, just in case. ) But, between this and friends who backed up all of their photos to crap disks, I am getting very familiar with IsoBuster and IsoPuzzle. It can't be a profit thing. Eventually, people will realize that Office Depot or Memorex or TDK equals crap, and their sales will drop. I know that my friends will only buy Verbatim from now on - especially since Best Buy has them on sale, usually once a month. (C'mon, $12.95 or $13.95 for a spindle of 50- the price isn't going to get much better.) I'm sure most of us have told our friends about Verbatim's and TY's too, but, damn, what does it take?