Quality CD-R/RW Discs

[Shanto20]

People say to use quality CD-R/RWs for burning of vcds, svcds, etc.....
What exactly is "QUALITY" Does VERBATIM qualify as a quality cd-r/rw?

Please give some examples of quality CD-R/RW discs...and also give the brand that you prefer.

Thanks in advance,
Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman.

[Stoddo2k]

I prefer TDK disks for making of audio CDs its the best I have found for CD audio. I also use the TDK disks for lots of SVCDs too and they seem to work tip top. I have used both generic and brand CDRW but haven't noticed to much of a difference but I do buy some Memorex CDRW, although I don't like the Memorex CDR disks.

I think the thing to avoid when looking for quality is the spool of 100 AAABCSuperfastburnXXL Titan disks or the KMart brand and such. I have had problems with Imation in the past also . . .

[mpb]

There are only about six or seven CDR plants on Earth, and they OEM their discs out to everyone. The best plants are those owned by Taiyo Yuden and Mitsui-Chemical. Discs are rarely branded with those names, however. A safer bet is to always buy media that says "made in Japan" or "made in Taiwan" on the side. Do NOT buy media made in the USA, France, Germany, Malaysia, or China. (And I think that's all seven of 'em.) The same brand of discs might OEM from several different plants, so ALWAYS check the packaging.

My current favourites are Yamaha medical-grade 24x CDRs on the spindle. Fry's electronics asks $24.99 for a 50-count spindle, which is acceptable. They are made at several plants, but the ones where the package says "Made in Taiwan" can be analyzed by PrimoDVD and other programs and you'll find they are made by Mitsui-Chemical. They are silver/silver media. Make sure your spindle does not say "Made in USA" or "Made in France"... you may have to dig toward the back of the shelf.

Matsushita/Verbatim's media is an enigma... it tends to be good because it is made with a type of dye nobody else has. Hence the dark blue tint. I forget the name of the dye... metaferinite or some such. It's far better than the organic shit the gold and green tinted discs are made of, the cyanine and pthalocyanine dye.

It's been a while since I saw a genuine Taiyo-Yuden package... a spindle of Sonys I had a couple years back were theirs, and a "that's CDR" from even earlier, but it's been a while since. They are still reputed to be excellent.

I also stress avoidance of Memorex and Imation. They OEM from all the plants, and they do something to their discs that makes PrimoDVD's analysis fail on a lot of their media, such as their black CDRs. Lord only knows which two-bit platter brewery those frisbees come from.

For DVD-R, it's easier. Pioneer OEM's almost all of it. The Apple and Pioneer branded discs are great, but they'll cost you. I have had specific success with $2-range DVD-R 2x discs from esbuy, meritline, and the all-time champion PRIMEDISC. I have no idea who is making the Primediscs, but they kick the llama's ass. The dye looks distinctly darker than the Pioneer dye. The others all look the same.

[drdy111956]

I concur with mpb. I might add that you can download a program called CDRInfo which will read the CD-R disc and provide the manufacturer and dye type. Also, I have had most success ( with my burner, and clearly everyone needs to find what works for them ) with Taiyo Yuden produced discs. These fall under the brands of : Fuji, TDK if and only if "made in Japan " indicated , ditto for Memorex cake box spindles.

[sterno]

A safer bet is to always buy media that says "made in Japan" or "made in Taiwan" on the side.

CMC Magnetics Corp is widely known for making poor quality discs, and they're made in Taiwan. The cheap Imation and Philips spools are generally CMC, as are the recent PNY spools (older ones were something else). Actually, I think that all of the cheap spools I've tested in the past few months were CMC, except for a 100-CD Digital Research package that was Ritek. And, interestingly enough, all those CMCs had the exact same kind of cake-tin lid, which was different from the others.

Matsushita/Verbatim's media is an enigma... it tends to be good because it is made with a type of dye nobody else has.

Cheap Verbatims are made by somebody else (CMC or Ritek, I think), expensive Verbatims (ie DataLife Plus) are the ones you describe.

It's been a while since I saw a genuine Taiyo-Yuden package...

The FujiFilm 50-CD spool I picked up a while back tested as Taiyo-Yuden. There have been a couple Best Buy rebates on FujiFilm spools recently.