Best printable media? (Any 100% working brand?)

[Espen]

After years of trouble finding a good working dvd media, I thought I found the perfect solution for printable dvd-r in Taiyo Yuden DVD-R 8x with TYG02 dye. Burnt 200 discs over the past years without any problems in any dvd player, but on the last batch, disc starts go skip and frezz, in some dvd players.

So now the best of the best is not even safe any more. Looking at the price of dvd-r media, have moved down 50% over the last year, quality has to stand back? Or is there any safe and secure media out there any more?

[bronwhyn]

I really don't know

[Eyedoctor2]

Verbatim has virtually never failed me.

[SCDVD]

What model is your burner and how old is it? An old and tired burner can cause this too.

[lordsmurf]

TY is not the best media, contrary to overly zealous fans. It's good, really good, but MCC is better for several reasons. TY has known issues with some burners.

TY DVD+R also tends to be better than the DVD-R.

Of course, this assumes it's not the player at fault. Tried it on other players?

[thomseye]

TY is not the best media, contrary to overly zealous fans. It's good, really good, but MCC is better for several reasons. TY has known issues with some burners.

TY DVD+R also tends to be better than the DVD-R.

Of course, this assumes it's not the player at fault. Tried it on other players?

Lordsmurf... "man of absolutes"...

I do not agree with that first sentence... The other two, well, sound right. I've had many more problems with MCC (Verbatim or otherwise) than with TY's. As a matter of fact, I no longer even buy Verbatim+R's... only -R's and DL+R's. Of course this could be the burners I've had (a NEC and BenQ). But out of 20,000 burnt (yes that's right) I'd say in this order...

+R:
#1 choice... TY's
#2 Maxell (MIJ)
#3 Prodisc/Ritek

-R:
#1 Verbatim
#2 TY's (a close second)
#3 Maxell (MIJ)

+R DL
#1 Verbatim
#2 there aren't any more that i'd recommend

thomseye

[Espen]

What model is your burner and how old is it? An old and tired burner can cause this too.

It´s a LG GSA-4163B and maybe 2yaears old.

TY is not the best media, contrary to overly zealous fans. It's good, really good, but MCC is better for several reasons. TY has known issues with some burners.

TY DVD+R also tends to be better than the DVD-R.

Of course, this assumes it's not the player at fault. Tried it on other players?

Haven´t tried another burner, but these problems start at the bottom of the batch, so would guees it´s a bad batch. Have order Ty Watershields, some new Ty 8x and Smartbuy (Prodisc). See if they will workout in a better way.

[lordsmurf]

Of course this could be the burners I've had (a NEC and BenQ).

It is.

BenQ is far from being a quality burner, in terms of burning quality. Most BenQ fans like it for scanning and other things I find to be frilly useless features. What good is a burner that doesn't burn well? NEC can vary on the firmware. It depends on the model and age. Not as much of an issue as it was 3-4 years ago.

TY is not as reflective as MCC, it does turn back lower quality in various scans, and the media is more finicky in firmware. These are all nitpicks, and you may not notice all of these issues at once, but it does happen, and they can add up to a bad situation whereas an MCC is less likely.

This same information is also found on cdfreaks, from the more knowledgeable members.

[ntscuser]

Haven't had any problems* since switching to Verbatim 16x printables and NEC burner.

*except for the oversize label which is a real nuisance.

[thomseye]

Of course this could be the burners I've had (a NEC and BenQ).

It is.

BenQ is far from being a quality burner, in terms of burning quality. Most BenQ fans like it for scanning and other things I find to be frilly useless features. What good is a burner that doesn't burn well? NEC can vary on the firmware. It depends on the model and age. Not as much of an issue as it was 3-4 years ago.

TY is not as reflective as MCC, it does turn back lower quality in various scans, and the media is more finicky in firmware. These are all nitpicks, and you may not notice all of these issues at once, but it does happen, and they can add up to a bad situation whereas an MCC is less likely.

This same information is also found on cdfreaks, from the more knowledgeable members.

,,,All I'll say is that I would never use Verbatim DVD+R's again... These had a high coaster rate as compared to the MIJ's (TY and Maxell). -R, I'm right with you... But besides Verbatim on the -R side, TY is the closest (in terms of successful burns). What -R would you say is better than TY or MCC... (not all verbatims are MCC)?

[Gen-An]

Strange that you've had problems with Verbatim +R. What drive are you using? As to your other question, you're not going to find any -R better than those two; MIJ Maxell is all but gone and only the premium MXLRG03 (short serials in the clear hub) was superior to them. Not sure what country you're in but in the US all Verbatim DVD media is MCC.

[lordsmurf]

I've not seen a non-MCC Verbatim disc in years (2x CMC, short-lived). Even in other countries, MCC is always MCC at the moment from what others tell me in those countries. Verbatim did do some TY in pastel pearled, but that's over now from what I'm being told, long ago.

The days of TDK-coded and Maxell-coded media is basically gone. Sony is good too, if it's from Taiwan or Japan (unlikely), Malaysia is crap. That's pretty much it. Your next choices are mediocre stuff: Ritek, CMC, Fujifilm, Ricoh ... which can range from okay to pure crap. Bottom of barrel is fakes and stuff like UMEDISC (the modern day Princo).

Much as I suspected long ago, because it happened to CD-R, we've got fewer choices, but some good ones still exist, and probably will for a good while. I can still find Japanese CD-R in Walmart, so all is well.

[solarfox]

Haven´t tried another burner, but these problems start at the bottom of the batch, so would guees it´s a bad batch.

Here's a thought -- what if the weight of all the discs above them on the spindle caused the ones on the bottom to deform? Those 100-pack spindles can be kind of heavy, and I've noticed that sometimes the bottom discs stick together if the stack sits vertically for a long time. (I solved this issue by getting some empty 25-piece cakeboxes and breaking up the 100-disc packs into smaller stacks.)

[thomseye]

I've not seen a non-MCC Verbatim disc in years (2x CMC, short-lived). Even in other countries, MCC is always MCC at the moment from what others tell me in those countries. Verbatim did do some TY in pastel pearled, but that's over now from what I'm being told, long ago.

Last summer I had a batch of Verbatims that were coded as CMC (and I was pissed)... For what it's worth, I've had Prodisc that were coded as MCC and RICOHJPN... Also, Office Max had a ton of MIJ Maxells as late as two weeks ago. (all the above were white inkjet printables)

Btw, I live in Michigan, USA.

thomseye

[thomseye]

I have no idea why this double posted...

I've not seen a non-MCC Verbatim disc in years (2x CMC, short-lived). Even in other countries, MCC is always MCC at the moment from what others tell me in those countries. Verbatim did do some TY in pastel pearled, but that's over now from what I'm being told, long ago.

Last summer I had a batch of Verbatims that were coded as CMC (and I was pissed)... For what it's worth, I've had Prodisc that were coded as MCC and RICOHJPN... Also, Office Max had a ton of MIJ Maxells as late as two weeks ago. (all the above were white inkjet printables)

Btw, I live in Michigan, USA.

thomseye