SWISSTEC DEGRADE throught time

[cdigital1]

Hi to all
I have a SMALL problem and someone can wive me some help.
I bought from Carefure 3x25pack of SWISSTEC DVD-R 4x.
I used CLONE DVD, DVDSHRICK, NERO 6 to burn the disks.
Everything was OK. Burn succesfull. Test the movie, ALL OK.
I stored the disks in DVD cases, in proper enviroment.
After one month I tried to see again the movies.
I found that allmost 95% of them do not play any more.
I check in 3 different standalone and 2 PC players.
No luck.
I sent 2 e-mails to SWISSTEC HOTINE but they do not care to answer.
During the same time period I burned some Taiyo disks and are still ALL OF THEM OK, so the burner is working good.

Any idea about ?

[lordsmurf]

This is not possible. It's either bad from day one or good from day one.
You did not test them, or the readers are now dirty.

www.nomorecoasters.com

[tkamin]

This is not possible

are you sure? i've seen quite a few cd-r's degrade through time although stored in proper conditions... isn't it possible for crappy media to go faulty in time?

[PJGS]

I bought 2 SWISSTEC DVD-R's to see how good they are and though I burned them @ 4x, playback was really faulty on 4 players.
U'd better stay away from SWISSTEC and MAM-E (Mitsui).

I guess u bought them from Carrefour. Make a safer bet and buy Verbatim DataLifePlus 25-disc spindles for 29 € at Staples Office Centre. U pay roughly 1.2 € for each disc but quality is higher.

[hech54]

I agree....Swisstec are TOTAL GARBAGE. Bought one to test it....ended up a coaster.

[lordsmurf]

This is not possible

are you sure? i've seen quite a few cd-r's degrade through time although stored in proper conditions... isn't it possible for crappy media to go faulty in time?

No. You're confusing aluminum disc rot on pressed media. The same situation does not exist on dye-based media. So no.

[-jsl-]

This is not possible

are you sure? i've seen quite a few cd-r's degrade through time although stored in proper conditions... isn't it possible for crappy media to go faulty in time?

Sure, a dye can degrade over time. But only one month sounds a bit too fast if the discs were not placed in direct sunlight or something like that.

[iooi]

This is not possible. It's either bad from day one or good from day one.
You did not test them, or the readers are now dirty.

www.nomorecoasters.com

I know you have far more experiance on ths subject but i had the same trouble with Pinco's burned OK played Ok but after 6 months storage in cases the disks are uncopyable and wont play properly either.

[lordsmurf]

One issue that can happen is the foils in the disks can crack if the cases warp the discs in any way. This can happen to any media. Many, many cases suck at this, especially cheap ones.

[Satanico Pandemonium]

I have burned the whole King of Queens show (5 Seasons) on Swisstech discs beacause they had a great compatibility and were cheap. Made a lot of copies for friends but then suddenly both of my burners (Dru500 & Pioneer 106D) started to make coasters because of the bad sectors on the master disc. Tried them in all of my 4 stand-alones and i noticed some really bad stuttering. Since then i tried almost every dvd-data-recovery program in connection with 7 dvd-rom-drives but no success.
Now all i can do is throw away those discs and start recording all over again.

DO NOT BUY SWISSTECH!!!

[iooi]

One issue that can happen is the foils in the disks can crack if the cases warp the discs in any way. .

Mine were stored in Dj style cases with the disks in soft slips.

[cdigital1]

Been away for the weekend, so I read your answers today.
Thank you all for repling.

And specially for "lordsmurf" :
It has nothing to do with coasters, or cases, or storage.
Swisstech is recorded OK, tested OK, play OK, again and again.
And suddently one day you just loose your data. All players are unable to read TOC on disks. It's probably this shitty DYE-42 (red colored) that they use on their media, that SIMPLY DEGRADE EXTREMELLY FAST.
The funny thing is that they cost 1 euro per disk. They are not cheap media. But they proove to be CRAPPY MEDIA.

