Reliable 80min CD-RW; double-density 1.3GB CD-R(W)

[huykin]

Are there reliable 80min CD-RW disks in the US? There are a lot of cheap & reliable 74min CD-RW, and 74min & 80min CD-R, but good 80min CD-RW seem to be much harder to come by. (And that's annoying because I produced way too many 80min CD-R coasters.) My good old HP9100 drive is only 4x CD-RW, so 4x is good enough. Memorex disks are everywhere and quite inexpensive. I thought to buy them, but then saw shitty reviews at several places. So instead I bought Jensen which had no reviews - and turned out to be not less shitty. None of my CD-R software can burn or erase them. (Error messages vary, but basically say that CD is not writable.) So I am sending these back. My next try is probably TDK, but I wonder what people had luck with.

Also I noticed an interesting thing while looking through the media section of Amazon: Sony double-density 1.3GB CD-R & CD-RW! What the hell are these? Can I burn these with a regular CD-RW drive (as data, CD-DA, (S)VCD)? Can I read them with a regular CD/CD-RW/DVD drive and/or standalone DVD player?

Thanks.

[snowmoon]

Also I noticed an interesting thing while looking through the media section of Amazon: Sony double-density 1.3GB CD-R & CD-RW! What the hell are these? Can I burn these with a regular CD-RW drive (as data, CD-DA, (S)VCD)? Can I read them with a regular CD/CD-RW/DVD drive and/or standalone DVD player?

They are a propritary format similar to CD-ROM

You need special drives to read & write these discs

No they will probably not work in your DVD player.

For more info use the search feature.

[sterno]

I have an older spool of 80-minute TDK CD-RWs. They work, but they seem to be hit-and-miss when I try to write all the way out to the full capacity. I've sometimes burned VCD/SVCD almost all the way out to 80 minutes and had it work fine, other times I've written 780MB data and had problems - even though data mode has more error correction built in to it.

[huykin]

other times I've written 780MB data and had problems - even though data mode has more error correction built in to it.

Did you mean 680MB data? (With a 80min CD you are supposed to write only up to 700MB in the data mode, and can have up to 800MB only in the VCD/SVCD mode.) Thanks.

[sterno]

Oops, yeah, 680MB data. Blank and reburn from the same .iso image, and get the same problem with the same files. Remove some files and reburn, and it works fine.

[snowmoon]

I know some people down them, but I have used imation 80 minute disks for 2 years now. I have consistantly written between 78 and 83 minutes to these disks without one coaster ( at least one that's the media'a fault ). My average disc was ~80:30 on media that's only rated for 79:53.

[medievil]

IU use to live by Imatation CDR...Never had one fail. I've since switched to durabrand (Walmart 100 pack around $30) these too have been flawless. I hav never seen an 80 min CDRW though.

[huykin]

Imation is what I use for 80min CD-R myself, and the coasters that I mentioned were most likely caused by software (mainly Easy CD Creator & CDRDAO) and/or my lack of skill. The material wouldn't fit on a 74min CD-RW, and the test/simulation option doesn't always help - you get no errors with simulation, but then a coaster with the real burn. So the only good way to test is to burn an 80min CD-RW. And I don't think Imation produces such. (And even if it were, that wouldn't guarantee the quality - there are examples where CD-R are good, but CD-RW by the same brand are crap.)

So is TDK as good as it gets for 80min CD-RW in the US?

snowmoon: Which software/settings did you use to fit 83 min on an 80min CD-R without an error that the file is too big? (Overburn? Unfortunately, my burner does not seem to support overburn.) I've been struggling to do this for an 83 min VCD (Shrek with cut credits), and that's one of those cases where I got a lot of 80min CD-R coasters. The subjectively best solution that I found was to leave video in VCD standard, and reduce audio bitrate until the file size is within the regular 80min (which was 160k instead of the standard 224k). I don't know how much this reduced the compatibility of the VCD (does VCD 2.0 allow for anything other than 224k audio?), and the audio quality may have suffered. So it would be great to fit the standard VCD file, or at least the one with 192k audio (which is just a few sectors above the regular 80min, but my software would still give an error that the file is too big).

Thanks.

[sterno]

I think all the 80-minute CD-RWs I've seen are Memorex, TDK, and generic (ie CompUSA branded). But I wouldn't be surprised if the same manufacturer actually made all of them....

[Fran-K]

huykin:

I have a HP-9100i for about 2 years. I think it's in her last breaths, because it's starting reject to erase some brands of CD-RW. The last brand that works consistently on my drive is "LC" (4x / 79:57.74). It looks like a chinese brand.

About VCD compatibility: It seens that DVD players are more tolerants to low bitrates in audio than video. My Pioneer DV-440 plays fine audio bitrates as low as 112, as long the video bitrate don't go bellow 600.

Test in the target DVD player.

[harrymj3]

I believe that some of the older drives just won't accept an 80 min cdrw. I have several computers and some of the old 4x drives work fine w/74 min cdrw but won't piss a drop w/the 80 min cdrw. good luck and remember, you're having fun.
harrymj3

[Bocic]

About the 1.3GB dics: One of those eastern company has promised to put a new burner-SW on the market soon. It will work with DVD burners HW, but using any normal 70-80 min. CD's (!) and burn up to 1.3 GB - just like double capacity in the late 80's with the good old floppy discs!

[vitualis]

Any double-density "CD" technology is dead end. Firstly, they are not "CDs". As such, nothing will read them except the drive that wrote it. With increasingly cheap recordable DVD media, there is no point for these CD-and-a-bit formats.

Regards.

[Sefy]

I have 3 brands of High Speed CDRW 80min: SilverLine, DataStream and
GPT, I doubt you'll find any of those in the US though.

[Gazorgan]

So it's not me? I can only seem to find 4x 80 Min CDRW's? What's the point in having a 52x24x52 if I can only find 4 x CDRW's? Oh well, it's a good drive, and has an 'annoying' tendency to burn 24x CDR's at 52x with no errors.......