Cool...my DVD-Rs are flaking out...I guess this IS for real.

[RiG]

Well my Ritek G05s are crapping out, they will play in my dvd players fine, then 15 minutes or so into the movie it will skip here and there, just barely noticable, if you weren't looking at the screen you probably wouldn't notice. Then shortly after it progressively gets worse until the player crashes. I've noticed this on a few dvds before this, same media, my first assumption when this started was that they were dirty with fingerprints, dust, etc. After washing them they would seem to come back to life, I could skip ahead to the point where the dvd was unreadable and it would play through, but soon enough the skipping started and the inevitable crash occured. I've gone through all my dvds searching for older burns on different media, the Ritek G05 is the only one doing this, I've got Princos that work flawless, even cheap Matrix media with LONGTEN010 code that works just like it did the day I burned it.

All these dvds are anywhere from 1.5 to 3 years old and have been watched at least a few times prior. They are stored in proper dvd cases. I have been able to read test all of these with zero errors and have reburned a few and they play fine. The thing I find curious is why do they work after cleaning them in cold water? Do they heat up in the player and it somehow affects the dye to make it harder to read? Another point, all my XBOX backups burned to this media behaves fine, its only dvd video that is having an issue.

**EDIT- all these have been burned no faster than 2x, and for the most part 1x

[Capmaster]

We had over 1,000 movies on Princo media that worked fine for about 3 years, then started going belly-up faster than we could salvage them onto Taiyo media.

Could be these Riteks are crap. Ritek used to make good media until about the beginning of 2004. Then they went downhill fast.

Princo has always been landfill material ....

[RiG]

So would you recommend going with Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim media?

[SatStorm]

Taiyo Yuden all the way.

I'm crazy with my data. I don't trust something else.

[FulciLives]

Taiyo Yuden is great. You can buy 8x or 16x DVD-R discs from RIMA.COM

The Verbatim 16x DVD-R discs that you buy in retail stores is just as good. These are often on sale and when they are the price is a bit less than buying Taiyo Yuden from RIMA.COM

Keep your eye on BEST BUY and OFFICEMAX as those seem to be the two big retail stores that have the Verbatim 16x DVD-R discs on sale. Unfortunately no sale this week at either place although sometimes they do have sales as often as every other week so check again next Sunday.

Anyways I wouldn't trust anything else right now other than Taiyo Yuden (8x or 16x) or Verbatim (only the 16x variety).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Every DVD burner is a bit different but having said that you are usually best burning 8x media at 4x speed and 16x media at 6x speed. Also never ever burn 8x media nor 16x media any lower than 4x speed or you will have trouble.

[lordsmurf]

You're blaming the discs, but other reasons are more likely. The player in question is far more likely to have a laser nearer to the end of its life. Weaker lasers have a harder time reading crappier dye mixes, like that of RITEK and PRINCO.

You probably have tons of micro-abrasions on the media too, something you cannot see with your naked eye (try a microscope), but refract light nonetheless.

This sounds like a mix of poor handling and aging lasers. It's not the media, although the media is not helping you any.

[creakndale]

Since you are washing them in cold water, this probably doesn't apply but if you have paper labels on these discs try carefully removing them and see if they play properly.

[Capmaster]

So would you recommend going with Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim media?

Taiyo Yuden

[videobread]

Bad Ritek. Well documented on this site. I had about 100 go bad. Had to replace them all. It is not your hardware waring out - per Lord Smerf. I still have about 50 of the bad Ritek. Just tried them in my new DVR-A11D's. They still don't work. The bad Ritek's were out about 2 years ago. I have not bought any since. Those Ritek's were the only case of bad media I have ever personally experienced. I don't by Princo or other crap. I only buy TY, Ver and Max. 95% of the time I buy TY.

[RiG]

Unfortunately I still have a bunch of these dvd-r and I don't plan on ever using them again. They react the same way in all my players, I've got a Pioneer thats brand new and an older APEX that still plays old vcds. Every other dvd-r other that G05 that I have still work flawlessly in all these players. My dvds are handled very carefully and never lent out, so bad handling isn't an issue. Although the only thing that might have a factor in this, which I just thought of, would be that I started using these close to the end of my Pioneer A06 life and I think all of the dvds that are acting up NOW were burned by the A06 THEN. It wouldn't read dvds after it burned them, ie. to verify, but still burned and the dvds verified in a reader just fine. Hmmm

[lordsmurf]

Pioneer DVD burners, like most, are average quality at READING discs. Try these so-called "dead" discs in a BTC drive and prepare to be surprised as they "come back to life".

The reader is half the battle when reading discs.

[cyflyer]

OF COURSE ITS THE RITEK MEDIA !!!

But, haven't we covered this exact same issue over and over and over and over again ????