DO NOT BY SWISSTECH

[lordsmurf]

Again, discs don't magically die one day. You did something to it. Or something happened to the reader or reader lasers. I've had discs "degrade" too. But it was from warping, leaving in sunlight, leaving in hot area, dirty laser lens, weakening/dying laser lens, etc. Buy something else, but don't be surprised if the same thing happens from similar treatment/conditions/etc.

[PJGS]

I have no doubt that Swisstec is crap.
If u take a look here u will see that swisstec media is realy bad!
I also thought that perphaps u are using a sort of agressive ink that damages the reflective coat of the disc.

Just my 2 erocents :P

[lordsmurf]

I have no doubt that Swisstec is crap.

Neither do I. I'm not sure if that was coming across in my last posts.

I also thought that perphaps u are using a sort of agressive ink that damages the reflective coat of the disc.

On CD, maybe. The foil is exposed.
On DVD, not likely. It would have to have acid in it, as it must first eat through a layer of plastic. Foil is protected on DVD.

[cdigital1]

Dear lordsmurf

No mean to offent you , but I think you are wrong.

I have about 120 movies in VCD, SVCD, DVD and been dealing with our hobby for about 2 years, (reading this forum helped me a lot along the way).
All of them are stored in dedicated fullsize DVD cases, into the house library, away from sunlight, away from dust, and been handled with a proper manner (no kids at home yet).
My recorder (NEC 1300A firm. 1,08) is 2,5 months old, and my 3rd standalone player is still in the carton box, so no problem with the laser lens. And my TY and creation DVDs are still playing OK.

Sorry m8, it has nothing to do with treatment, conditions, etc.(except if 31 Celcius supose to be hot (its summer now))

It probably has to do with the material Swisstech use.
I paid 75 euros to find this out.
Maybe this post saves someone else money in the future.

Anybody know if there is any program that I can try for data recovery ?

[lordsmurf]

Anybody know if there is any program that I can try for data recovery ?

ISOBuster Pro (UDF recovery mode) ... whopping $30, well worth every penny

[Craig Tucker]

I had some Zero defex DVD-R discs which worked when they were first burned, over a period of time they have all failed (put them in any DVD player and you get no disc error). These discs definately played when I first burned them. This happened to around 20 discs, I ended up having to bin them. Fortunately it was nothing I was too bothered about losing. The discs were all stored in amaray DVD cases in a cupboard. Some of them had only been played once.

[pbar]

I too had this exact same problem. The Swisstec DVD-r's burned and played perfectly. Then after just a few weeks they would either not be recognized or would skip horrendously. this happened in all players I tested them in. Even the PC wouldn't recognize them anymore. And the PS2 games I'd done which worked before didn't load at all. I went back to Toys R Us with half a cake box full and armed with other posts printed out saying the same thing and they gave me a refund. I've never known anything like these discs!

[pbar]

Somebody give Lordsmurf a couple of Swisstec discs, let him use them then try them a few weeks later, just to say 'we told you so...!'

[freestyler]

is swisstec owned by flexplay by any chance? maybe they are 48 hr recordables...

[deckard8]

I had 30 movie backups made with Swisstec dvd-r discs. They are worked perfectly when first copied. Within four months they had all ceased to function i.e could not be read on any player. After about 2 months they became unreadable on my computer drives, but were still readable on my standalone. Within 4 months they were readable on nothing and I had to throw the whole lot in the bin. Now if this isn't degrading over time what is it? I had backups made at the same time with QP dvd-r discs that are still working perfectly.

[pluche]

Most of the time, I use reliable brands like Maxell, TDK (made in Japan)
but for less important recordings I have used cheap stuff like Optodisc, Sentinel and even Princo; the oldes DVD-R recordings date from 3 years ago and they still play well !
but: the cheap stuff I alway burn at low speed - 1x or max 2 x - no matter what is written on the disc
increasing the burning speed , increases the amount of errors which may become fatal after a while; and when burning at higher speeds also increases the burning temperature and the risk of causing a degradation of the dye in cheaper stuff
there was an excellent article on the subject - digitalFAQ.com Video Guides - which explains a lot
The only problem I have noticed so far: the Princo's cause some errors when played on my sister's DVD player - but that machine is a Panasonic A360 from 1998 ....

