I LOVE PRINCO!!! Or do i....

[Mdanner423]

Hey,

Well, its time for me to be shopping for dvd-r media again and am faced with some difficult choices.

Ritek: Yea, its great, used to be great priced. But I can't find it anywhere.

Princo: HECK YEA! Available everywhere, never a problem, never a coaster. Burned 150. But, the problem is I feel like im wasteing hundreds of hours of my time, if the rot thing is true. I have some from over a year ago, and they still play perfectly.

Optodisc: Good Price, but i hear they are crap, as in they play on nothing and alot of burn problems. Same with DUPez?

I would like to spend 100 or less for a spindle of 100...

Any suggestions?

[Bob W]

Rot, what rot?

[Mdanner423]

apparently princo's "rot" or degrade after as soon as a week, making them unreadable and their data content lost.

[rvl123]

I bought 10 Optodisc Gold-Top 2x DVD-Rs off eBay at $1.55 each and they work better than the Fujis and Imations that I have (which costed more ).

I have a Toshiba DVD player and it starts up and plays through to the end without jitters/stutters.

I would suggest the Gold Topped ones...not so sure on the others though.

[Red96TA]

No problems with mine either...time will tell.

[Artistimus]

lead data is good for me

[poopyhead]

rot???

how are people taking care of them?

from my CD (not DVD) experiences, the cheap non-brand, silver toped CDs have lasted just as long as the tiayo udens i have.

i don't think princo's actually rot, just because they're the cheapest. as long as you use some common sense to take care of them.

i.e. 1) store them in CD sleeves or some kind of protective casing 2) keep them stored, unless being used. once you're done, put them right back. 3) no extreme heat, cold, sunlight, dust, scratches, etc...

if you don't take care of your CDs, of course they're going to go bad. they may not be as durable as commercial DVDs or even the "made in japan" ones, but if you take care of them, they should last you just as long

in fact, some of my more expensive CDs actually had problems while the cheapo ones didn't...go figure

[HyperYagami]

lead data is good for me

My "lead data" are actually Princo.

The only problem is that Lite-On 165H/166S have problem reading those, the 1x version at least. Don't know about the newer 4x.

[musher70]

Me Too, been using princo's for almost
2 years now, and the ones i 1st burned
still play on both of my players, BUt i
use TDK and Verbatims now, thats
theyre a little more reasonable...
ANd princos are a little harder to get,
cause they dont sell em at best buy...
Dont forget sale at Target on sunday
for tdk 20 packs for 30 bucks

[vric]

I got 20 princo with my drive.. I have nurned 11 of them and 5 skip on my dvd player, but not in the dvdplayer of my friends... so I get Ritek all the time since it's just few penny more and didn't skip in my dvd player.. out of 50 ritek, I have no coaster or disk that skip.. princo is about 50%

I use my princo for Data only now... not for movies

[awhitney]

I seem to think that the Pioneer and Sony media is a lot better than Princo or Optodisk. Never a had a coaster with either pioneer or sony dvd-rs and they work wonders!

[Vejita-sama]

I've only ever bought Princos (1x, 2x and 4x) and a few TDKs. I've NEVER had a single problem with my princo discs. And they've always burnt at full speed without any problems either. I'm working my way through my 2nd pack of 50 4x discs now.

[DaveKlassix]

As far as optodisk goes, I've had no probs at all with them playing on my Toshiba SD3800. Best price/media i've got so far. Of course, i never had a problem with 1x princo either, and everyone says the are complete shit. so who knows.

[Chips144]

I guess everybody has their own story to tell. Here is mine:

1. I have ONLY used Princo and Ritek dvd-r's

2. I have experienced problems with both when trying to burn at 4X on my Sony DRU500A - they will start the burn at 4X, then after a few seconds drop to 2X. I have tried every solution known and nothing worked. The same disks burn perfectly at 4X on my Cendyne (rebadged Pioneer AO5).

3. Out of approximately 900 disks, I have only had about 6 that were actually bad.

4. I have used about:
100 Ritek 1X disks
150 Ritek 4X disks
250 Princo 1X disks
400 Princo 4X disks
All of these disks with only about 6 bad.

5. I have used them for DVD backup and also for file backups. I have disks that were written over one year ago and they still play fine and have restored my computer with one year old backup disks.

6. Both the Ritek and the Princo disks play perfect on my PC and in my Apex AD5131 and Toshiba SD6200 stand-alones.


If I include the disks my son-in-law and my friend use (about the same mix as I use), the total number is over 1500 disks without a significant problem. I burn EVERYTHING at 4X, my son-in-law at 2X and my friend at 1X. NO DIFFERENCES that we can tell.

I have just seen Princo 4X at ~$105/100. I am probably going to order another 500.

I realize the forums are full of stories about people having trouble with Princos, but I simply have not had any of those problems.

Chips

[Bob W]

"2. I have experienced problems with both when trying to burn at 4X on my Sony DRU500A - they will start the burn at 4X, then after a few seconds drop to 2X. I have tried every solution known and nothing worked. The same disks burn perfectly at 4X on my Cendyne (rebadged Pioneer AO5)."

A lot of people including myself have had that problem. Mine started after I updated my firmware and I never was able to get the burner to burn 4x no matter what brand media I used. Finally after a few months and about 250 burns the Sony DRU500A died.

[Network Enforcer]

rot???

how are people taking care of them?

from my CD (not DVD) experiences, the cheap non-brand, silver toped CDs have lasted just as long as the tiayo udens i have.

i don't think princo's actually rot, just because they're the cheapest. as long as you use some common sense to take care of them.

i.e. 1) store them in CD sleeves or some kind of protective casing 2) keep them stored, unless being used. once you're done, put them right back. 3) no extreme heat, cold, sunlight, dust, scratches, etc...

if you don't take care of your CDs, of course they're going to go bad. they may not be as durable as commercial DVDs or even the "made in japan" ones, but if you take care of them, they should last you just as long

in fact, some of my more expensive CDs actually had problems while the cheapo ones didn't...go figure

As for care, how are putting them in a room temperature location with no sun light, in DVD cases!! That is what I do and I have had half my batch go bad on me. I don't live near the ocean where salt water would be a problem, nor do I live in a humid area wear humidity would cause a problem. So care is not an issue in my opinion.

[poopyhead]

As for care, how are putting them in a room temperature location with no sun light, in DVD cases!! That is what I do and I have had half my batch go bad on me. I don't live near the ocean where salt water would be a problem, nor do I live in a humid area wear humidity would cause a problem. So care is not an issue in my opinion.

well, i don't know then. i've burned way too many discs to be a fluke. the cheapo media still play fine after 1 year. of course, i don't play them very much, as i think of them as collector's item.

do u have any scratches or dust on them? cheapo media may be more succeptible to those type of debris.

also, which dvd player do you have? perhaps, your dvd player may not like those cheapo media after awhile.

btw, i've even abused some of the cheapo media, mainly discs that i use quite often, like copied games, etc... that are literally scratched up. they are also compusa brand, so you know their quality those discs still play fine after 2 years, even though i've left them out on my desk collecting dust and getting scratched up all over the place.

of course, i've never burned any CD media faster than 4x or any DVD media faster than 1x. dunno if that's a factor or not.