[oldandinthe way]

I too suspect the drive. But cleaning the drive may help. I find that if I put a dirty disk obtained at the public library in my drive by mistake it would not recognize other disks until I have cleaned the drive. Sometimes I get false read errors as well..

[RiG]

Pioneer DVD burners, like most, are average quality at READING discs. Try these so-called "dead" discs in a BTC drive and prepare to be surprised as they "come back to life".

The reader is half the battle when reading discs.

They read fine in dvdinfopro, I've made images and re-burned them and the newly burned dvd plays fine in all these players, the old burn on G05 will freeze and crash, dvd is about a year and a half old, copy it to a new dvd...G05, works flawless like the old one did. Games work fine still, seems that if its being read as "data" there is no issue, but when a dvd player has to play the video contained on the dvd it screws up eventually. I've cleaned the lasers on all my players with a swab and alcohol, they still play the same, even picked up another dvd player, new, just for arguements sake, same result. I'm not saying the dvd is "dead" or data is unrecoverable but video "unplayable". Nobody has commented on how temperature seems to affect the performance of these dvds, I put one in the freezer for 20 minutes and it played through longer than it would have if it was started at room temperature. So to me it looks like the dvd gets warm and the laser has trouble reading for whatever reason, regardless...this sucks lol

[videobread]

It's the disc's. First they are fine. Then down the road problems start. Cleaning them seems to help. Then later down the road they become completely unreadable. Back up all your Ritek now before it is too late. Don't ever buy Ritek again.

[lordsmurf]

I agree, it's the discs, but they were never good to start with. However, it's not that the discs have "disappearing data', but rather they are (and always have been) so poor quality that it will be difficult to read them. The data is still there, it just takes more powerful readers/laser to get it off.

Definitely move the data to a new disc, a better disc.

[Super Warrior]

Well my Ritek G05s are crapping out, they will play in my dvd players fine, then 15 minutes or so into the movie it will skip here and there, just barely noticable, if you weren't looking at the screen you probably wouldn't notice. Then shortly after it progressively gets worse until the player crashes.

The exact same stuff happened to me too back when i was using Ritek. Ritek/Ridata used to be a good quality brand, but they took a nosedive in quality a while back and just are NOT worth bothering with.

Do what i did and switch over to Taiyo Yuden.

It's the disc's. First they are fine. Then down the road problems start. Cleaning them seems to help. Then later down the road they become completely unreadable. Back up all your Ritek now before it is too late. Don't ever buy Ritek again.

Agreed. Once there was a time when ritek was decent, but since the downfall in quality, its now no better than Princo trash.

[videobread]

For the benefit of the newcomer: Bad media is unheard of from reputable suppliers selling name brand media - TY, Ver and Max. (Although some Max are made by Ritek). If you have a problem it is your hardware and most likely your burner's firmware. If your player is old it could be the firmware of your player.

The Ritek G05's were a really odd situation. Ritek used to be good media. In the spring of 2006 that all changed and a lot of people got burnt. Here is a post of mine from July, 8 2006:

"""I have read Ritek G05 horror stories on this forum. Mine keeps getting worse. I bought 300 Ritek G05's from rima.com on March 8, 2006. They were crap. I had 75 coasters. Now I am finding that half of the rest will no longer read in my Pioneer A109's or my $75 Sony player. Some of those will still read in my very expensive Panasonic DMR-E80H. I'm just wondering if the rest will go bad in time. I will never buy Ritek again - EVER."""

Bottom line is - cheap discs may go bad it time. They may be fine now, but are a ticking time bomb. Prior to the Ritek G05 horror story I did not think that was possible. I thought if it burnt and played it was good for 100 years. The Ritek G05 story changed my thinking. I now buy TY 95% of the time. I do not buy value line, because they may be ticking bombs and I don't want to take the chance. Don't be anal retentive about disc price. Penny wise pound foolish.

Again, The Ritek G05 problems were an aberration. Never saw anything like it before. Hope I never do again.

[lordsmurf]

FRitek used to be good media. In the spring of 2006 that all changed and a lot of people got burnt. .......... Again, The Ritek G05 problems were an aberration. Never saw anything like it before. Hope I never do again.

But you're wrong.

I can always tell when somebody who claims "Ritek was good media" is pretty new to all of this, the world of optical media.

Ritek CD-R was crap. Just awful stuff.
Early Ritek DVD-R and DVD-RW was crap. It was worse than Princo, at the time.

For some odd reason, by some odd stroke of luck, RITEKG03 media was a very good quality disc. It was still a far cry from Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Maxell, TDK, and the few others that existed... except Princo and early fakes. People bought it mostly because it was cheap. The Ritek media sold for $1-3 when better media was still priced at $4-6 per disc.