[petercap]

Totally crap my dear friends. Both DVD-R and DVD+R. I am telling that in deep sorrow and grief, wanting to believe deep inside me that a solution to this problem might be found somehow. If not, it looks like that I’ve lost more than 200 movies and almost 1,000 Gbytes of valuable data. This story caused me a lot of tears and pain, reached even to the extreme point to replace my DVD burner (a perfect PLEXTOR PX-708A), without any success of course, and I was totally puzzled until I read this thread here. But let me tell you more about this sad story.
o Started buying SWISSTEC media from Carrefour almost 10 months ago. Looked better and prettier than the ‘no-name’, ‘no-label’ ones I could find at the same price (~1€), at that time.
o They were perfectly written (using either 2x or 4x) without any errors or warning messages. They were consequently tested on both the burner and another DVD reader I have installed on another PC connected to the home LAN and read them from the beginning to the end without even a single retry.
o Sometime 2 months ago I tried to make a copy of one of the movies I had recorded on a SWISSTEC DVD+R in March 2004. The DVD-Decrypter could not even read the TOC. I was trying to read the DVD on the Plextor PX-708A. I tried to read the same disk on other DVD readers without any success. The movie was not even playing on my PIONEER DVD player, where I had no problem watching it at the time I wrote it.
o Tried other SWISSTEC DVD’s either movies or data with the same result. It is crazy!!!!!! Looks like that the data cannot be read after 5-6 months from a disc recorded without issuing any errors and carefully stored and preserved
My question now is, if there is any way to recover the data from these DVD’s. I have tried IsoBuster, BadCopy Pro without any success. I wonder if there is any other physical way to make the DVD readable. The data sides of the media look perfect, without any scratches or dust, as they were played only once when recorded and tested. Thanks in advance for any similar experience and or suggestions for data recovery.

[the.chepstownian]

I also bought about 200 of the Swisstec -R and about 25 +r from Toys R Us in the UK - £15 for 25 !
I have used virtually all of them - and recently discovered that only a handful are still readable
Some can be partly read
I used them for DVD Recording on a Panasonic recorder - all of the things are lost now
I also used them for Data in my Mac again most of this data is now lost - some of the files can be read but all on a few of the discs.
I would not recommend anyone buy these Swisstec discs.
They are the only ones I have had so many problems with

[lordsmurf]

Discs do not magically degrade in a "few months" time.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248839

[Nelson37]

Amazing. Theoretically impossible. Yet we have numerous reports which strongly suggest that dvd disks can, in fact, degrade over a short period of time.

To add one more, just had my first disk, a Fuji, which played fine less than 60 days ago become totally unrecognizable in 3 players plus DVD-burner and DVD-ROM. Stored upright in single DVD case.

As so often happens, either the "theory" is wrong, or there is some factor affecting this which the theory fails to account for.

[Craig Tucker]

Discs do not magically degrade in a "few months" time.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248839

Lordsmurf
As I posted earlier in this thread, I had a batch of zero defex discs which were all burned and authored in exactly the same manner as I have always done. All of the discs were played from start to finish on completion and all played perfectly. Within a few months none of the discs could be read by any optical drive. All of my riteks from the same era still play perfectly.

[RickTheRed]

Discs do not magically degrade in a "few months" time.

ls,

Like craig said, there are toooooooooo many posts relating the same thing:
burned ok
tested ok
played ok
then problem started
then problem got worse
then nothing can be done.
And these discs were not labeled.

Please reconsider your strong "disc do not rot, it's something else" position.

Too many post on this subject.

my 2 cents

[steve2713]

Lordsmurf, have you ever considered the fact that your opinion does not equal fact?

This whole thread seems to indicate that either there are alot of people here that like to lie for no apparent reason, or your opinion is just that, and wrong at that. So do you think all these people are lying?

I have had Princo discs deteriorate in less than a year. Stored in very good conditions, no scratches, blah blah blah.