Does anyone still burn DVD media??? If so what blanks do you use????

[slipkid]

I'm starting this thread to get some ideas on what DVD-R or +R media people are using that is still being made and gives them good burn results.

For several years now I've been using DVD-R TYG03 media sold as "Legend with Pro Professional" DVD-R 16X by "Japan Disc Corporation" through a seller on Amazon for only about $28 per 100 pack (sealed in plastic, does not come on a spindle).

I've burned very many DVD-Rs of this media with about 90-95% great quality discs made, testing every disc with NeroDiscSpeed on an old PC that has a drive which can do quality tests, usually getting results around 84-93%, with an occasional bad disc or two per set of 100, although did get one set that had about 30% bad discs (long story).

Now however, I can no longer get this media. The seller on Amazon has none left and told me that they have been discontinued by the manufacturer.

So I just bought a 100 pack of DVD-R TYG03 on Amazon sold as "CMCpro Powered by TY technology" by another Amazon seller, for about $38/100, which I used to use years ago. Can't recall why I switched to the "Legend with Pro" blanks instead but I might have switched because I started having problems with these "CMC Pros'.

Burning several discs with these blanks today have been giving me really really bad results. I actually suspect that the CMC Pro blanks are at least 10+ years old (or more) which could explain why they are not performing well now, since unused media that sits around for years like this without being made can degrade, especially with more variability introduced with greater chance of poor storage conditions since they are so old. Or could be a case of just getting one bad set now but I can't afford to throw away more $$ on another unusable set like this hoping it will be better.

I'm positive that the problem is not my burner. I burned several discs of the Legend TYs that I still have back to back with the "new" CMC Pro ones and the Legends work & test great but the CMC Pro one I just got have tons of errors. For example, testing with Nero Disc Speed getting a Quality rating of 93 on the Legends with 86,020 PI errors and 3994 PI Failures as compared to a Quality score of 38 with 242,609 PI Errors and 10,365 PI Failures.

Thus I'm asking - what have others found to be generally good DVD-R or +R discs that are still being made today?

Years ago I used to use Verbatims +Rs which were great and affordable but when they started being made in a different country I got so many bad burns I had to stop using them (I cannot recall the exact details now since that was around 10-15 years ago, but think the Taiwan ones were good but found the Made in India ones to be awful). I then tried several other brands like "SMARTbuy" but found they were horrible. And then I started using the CMC DVD-R T-Ys b4 switching to the "Legend with Pro Professional" DVD-R T-Ys that I have been using for several years now.

Thanks for any helpful opinions or recommendations for brands you've had good results with.

[Alwyn]

Have a read of this:

https://www.magix.info/us/forum/dvd-media-disks--1344959/

[slipkid]

Have a read of this:

https://www.magix.info/us/forum/dvd-media-disks--1344959/

Interesting thanks. So according to the post on the forum that that post then directs to, Ritek actually makes GOOD media now (or at least their dual layer discs are supposedly good according to that post). For years I've nothing but problems with Riteks and avoided them like the plague (CDs or DVDs). Interestingly I had pretty much same bad experience with CMC Magnetics as well until they bought out Taiyo-Yuden's machines/formulas around 15 years ago or whatever it was.

I'm looking for single layer now though but will keep that in mind for dual layer discs. I don't have much need for dual layer ones but the only ones of those I tried were Verbatims and they were garbage.

[cholla]

Overall I have not had the problems some do with off brand DVD blank discs.
I do have some cheap ones I use for unimportant DVDS.
So far these have held up OK.

For movies I want dependable backups of I use Verbatim with the AZO dye.
I bought several cake boxes 15 to 20 years ago & They are still good.

[tigerman8u]

I got 2 packs of these. $11.76 per 50 pack. They say Verbatim AZO Dye. Hqaven't used any yet but if they are real it's a good buy
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FFQ1WG?th=1

[slipkid]

I got 2 packs of these. $11.76 per 50 pack. They say Verbatim AZO Dye. Hqaven't used any yet but if they are real it's a good buy
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FFQ1WG?th=1

Thanks. At that price it is worth trying those out! I will get some. Fingers crossed.

I used to use the Verbatim AZO DVD+Rs years ago and they were great for a long time but then they moved the production from Taiwan to India or something like that and the quality fell off a cliff. I even remember back then driving around here to some stores that had them on their shelves and buying up every spindle I could find that was still made in Taiwan and skipping the Indian (or whatever they were) ones. Thinking more about it I think they also had some made in UAE (United Arab Emirates?) and they also were good. At this point I'm so desperate to find anything of decent quality media I was considering getting more of the Verbatim DVD+R again hoping they've fixed their manufacturing problems....

I'm gonna try the ones you mentioned first!



EDIT: The price mentioned above ($11.76 for 50) is a sale going on now on Amazon FOR PRIME USERS ONLY. The price for the rest of us (like me) is $17.95 per 50 discs. Not that great (about 36 cents each). The 100 pack is available for $29 which is a bit better (29 cents each). Every penny counts these days. I'm gonna try a 100 pack and hope for the best...

[johnmeyer]

I have a "lifetime" supply of the original Taiyo-Yuden printable discs. I used to burn hundreds per year, but now I'm down to a handful.

However, my reason for posting is to suggest that you also consider the possibility that your burner may be dying. I just had this experience. I bought my main computer in 2008, almost twenty years ago. Windows 7/XP dual boot. Works great. In that time I have gone through three GPUs, a power supply, and at least three DVD burners. Back when the first two DVD burners died, it was not only really easy to get a replacement burner, but you could still get some of the legendary, really good burners. Now, you've got to take what you can get.

