CMC Black Spindle vs. Grey Spindle?

[DVDeeZ]

Hi, I remember reading on here at one point someone saying that grey spindles/bottoms of certain media are Ricoh made while black bottoms are CMC. I had excellent success with the 4x Memorex DVD+R disks I bought @ Best Buy a while back. I decided to get in on the sale today and get them for $1 each as they have the same sale of $49.99 for a 50 pack. When I got them home and checked them with dvdinfo I saw the media code is CMC MAG. I read the media section and their are like 1000 reviews of the Ricoh Memorex disks but only 56 reviews of this CMC media. Out of those 56, most of them were negative reviews.

I'm ready to take these back to Best Buy but I'd like to know if anyone knows if Best Buy carries "both" the Ricoh made AND CMC made disks This is very frustrating. Maybe i'll just return these and go with a 100 pack of Prodiscs.

[Dampier]

I ran into exactly the same problem. More and more Memorex spindle media is now CMC or Prodisc; I've never had good results with either run on my Plextor burner. These days, there is no way to tell because there are so many different manufacturers making media for companies like Memorex. The plastic spindle color system is just not a great indicator.

Thankfully, if you just use DVD Identifier to check the maker and don't burn anything, Best Buy will refund 100% of your money on the return. They will stand there and count the media (no other place has done this that I've encountered yet) before giving you the refund, but you will get it.

I don't buy media at Best Buy anymore because of the relative cost and the fact most of their sale media turns out to be Fuji, which is now quite often the same CMC stuff, or Memorex. I am doing better buying online.

A good deal for RICOH stuff is at Amazon - Memorex 100packs of inkjet printable DVD+R media for $84.99-89.99 depending on their mood. Free shipping. I wouldn't wait too long - it might be CMC or someone else tomorrow.