Anyone else having problems with Verbatim Media sold at Sam's Club?

[terryj]

Lately the Sam's Clubs in my area have been slowly letting their
stock of 8x DVD-Rs die out, (sold at $12.99 a 50 pack) to replace them
with 16x DVD-rs (sold at $32 a 100 pack).

The 16x's spindles I've been buying I'm seeing a failure rate of
about .05% ( 5 per 100) where on the 8x 50 packs, I had
no coasters.

The failures have all been sense key medium errors as reported by Toast 7.
All the discs that have failed have either been at the top of the spindle,
or the bottom of the spindle, the last 100 pack I bought, the first two and last three
were no good.

I've reported this to Verbatim, and they of course, send out new discs to replace those,
and note the UPC codes and where I've purchased from. But was just curious
as to what everyone else was seeing.

[oldandinthe way]

You probably need a firmware update for your drive.

[Jikchung]

I have been using those discs since they first became available with no problems on my pioneer 110D.

[terryj]

Oldin,
nope Pioneer DVR-109 is running v. 1.53 firmware.
And I thought of that first, but dismissed it,
as I power through the other 95 discs in
the spindle without an error.


it's definitely the media, and definitely something
in those first and last few discs on the spindle.

As I said no biggy, just wanted to see if anyone else
who was buying from Sam's Club was experiencing
this same problem with media bought from there
SPECIFICALLY.

[oldandinthe way]

If you don't see signs of physical imperfections on the media, I would still point to your drive.

My experience with Verbatim 16x media is no coasters, ever. But I never experience as high as 5% failures with an media unless I can see problems in the application of the substrate.

[terryj]

We'll agree to disagree on this point;
as I agree that yes, physical imperfections in the media
cause lots of crap bad to happen ( I'm not a newbie,
just read my reports on TDK, Sony, Verbatim and Fuji in
the media lists at left), but these 16x Verbatim's being sold
at Sam's are a Queer duck. And it only seems to be in the
100 pack (tall spindle) being sold there.

the last batch I returned to Verbatim direct had no noticeable
( and again, I know what to look for) imperfections in the dye,
and yet failed in my Pioneer, also failed in my two MWR-106D,
and yet, two or three discs down (dependeing upon the spindle),
same spindle, the burners ate them up like it was an all you can
eat buffet, right as rain.

No difference in Media codes from disc to disc, spindle to spindle.
*shrugs*
I'm just chalking it up to these Sam's sold Verbatims
are "queer ducks" and that's that.
Verbatim Direct takes back the 5%, and the 5%
they return for my trouble burn fine, so I'll settle for that.

[OneSickPup]

My wife buys 100 pack spindles of Inkjet Printable Verbatim from Sam's and has experienced the same thing. Not sure if it's Sam's or just 100 pack spindles in general. In her case the top 3 or 4 dvd's appeared scuffed - nothing visible on the remainder. We came to the un-scientific conclusion that the spindle shaft bends and/or torques in shipment and obviously the furthermost dvd's on the shaft will tend to move further than ones closer to the base. We suspect this is where the abrasions come from. Just a theory obviously. We have never had problems with any from the bottom of the cakeboxes however.

[terryj]

I've seen those on the shelf next to the ones I reguarly buy,
kinda of in a Magenta-ish wrapper? Mine are the Navy Blue-ish
ones.

Your theory is sound, and Perhaps because I don't think too
much about "scuffs" ( instead keeping my eyes open for
imperfection spots in the dye), this is what the actual
problem is with the discs.

I gotta go out an pick up another spindle today,
I'll take a look and see what I notice on these.

Thanks One SickPup!

[budz]

Samsclub isn't the only one having problems with VERBATIM dvd media, Best Buy has also had them. There's a huge thread at Cdfreaks.com about the bad batches of VERBATIM but I can't find the link. Supposedly if you look at the serial numbers you can tell which discs are okay. If I'm not mistaken chas0039 was the one who posted here what to look for in those VERBATIM discs. He also posted it at Cdfreaks.com.

[Gen-An]

Initially the printable discs I bought from Sam's club a few years back had slightly elevated PIE levels in the inner disc area when scanned on various drives but they were well within spec. The ones I've used recently have been pretty good, mainly the 16x DVD+Rs (MCC004 by Prodisc and CMC). I have a batch of the 16x DVD-Rs, MCC 03RG20 manuf by Prodisc, that aren't the best out there but they still burn within spec as well.

[OneSickPup]

Samsclub isn't the only one having problems with VERBATIM dvd media, Best Buy has also had them. There's a huge thread at Cdfreaks.com about the bad batches of VERBATIM but I can't find the link. Supposedly if you look at the serial numbers you can tell which discs are okay. If I'm not mistaken chas0039 was the one who posted here what to look for in those VERBATIM discs. He also posted it at Cdfreaks.com.

I've been so busy lately I haven't kept up with the forums much. If anyone would know I sure would trust chas0039 for an honest opinion. I do know that many have complained about Verbatim DVD+R 16x MID = MCC004 with a stamper code starting with PAP6. Many of these had the "Intelliflix" marketing promotion on the spindle wrapper. I had one 50 count cakebox of those I purchased at a local Best Buy, but I could not tell any difference in them compared to earlier purchases of the desired PAPA codes. YMMV

[terryj]

I've been so busy lately I haven't kept up with the forums much. If anyone would know I sure would trust chas0039 for an honest opinion. I do know that many have complained about Verbatim DVD+R 16x MID = MCC004 with a stamper code starting with PAP6. Many of these had the "Intelliflix" marketing promotion on the spindle wrapper.

those have been on the last three 100 spindles I bought,
the "intelliflix" promotion!!!

I ignored this the first two times, then I thought as I read it
"hmmm, excludes pron rentals....."

CRAP!!!!

I too, need to keep up more with the forums it seems!!

[budz]

Samsclub isn't the only one having problems with VERBATIM dvd media, Best Buy has also had them. There's a huge thread at Cdfreaks.com about the bad batches of VERBATIM but I can't find the link. Supposedly if you look at the serial numbers you can tell which discs are okay. If I'm not mistaken chas0039 was the one who posted here what to look for in those VERBATIM discs. He also posted it at Cdfreaks.com.

I've been so busy lately I haven't kept up with the forums much. If anyone would know I sure would trust chas0039 for an honest opinion. I do know that many have complained about Verbatim DVD+R 16x MID = MCC004 with a stamper code starting with PAP6. Many of these had the "Intelliflix" marketing promotion on the spindle wrapper. I had one 50 count cakebox of those I purchased at a local Best Buy, but I could not tell any difference in them compared to earlier purchases of the desired PAPA codes. YMMV

onesickpup the VERBATIM DVD-R 16x MID=MCC 03RG20 with the "INTELLIFIX" marketing promotion on the spindle wrapper seems to burn better than the MCC004. They burn well with the dvd burners that I'm using at the present moment which are the BENQ 1655, PIONEER 112L, LITEON 18A1P & SAMSUNG 183L. So I've been buying those instead of DVD+R MCC004 discs.