Premium Line vs. Value Line, Taiyo Yuden; what's different?

[genki500]

Regarding "Taiyo Yuden White Inkjet Hub Printable 8X DVD-R Media". There are two different ones over Supermeidastore: one is Premium line, the other is Value line; they have same mfr part number (I believe it could be a mistake by the seller), descriptions for two items are identical; e-mailed them, but never get a response. Anyone has idea about this?

Similar situation about Prodisc, I tried both, and found one has smoother print surface, that was all.

[lordsmurf]

Something kept those discs from being 100% to the anal-retentive TY standards. It's not like the media is bad, it burns just fine, though it is suggested you burn a full to half speed under (and is why they are mostly sold as 4x discs, though the media code could be for 8x or 16x discs).

Inversely, it might just mean "premium" discs are getting extra special treatment. TY has not really been too forthcoming about the difference, but both media burn just fine.

[NiteLite]

I didnt know TY had a "value" line of White inkjet 8X" ?
I also think it is not "anal-retentive" for a company to be honest with their customers about their product might not being up to premium standards. How rare these days.

Also if a company would not even answer your email I would check elsewhere.
NL

[videobread]

The TY "Value Line" are seconds. Known in the industry as "b-stock". I stay away from cheap media. I don't want to be surprised down the road. Penny wise pound foolish. The savings on a 100 spindle of value line is probably the price of a happy meal at Mc D's.
The good TY's claim:
# Widest record and playback compatibility
# 100 year durability data integrity guarantee
# Zero wave distortion
# ISO 14001 certified manufacturing
# Lowest Bler, E12 and E22 error rate in the industry
# Lowest jitter and deviation levels in the industry
# No stacking ring
The 100 year durability data integrity guarantee is what interests me. What if you have to replace them in 5 years? You were warned by TY. They don't meet spec.
Professional supplier don't sell "value line" TY's. You takes your chances. You may never have a problem with them. Then again you might get a big surprise down the road.

[ROF]

The 100 year durability data integrity guarantee is what interests me.

Me too. I tend to avoid companies that outright lie to my face. Have they tested these disc for 100 years to make sure my data will still be intact? If not, how can they guarantee something such as that? They will replace my dead discs? I don't really care about the disc being replaced, it is the data on the disc that is important. Does TY guarantee a replacement of the data when the disc fails to read back 77 years from now? I call that false and misleading advertisement.

[hech54]

I think it's funny as hell that people walk past the "New And Improved" advert that has appeared on the box of Tide laundry detergent for what...15 years now...and take it with more than one grain of salt yet sit here and argue about stuff like this.

[Marvingj]

Well, it's hard to get an exact answer out of Taiyo Yuden on that one. But they say it's closer to 'A Grade' media then 'B Grade', but it's not as good as their "Premium Line" media, which is "better then A Grade'. That's almost word for word what they told me when I asked... from my own results, I think they're fine

[ROF]

Actually Tide Laundry Detergent has been changed 3 times in the last five years. Twice because of environmental improvements to the chemistry used and once to change the softener being used. No lies there . . It is new and because of the more environmentally concious products used in its manufacture it's been improved.

[SCDVD]

Some "in the know" people have indicated that this is more a Taiyo Yuden marketing strategy than a product difference. Taiyo Yuden wants to increase their market share and sales volume without erroding their "A Grade" prices. Actual test comparisons seem to bear this out. Blind testing cannot tell the difference between Value Line and regular discs.

Is this true? I don't know; I'm not Taiyo Yuden. But those who would answer this question aren't either. So the question will probably remain factually unanswered unless Mr. Yuden (his friends call him Taiyo) communicates with us and lets us know.

[OneSickPup]

I've only purchased value-line TY's on 2 occasions and both times they scanned on par with premium TY's I had on hand. I agree with SCDVD on this one. I think it is merely a marketing ploy. I've seen too many scans and too many comments by people I trust over at CDFreaks that say they can't tell any difference. There may be some packaging/handling differences between the two lines as I have observed a higher chance of surface residue on the ValueLine blanks. A quick blast of air from an ear syringe will remedy that problem (ie: don't use canned air). But then again - that may be purely my imagination. I quit buying them but not because of quality problems. I wanted TYG02 specifically and not TYG03. No guarantee what you get with a Valueline order.

Before somebody asks - I meant bulb syringe...

[samijubal]

You'll get a defective disc once in awhile in the Value discs. Other than that they burn fine.

[dafoe]

When I started buying DVD-Rs back in 2000/2001. You were lucky to find generic discs for under $ 4. So I was using generics for most stuff and TDK for important stuff. This is back when TDK was producing awesome discs.

Eventually, I started using Lead Data for General use as prices started to come down. Unfortunately TDK went downhill. So I started using Taiyo for important stuff- they had dropped to around 1.50 or so a piece at this point.

Eventually I replaced the Lead Data with the Value Line TYs and used the premium TYs for important stuff. Until I got a bad batch. I ordered 200 and 100 of them were spotty. A good disc here a bad disc there. I forget what they were doing. I want to say they would either stop halfway through dubbing or wildly pixellate upon playback. That was a while ago

Maybe I just got a freak batch. I would estimate I used at least 600-800 without problems. Problem is, most of the stuff I recorded is stuff I had already seen. I collect sports games. Lots of them. I record all 4 of my teams on the hard drive (set top) and watch the game. If the team wins, I cut commercials and throw it on a disc. I also did a bunch of shows that aren't available on DVD. What can I say, I like to collect. Point is, most of the stuff I dubbed (and there has been a lot over the years) I've had no reason to rewatch- I'm more into the collecting aspect of it. I know, it sounds crazy!

So I am assuming that most of the Value TYs I bought are fine. But I'm not 100% certain. I did do a spot check after finding the bad disc(s) These were 4x at the time.

I, like you, was curious so I searched the forums here and found several explanations. When these discs first surfaced, the most popular story was that they were grade B discs. A bad batch had been made and that once they were sold the "Value Line" would no longer exist. Obviously that's not the case- as 1 or 2 years later they are still being sold. And at 8x instead of 4x

As somebody that was paying out the ass for blanks not that long ago maybe I'm a lttle spoiled by the rock bottom prices on DVD-R. You still cant buy a blank 2 hour VHS tape for under a dollar. But why take chances? I forget the retailer, but I get mine (premium TYs) at $66 for 200 with free shipping. This is sale price. But this is a sale that runs a lot. Otherwise, I get them at rima.com for a little over $70 shipped.

I would say the extra pennies are well worth the peace of mind. Just my 2 cents

[strongbad]

There is a big difference between Value Lines and Premiums. To notice the difference may also depend on your burner type and firmware. From my experience, Value Lines tend to have defects randomly. The dye color is purple, and there'd be another line of a streaking bright purple running across the disc on random spots. They still burned but would have spiked PIF errors at the respective lines. The ones w/o these defects still burned fine but had waaaaaaaay more PIF errors than the Premiums. From my experience, the Premium grade scanned flawlessly with PIF totals under 300, whereas the Value Lines would average in the thousands of total PIFs.