What is the definition of a 'good' media

[caribbean_x85]

I have been using Memorex discs (CMC Magnetics, DVD-R 8x) for a while and they work really well with my burner (LG GSA-4167B). I only had about 2 coasters out of 50 burns. This is quite contrary to what people have been saying about CMC discs. I read a lot of people bashing these discs. Which makes me question, what is the definition of a good media. Is it the one that has a good burn reliability? Or is it the one that lasts longer than others?

p.s. What is the readability of CMC discs after about 1 or 2 years?

[redwudz]

Media that produces zero coasters, that is dependable on quality from one batch to another. That will work perfectly on most all burners and play on most all players.

Your media may work fine in your setup, but others may have problems with it. It really comes down to what works for you, consistently. As far as lasting, any media should 'last' for quite a few years. The problems are usually created when they are burned, not aged.

Good media has consistent quality. All the rest is just my opinion.

[ROF]

Coasters notwithstanding I agree that whatever media consistently performs great for your requirements is considered good media.

Even great media can produce coasters. An application being run, background activity, human intervention, or other issue can cause an excellent media to create a coaster. It happens and is usually not the media at fault. Maybe it's a media you haven't used before and the firmware for your drive doesn't have a write strategy for it or is forced to use a default write strategy. This can sometimes cause great media to build coasters.

The idea is that when you find a few different media that burn well in your drive and perform well in whatever player/recorder/rom/burner you use them in. Great media for you may be garbage media for me.

[mats.hogberg]

Good media has consistent quality.

Amen! I once asked a Fuji representative "What's the difference between your media and cheap, noname media?" The answer was simply "Quality control."
If you're lucky, there's no difference at all between cheap and expensive media, but in the long run, you're bound to get bad batches if you go for cheap media.
Also Memorex is just a brand - as you've seen it's CMC that manufactures their discs. They may at any time switch manufacturer. It will still be Memorex, but not the Memorex you know!

/Mats

[oldandinthe way]

Is there really quality control on DVD media?

Or do the manufacturers rely on quality manufacturing and do little quality control, inspection or testing?

I use Verbatim 16x DVD+R frequently. MCC makes great media. I have burned hundreds of these DVD's. In spite of that I had a pack of 50 DVDs which produced 8 coasters.

Support at Verbatim gave the the usual firmware BS, sent replacements which burned properly and I then burned another 150 of their disks, without a coaster.

Quality media - yes! Quality control - probably not!

[SingSing]

I have a MADDOG DVD burner. I use any media on sales. So far I have zero coaster.
maybe 15 out of 500 burned DVD cannot play back fully on DVD player after 2 years.

Maybe burner should be the main focus, on coaster making.

[oldandinthe way]

Similar experience with 8x Memorex disks. One 25 pack had 4 coasters 3 other packs - no coasters.

Drives are hardware, they work or fail. And move from working to failing. Media can and do change, with manufacturing process, and time.

I have used plenty of cheapmedia. I have had greater compatibility problems with some brands, but am really offended when the same media from packaged under different names with the same media identifier is rated at different speeds. Eg Nexxtech DVD-R 4x = Playo 8x DVD-R. Burns on my LG-4163B at 4x with either brand.

The biggest advantage I see for name brand disks is that they seem to be supported by the latest firmware for peoples drives (assuing the drive maker actually updates firmware).

[ROF]

Maybe burner should be the main focus, on coaster making.

I agree. Rarely is the media to blame when a coaster is made.

[mats.hogberg]

Rarely is the media to blame when a coaster is made.

That depends on the definition of a coaster. Coaster as in "many read errors" is media. Coaster as in "The app failed to write all data" is hardware/software.

/Mats

[cyflyer]

one that has a good burn reliability? Or is it the one that lasts longer than others?

BOTH !!!!!!!!!!!!

[caribbean_x85]

Thanks for all your help. You guys seem really knowledgable about this topic.

One more question though,

Rarely is the media to blame when a coaster is made.

That depends on the definition of a coaster. Coaster as in "many read errors" is media. Coaster as in "The app failed to write all data" is hardware/software.

/Mats

How can I detect the read errors? After burning the DVD, I usually do the 'data verification check' with the Nero Burning ROM. Is that a good way to do it? Or should I try other programs?

[mats.hogberg]

That's one way. But there are other DVD scan tools like DVDInfo Pro & c.
Note that a DVD player may well survive the occational read error - you probably wont even notice it. However, it may prove almost impossible to backup!

/Mats

[handyguy]

I use Verbs, Fuji, HP (cds) on my NEC with 100% success.

Also, another thing is whether your data is going to be there in a year or two. Cheapo media just eats your data. Not worth trying to save a few pennies per disk.

[SingSing]

Some blames coaster on the burner, and some blames coaster on the media. It is nature of DVDR burning.

If you have a good burner and cheap media, you get good burn but the media don't last that long. Because burner calibrate against the media before it burn.

If you have a so-so burner and good media, you get good burn+coaster but your media may last longer. Because when the burner managed to get a good calibartion, the ink on the media retain the burn better.

If you get good drive and good media, you know what the result is like.

If you get so-so drive and cheap media, you will also know the score.

That's why there are both DVD media list and DVD writer list at the left. Quality is also not same as price.

[ROF]

I can't really think of a so-so burner. They either work or they don't. But as far as this goes from my experience, the cheaper the burners price, the better and more reliable the burns. Anyone who pays more than $50USD for a burner either lives where everything is overpriced, they failed to be a good consumer, or they believe a brand name matters.