RITEKG03 was the aberration.

Everything else has been typical Ritek junk, including G01, G02, most G04 and all G05. And that's just DVD-R; there's plenty of bad DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW out there too. And then all the Ritek-made bad Ricoh.

Ritek was was never the best media, it was never even close. RITEKG03 was acceptable in burn quality, but it still had all the flaws of a more-difficult dye when being read.

Historical perspective is important.

The sad part is that RITEK is still better than probably half of all media out there.

On average, it still burns well for most folks, and can be well-read with a bit of effort (trying various players).

[DereX888]

I hate to see this thread turning to another one of those "Ritek - good or bad?"...

Regardless of OP's brand of used blanks, just use LOGIC:
1 - discs burned as games for his xbox (or whatever he has) DO work
2 - discs burnt as dvd-video DON'T
so
OBVIOUSLY ITS NOT THE MEDIA (since same brand was used).


Your dvd-player is dying, thats all, regardless of how crappy blanks you were using (which doesn't help either).


BTW - did I read "sony" as a dvd player? that wouldn't surprise me

[Soopafresh]

For future burns. Free, and apparently very good:

http://www.ice-graphics.com/ICEECC/IndexE.html

[Wile_E]

Too bad we can't press our own discs for a $1 or less at home. I'll be glad when all media goes solid-state memory. No more burning issues.

I have just recently been having problems with Taiyo Yuden (Made in Japan) discs. A lot of them that I burned a little over a year ago, are starting to have a lot of C2 errors. My drives are having to slow down in order to read the discs. These discs were fine when burned with very little C2 errors. Before this, I had some junk Memorex (CMC) go bad on me so that's why I switched to TY MIJ. So apparently it doesn't matter even they are TY MIJ. The discs came from several different batches, so it was not just one bad batch.

[Super Warrior]

For the benefit of the newcomer: Bad media is unheard of from reputable suppliers selling name brand media

I dunno about that, the last crap batches of Ritek's i had came from newegg.com

[DereX888]

Too bad we can't press our own discs for a $1 or less at home. I'll be glad when all media goes solid-state memory. No more burning issues.

8)
yeah, i can't wait the day it'll be like that

[jdeh]

Pioneer DVD burners, like most, are average quality at READING discs. Try these so-called "dead" discs in a BTC drive and prepare to be surprised as they "come back to life".

The reader is half the battle when reading discs.

Interesting observation re Pioneer. My experience with their players is that they, unlike a lot of other players will read almost anything. I buy nothing but Pioneers and never have playing issues. I am not talking about the burners. I have 2 NEC ND 3550a burners in my box and they work just fine.

Bo Bo Bolinski

[FulciLives]

@ jdeh

That Avatar of yours ... is that R. Crumb artwork?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jdeh]

you betcha! It is Bo Bo Bolinski aka bo bo the lover. LOL

It warms my heart when someone is familiar with R. Crumb's works.

thnx, Bo Bo

[jdeh]

I use the cheapest DVD +R media I can find on ALLMEDIA . latest was RICH..i USE tdk OR nec BURNERS AT THE FASTEST SPEED AND PLAY ONLY ON pioneer PLAYERS. mY MOVIES ALWAYS ARE PERFECT COPIES. On the other hand, my sister uses only +RW's and has a LOT of bad copies that skip and pixelate and stop. Any thoughts on the +RW's onb playback?

Bo Bo Bolinski

[jdeh]

whoops make that RICOH +R'S. sorry bout that

BO BO

[RiG]

I hate to see this thread turning to another one of those "Ritek - good or bad?"...

Regardless of OP's brand of used blanks, just use LOGIC:
1 - discs burned as games for his xbox (or whatever he has) DO work
2 - discs burnt as dvd-video DON'T
so
OBVIOUSLY ITS NOT THE MEDIA (since same brand was used).


Your dvd-player is dying, thats all, regardless of how crappy blanks you were using (which doesn't help either).


BTW - did I read "sony" as a dvd player? that wouldn't surprise me

For the record....

Media: Ritek G05
Players: 2 Apex AD-1500, Pioneer DV-270, Diamond Vision DVD-V803 (brand new as of yesterday), XBOX and XBOX360 (brand new @xmas), Playstation 2.

Same backup movie is used in all players, Dogma. At approx. 35 minute mark on all machines, movie freezes for seconds and skips ahead continuously until the 40 minute mark where it freezes permanently, unable to fast forward, rewind or skip chapters.

Another movie was tried on same media, approximate same age, Constantine, same results at approximately same times.

A movie left in any of the players looping the menu will eventually freeze up as well, after about 40 minutes.

Games played in the XBOX or PS2 do not exhibit any abnormal behavior, burnt on the same media, same approximate age.