How do you know when a DVD-R is no good?

[Philbiker]

I am new to DVD writing. I've been using two cheap disc brands that I prefer not to mention in this post. My burning software is Nero Express. When I write discs I use the option to check the disc afterwards. I've only ever had two discs fail, and that was because I was using 1x discs and had selected "2X" speed. Every other disc (only about 10, two brands) has checked out in Nero Express and play fine on two of my set-top DVD-Video players (I've only tested on two of my players so far).

What I want to know is how would I know that the DVDs are bad if they are cheap media?

[BJ_M]

they would not play ?

[cellmaniac]

You'll also notice that the video will stutter or skip.

[SLK001]

If a DVD-Video, stick it in a standalone DVD player, go to the last chapter, and try to view the video. If it plays flawlessly to the end, you most probably have a good disk. If it gets blocky, or stutters or freezes, trash the thing and reburn with a better disk.

I have also observed that the really bad disks have a very light purple color to the dye. Compare the color to a disk that you know is good, and you will see what I mean.

[garryheather]

Dye colour is circumstantial - your DVD player does not "see" in the same way that you do. It is not a good idea to go purely on the colour of the disc.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=154692&highlight=

[Philbiker]

So if it plays it's OK. All these discs checked out in Nero, I burned them with the option that verifies every bit on the disc and they verified. They also play fine in all my compatible DVD-Video players.

The brand names are some that have been complained about here. But of course they did not work for me at 2x (Nero verify indicated a failure) so if someone here is trying 2x they will fail there and make them unhappy.

Is there any legitimate proven reason to fear for the longevity of these discs?

[VEFF]

So if it plays it's OK. All these discs checked out in Nero, I burned them with the option that verifies every bit on the disc and they verified. They also play fine in all my compatible DVD-Video players.

The brand names are some that have been complained about here. But of course they did not work for me at 2x (Nero verify indicated a failure) so if someone here is trying 2x they will fail there and make them unhappy.

Is there any legitimate proven reason to fear for the longevity of these discs?

There are some people who claim to have had cheap discs (certain types of Princo for example) fail after about a year or so.
I have some 15 month old lesser brand name discs that I will try tonight to see how they hold up. They were purchased when prices were almost three times what they are now.

I have been using the better name brands (Fuji, Verbatim, real TDK, branded Maxell, HP) almost exclusively for a while now.

[defense]

I've been using two cheap disc brands that I prefer not to mention in this post.

lol...i'm sure i'm asking a very strange question...but why would you "prefer" not to mention the type of disks you are using. I have a strong feeling the answer to your question lies within' the brand of disk you are using, and it's obvious one of those brands is Princo or DVDPRO,....how bout lettin' us in on the other brand?

[Metaluna]

If you have a Liteon DVD reader in your PC, you can get a utility called KProbe which will scan the disk and report correctable and uncorrectable parity errors. Even if a disc plays fine it still might have lots of correctable errors which might become uncorrectable over time. Lots of errors are generally a sign of a marginal disc, or possibly good quality media that your burner just doesn't work well with.

Kprobe is still somewhat experimental so many people are skeptical about how valid the results are or what they really mean, but in my experience there does seem to be some validity to it (i.e. discs that report lots of errors have more problems playing than ones that don't).

You can read more about it by going over to http://club.cdfreaks.com and reading the stickys in the Media forum.


You can download it here:

http://upload.cdfreaks.com/Kprobe/kpsetup.exe

[macleod]

The way I tell if a DVD-R is no good is that I play the dvd in my dvd player (apex 1100W) and a PS2. I got to the last chapter and watch till the end of the movie (credits). If it doesnt freeze, pause, disc error, etc. I am good to go. I haven't had an instance of DVD-Rot or anything (I've only been doing this for about 2-4 months - it all blurs together at this point), so I couldnt say if/when a DVD-R has gone bad.

I have used Kypermedia, allmediaoutlet unbranded, and princo's (all 1x). I have a A05 cendyne x4 burner. With my particular situation, I started getting a number of bad burns until I upgraded my firmware to the hacked 1.30 (from 1.21) and have been able to burn 1x princo's at 2x. No coasters to date.

[w00tski]

i think a generic sorta test you could try is something like nero dvdspeed using the transfer rate test, it doesnt say ALOT, but it gives you some rough idea. Results can be varied. The burner will probably give you perfect readback, various dvdrom drives give back different results and even then those dvdrom drives with improved firmware often give back even better readback results, but i use it as a rough guide. That and test it on my pioneer DV344 and xbox for readback. If they play fine in my players, i dont really care about if they dont play in someone elses player as its my disc and i dont intend to distribute or anything like that. That being said, if it plays on your players, id say leave it at that, anything newer that you buy to playback dvd's will most likely have better readability on cheapo media etc.

[Philbiker]

lol...i'm sure i'm asking a very strange question...but why would you "prefer" not to mention the type of disks you are using.

Because people have preconcieved notions on the quality of different brands based on their experience. Just because it didn't work in somebody's Pioneer drive at 2x and play on their Toshiba DVD player doesn't mean it won't work on my Panasonic drive at 1x and my DVD players.

I will try some of the diagnostic software suggested, thanks folks!