Media ID: Princo. 2x DVD-R. Burned @ 2x on NEC2500. Scans

[Fandim]

Found an old princo I burned @2x on my NEC 2500. Will be posting scans in a moment. This is a pretty old disc..dont recall what FW was used at the time, but I do not think the princo media strat was swapped.

(This was a Comp USA branded DVD-R disc)

Seth

[Fandim]

KProbe

[steve2713]

Here's one for you, same stuff, CompUSA Starlogic brand, burned at 2x on my NEC 1300. This was scanned a few months ago(edit: I posted something different than I thought):

If I know where the disc is I'll scan it again :P



P.S. - this was before I used my burner to do scans, but this was a pretty impressive scan on my Liteon, PI a little high but good for scans on the liteon, and the PIF is clearly low with no spikes.

[steve2713]

Here's two more scans of the same disc, one scan done in December, another scan I just did now.

scanned in early December:





scanned again today:





What's interesting here, the PIF errors have gone up a fair amount in just a couple of months, and this coincides with alot of peoples' experiences with Princo discs, and some other similar generic media, where the discs become unreadable over time. I have had the disc stored out of light the whole time, in a normal hard case, at room temp - it hasn't even been removed to play it. If the discs had higher PIF errors early on and this disc was a more marginal burn originally, I wouldn't be suprised if it hadn't already gotten to the point that it was difficult to read.

Some people dispute this and say it's impossible (actually I have seen very few people make this claim besides Lordsmurf), but I've had some of my early Princo discs start skipping and having errors near the edge of the disc that did not exist when I first burned them. In just two months the PIF errors increased 25%, pretty rapidly. It will be interesting to see how this disc scans in another year...

Fandim, have you had any problems with Princo or any other generic media deteriorating over time? Fortunately I've only had this happen with a couple of Princo discs, nothing else yet that I've found. I wish I had the bad Princos scanned for comparison, at that time I only did transfer rate tests, but the transfer rates had also worsened over time, a couple of the discs eventually were unreadable by any of my drives and they've been replaced. This particular disc still looks OK, but I wouldn't be suprised if it has problems in a year or so

[Fandim]

Here's my DVDInfo

[Fandim]

Yeah...I've had Princo's become unreadable... Or start skipping etc..

However, more than not, the errors just increase (PI/PIF), but the disc dosnt become unreadable in most cases...Princo's seem to do this a lot.

I dont think it's the ink deteiorating etc, but I do live in a very dusty desert, as well as large amounts of dust in the air here (which can cause microscopic scratches), there are huge temperature flucuations between night and day.. (Live in Reno, NV). This could cause discs to warp etc.

I really dont know why discs do this. All I know, is that they do. Especially Princo's.

Steve - this is why I'm apprehensive about CMC's.

[Fandim]

What's the most interesting about your scans, Steve, is that the PI errors actually decreased...this goes to show that scans are somewhat incosistent etc...(scan the same disc twice, adn you'll come up with at least slightly different values).

[steve2713]

True, the PI is actually lower, but by less than 1%. That's within the variables between two scans, as you mention, but a 25% change in PIF is definitely FAR from being within the variable between two tests, even a 5% change with back to back tests would be a large variation.

Regarding CMC instability, I've not observed this with CMC at all, and a LARGE number (a majority) of my first, early burns were with CMC media, mostly 2.4x CMC R01. The discs have had ZERO instability problems for me, and there's a few of them that were not handled properly (thanks friends :P) and are littered with scratches and still play fine. I still have a bunch of CMC 2.4x R01 discs, I now burn them at 6x and 8x on my NEC 2500, they are incredible discs despite what anyone might say, burning a 2.4x disc at 8x and getting scans that are outstanding, and the discs play fine. I've had no problems if that makes you feel any better, but then I have always had good results from CMC.

I've only seen DEFINITE indications of deterioration with Princo, even most of my el cheapo fake MXL media has not deteriorated like some of the Princo had.

[Fandim]

Heh heh...Your 2.4x @ 8x and good scans...sounds a lot like Ricohjphn R01. I burn these 4x at 12x with pretty good results...But it's not my favorite type of media, as I've had a couple bad batches, even burning at 4x.

[steve2713]

Yep, RICOHJPNR01 is good stuff :P Those discs have been awesome for me, my favorite discs in fact. I burn all mine at 8x and the results are great(that's my fastest burner at the moment anyway). I've heard of people getting some bad batches lately, it sounds like Amazon is getting rid of its last stock and they may be repackaging broken spindles or something strange. People are getting broken spindles and scratched up discs the last week or two I've read. Too bad, they're great discs.