[SingSing]

Samsung DVD burners are very so-so. ( AKA fleaky )

[ROF]

Not true. I've installed many 162 series Samsung burners over the past few months. No complaints or problems so far. One customer uses the Samsung (162L) for alot of the same purposes you see in the many "backup" threads that appear here. He must have hundreds of discs by now.

[caribbean_x85]

Some blames coaster on the burner, and some blames coaster on the media. It is nature of DVDR burning.

If you have a good burner and cheap media, you get good burn but the media don't last that long. Because burner calibrate against the media before it burn.

If you have a so-so burner and good media, you get good burn+coaster but your media may last longer. Because when the burner managed to get a good calibartion, the ink on the media retain the burn better.

If you get good drive and good media, you know what the result is like.

If you get so-so drive and cheap media, you will also know the score.

That's why there are both DVD media list and DVD writer list at the left. Quality is also not same as price.

Could you elaborate on that? Doesn't last that long as in 1 or 2 years? or 7-10 years?

[SingSing]

All my CDR/W and DVD+R/W still work after 10 and 4 years respectively.

About 12 out of 100s of DVD-R movie backup can't play all the way to the end after 2 years, or so. The rest are fine.

The NEC and MADDOG DVD burner always work. The Samsung 8X DVD Burner was exchanged for the third time, and finally work at 4X.

[lordsmurf]

Good media is, quite simply, media that burns consistently on most burners, and plays in most players, while producting low rate of coasters.

CMC discs can be quite dodgy between players, poor reflectivity, and the burns are usually bad on many burners. As long as it works for you, with burning, fine. But be careful of this. If you get a new burner, a new DVD player, want to make discs for friends (or worse, customers), this could come back to haunt you. So keep all this in mind.

Some blames coaster on the burner, and some blames coaster on the media. It is nature of DVDR burning. If you have a good burner and cheap media, you get good burn but the media don't last that long. Because burner calibrate against the media before it burn. If you have a so-so burner and good media, you get good burn+coaster but your media may last longer. Because when the burner managed to get a good calibartion, the ink on the media retain the burn better. .

Sorry man, not trying to be mean, but that is mostly just non-sense. If a disc cannot calibrate or find an acceptable ID/burner combo, the disc simply will coaster out. There is no "it'll work, but only for a short time" sort of thing going on. That does not happen. Also, there is no "ink" on the disc, its metal/organic dye.

[SingSing]

I am based on zero coaster after all these years, I don't believe in 100% dumb luck.

We are in "no hassle return policy" era, if retailer sold you stuff that don't work. Return it the next time you drive by the store. The pain is with the retailer, with stack of return spindle.

[ROF]

Rarely is the media to blame when a coaster is made.

That depends on the definition of a coaster. Coaster as in "many read errors" is media. Coaster as in "The app failed to write all data" is hardware/software.

/Mats

How can I detect the read errors? After burning the DVD, I usually do the 'data verification check' with the Nero Burning ROM. Is that a good way to do it? Or should I try other programs?

No software is able to tell you with 100% reliability whether a burn was done correctly. The only true way to tell is to read the data back in whatever machine or format you will be using that data for. Relying on test software is never a good idea with data you wish to keep.

[lordsmurf]

No software is able to tell you with 100% reliability whether a burn was done correctly. The only true way to tell is to read the data back in whatever machine or format you will be using that data for. Relying on test software is never a good idea with data you wish to keep.

That's wrong too.

The only way to fully test a disc is by :
- running file verification (one that works, not some crap in Nero),
- 2-3 disc scans (both PI/PIE type -and- the surface scans .... but be carefuly with the testing drives, drives can play a big part in this),
- trying to extract an ISO with no read-back errors (or copy disc-to-disc, though this can be more faulty),
- and then by playing out the entire video front to back (or restoring all data files, if data).

If it can pass all of those, then the disc is fine.

The problem is, few discs can do this, and consistently. Most people also never do this thorough of a testing, so they get screwball results with low-grade media, lulled into thinking it is alright.

[oldandinthe way]

I have been reviewing the media reports, and have been seeing a trend, based on this anecdotal data.

Certain manufacturer's drives are responsible for the bulk of the poor reports on cheap media. These drives are generally touted as high quality drives.

Other manufacturer's drives rarely find media to be defective.

Are the "quality" drives more rigid in their interpretation of the specification?

Do these manufacturer's drive receive fewer factory updates to firmware?

Do these drives have a poor fallback stategy for drives which are not in their tables?

Are the owners of these drives pickier?

I don;t know the answer but would be interested in seeing opinions, and other potential explanations.

[lordsmurf]

Other manufacturer's drives rarely find media to be defective.

This is simply not a true statement.

While drives can definitely affect quality, it is not an effect leading to the coaster. The effect (meaning the resulting coaster) is still based on the media itself in an overwhelming majority.

AFFECT vs EFFECT

Any good testing procedure will have removed such gross variables from the equation. For example, never test TY DVD-R media on a BTC drive, it will fail.

[oldandinthe way]

Compare LG-4163B reports to almost any BenQ or NEC model. By looking at the media reports on the DVD-writer section of this site.

These drives are popular enough to have significant number of reports.

Again the data is anecdotal but the results are suggestive.

Or pick a CMC or other "crap" media and look who has problems burning it.

To my knowledge no one has done a scientific study.

I am suggesting the possibility that drives do effect coasters as an alternate interpretation of the data available.

[InXess]

Don't forget the software, while media is first to come to mind most coaster that happened to me were caused by software (especially early years...) Lots of users have 2 or more burning programs and they do conflict. Open one : fail but the other works. More crap on PC more issues. On a clean XP install everything seems to work but once the registry grows... yeah, we all know that.