My problem two weeks ago was that I needed to burn a dual-layer DVD. I only have about fifty of those, so after two failures I started doing some troubleshooting. What I found was that while the old burner would still burn DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD-RW, it would not reliably burn dual layer discs.

So, do some testing to see if your burner is still OK. The simplest test would be to use another burner. Hopefully you have a burner somewhere that will let you do a quality test on the discs. Compare a disc you burned on your main burner with one from some other computer and see if they both have the same quality all the way through.

[slipkid]

I have a "lifetime" supply of the original Taiyo-Yuden printable discs. I used to burn hundreds per year, but now I'm down to a handful.

However, my reason for posting is to suggest that you also consider the possibility that your burner may be dying. I just had this experience. I bought my main computer in 2008, almost twenty years ago. Windows 7/XP dual boot. Works great. In that time I have gone through three GPUs, a power supply, and at least three DVD burners. Back when the first two DVD burners died, it was not only really easy to get a replacement burner, but you could still get some of the legendary, really good burners. Now, you've got to take what you can get.

My problem two weeks ago was that I needed to burn a dual-layer DVD. I only have about fifty of those, so after two failures I started doing some troubleshooting. What I found was that while the old burner would still burn DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD-RW, it would not reliably burn dual layer discs.

So, do some testing to see if your burner is still OK. The simplest test would be to use another burner. Hopefully you have a burner somewhere that will let you do a quality test on the discs. Compare a disc you burned on your main burner with one from some other computer and see if they both have the same quality all the way through.

Thank, that is an excellent point and one that I tried to address in my first post with this paragraph (copying in from my 1st post below), although I can see how you missed it (most people including myself just skim posts that seem to long rather than read every word!):

I'm positive that the problem is not my burner. I burned several discs of the Legend TYs that I still have back to back with the "new" CMC Pro ones and the Legends work & test great but the CMC Pro one I just got have tons of errors. For example, testing with Nero Disc Speed getting a Quality rating of 93 on the Legends with 86,020 PI errors and 3994 PI Failures as compared to a Quality score of 38 with 242,609 PI Errors and 10,365 PI Failures.

But I do hear ya about burners dying. I've had quite a few die slow ugly deaths over the years, including CDR only burners! I think I'm on my 7th LG GE24NU40 external USB DVD/CD burner now used for that PC (an old XP laptop) which I use almost exclusively for any video editing and DVD authoring. I continue to buy used units of those LG units on ebay that look from the ads like they weren't abused, test them out, and if OK then use them. The one I am using now I bought on ebay last year - looked brand new and still performs great (except with these CMC Pro DVD-Rs I just bought).

For the heck of it though I can try some tests of the CMC Pro media on my even older XP desktop PC using another drive. That PC has my only (internal) CD/DVD drive with a chipset that allows "scans" with Nero DiscSpeed and that is mostly all I use that PC for, BUT in addition to the scanning drive it has an old Pioneer CD/DVD burner (I 4get the model) also which I bought way back when exclusively for writing/burning due to its stellar reputation and reviews in that area (it does not have a chipset that works for scanning though). I could try making some tests discs in the Pioneer with the CMC Media then scan those and see if the Pioneer handles them better than my external LG on my XP laptop. I'm not expecting much if any difference but who knows...


For those that might remember this stuff from the old CDRFREAKS forum (the best forum I have ever read or participated in for learning about good vs bad media, how to test it, how to interpret the tests, etc etc), below are some example screenshots of some of my tests the past couple days. The discs were all burnt during the same couple of days - alternating between my supply of good media (the TYG03 sold as Legend With Pro form the last 50 or so I have left of those) vs. the "new" CMC Pro TYG03 that I just got.

First - here is a scan of a video disc using my dwindling supply of Legend Pros that I just made Monday. Something representative of most every disc I burn of those, a great quality score of a disc that plays fine (after years of dealing with bad or failing discs I now scan every single video disc I burn b4 filing it away in my collection in case of a bad burn for whatever reason, and for any rare problems I burn them again; I collect a lot of Sports games and am an addict for the teams that I follow; probably sounds crazy but is a fun hobby and even trade/share stuff with the few friends who even still have DVD or blu-ray drives instead of streaming things).

This shows a GOOD scan (Legend Pro media) of a DVD video disc:

[Attachment 93981 - Click to enlarge]


Next here are some shockingly bad test results of the CMC Pros I just got. Again I suspect that the seller of these is selling very old media, probably not even stored under proper conditions, thus no matter the state of my equipment the discs are damaged and are absolute crap, don't play right and test representatively of how bad they are.

This is a scan of a CMC Pro video DVD - absolutely horrendous quality:

[Attachment 93982 - Click to enlarge]



I even tried using Nero DiscSpeed on the XP laptop to make what it calls "test" discs at various speeds then scanned those in the desktop PC with Nero DiscSpeed and sheesh, those results are beyond belief, some of the worst results I have ever seen. Tested at different write speeds and all pretty much the same result. Here is one of them.

Again just putrid and shows how unusable this media is (TOTAL waste of $40!!!!! Sigh):

[Attachment 93983 - Click to enlarge]

[Wischmop]

Good media these days hard to find.

Actual Verbatim, made by CMC are looks like this:

The -R seems to be working much better but reminds me of the last batches of MBI-media which had also large PIF-clusters, not comparable to old MBI with same MID.

Fun fact: The -R wasn´t recognized by my 224DB while MBI-made from 2013 with same MID are no problem

Don´t want to show the scans of my TYG03 from CMC or old INFOME R30 because I think I make the ppl cry

BTW, these are also the better results