Meritline G04 Ritek 4x (Ridata) DVD-R media

[Aztec_gizmo]

I recently purchased some bulk Ritek G04 DVD-R media (sixty discs) from Meritline. The discs arrived in bubble rap with no spindle. Most of these discs had Ridata written on the center hub and the writable side was a dark purple. The problem I had is that on certain parts of my DVD backup, the DVD player started to pause and breakup (macro blocks) or the DVD would not play at all. So, in order to test the software (DVD Dycriptor, DVD2ONE and IMGTool), I burned the DVD back up to a Pioneer (I own a Pioneer A05 drive) DVD-RW disc. The DVD-RW disc had no problem, but the G04 did have a problem. I concluded that it must be the media. I inspected the writable surface of the G04 DVD back up disc and noticed some spots on the disc that were a darker color then the rest of the surface. It seems that if there was a scratch, not a deep scratch, on the disc before burning, that part of the disc would not record. Also, sometimes there were no apparent scratches on the discs, but I noticed some small darker spots on the discs. So, I ended up throwing away a couple of discs. The slight scratches our due to the way that Meritline packages and handles the bulk discs. Has anyone had the same problem with Meritline 4x G04 media? Is the dye formulation to sensitive or defective? Who is the best quality online vendor for 4x media?

[DeleriumMDK]

The G04's Ive seen burnt (from supermediastore) have played back flawlessly on my Toshiba DVD player and my PS2. I think maybe Meritline got some bad media? These ones Im talking about are silver top, purple bottom and the tops don't have Ridata written on them...all of them work really well so far though.

[LanEvo7]

It might just be a bad batch. Just ask meritline for a exchange or something.

[BJ_M]

no problems from meritline on printable riteks - though sometimes they could use a little better packaging ..

[Aztec_gizmo]

DeleriumMDK, It's funny that you mentioned the discs that are silver on top and purple on the bottom because the first discs that I purchased for this drive were the ones you described. I also, had no problems with those discs. They worked flawlessly. The first batch of silver top discs I purchased were from ESBUY.COM. Then I purchased the Ritek discs from Meritline and the problems began. So, I purchased another batch of silver tops from ESBUY.COM. I also purchased Apple media 4x and a TDK 10-pack (made in Japan) media at CompUSA. The Apple media also had no problems. I have not tried the TDK yet. The only thing is that buying at the local stores is expensive. So, I would like to know where I can purchase quality, reliable media at a decent price. I do not mind paying more money for quality media.

[jwedge]

I bought them as well no problem but MERITLINE should be suited for such crappy packaging. It sucks!!!!!!!!!!!! I had to look for old spindles and reuse them.