personal experience w/ 1X Princos

[poopyhead]

in some of my previous posts, i've suggested that cheapo, 1X Princos have given me no problems...i will have to qualify that based on my personal experiences with that particular brand and my particular player, pioneer dv333.

in general, these cheapo, 1X princos have done very well for me. only 1 coaster in nearly 100 burned. all of them plays fine on my pioneer. however, i noticed a slight issue, which has been brought up before. i didn't notice this until now because i've only made sure the main movie plays fine, and not really testing out the extras.

my method: DVDdecryptor (all files in file mode)->DVDshrink (disc backup mode)->nero express

the problem: the outer edge of the cheapo princos has a hard time being read by my pioneer. however, it doesn't seem to be as bad as previously pointed out...at least not with my dvd player. files above 4.3 gig...(i.e. files between 4.3-4.38 gigs, corresponding to about the outer 1/16 - 1/8 inch of the DVD-R) have the problems.

observations (may be specific to my particular player..pioneer dv333).

1) problem only occurs on standalone, not DVD-ROM..absolutely no problem whatsoever

2) if i haven't played anything in my player in awhile, it will have absolutely no problem reading the outer edge for the first couple of times. however, if i continue to read the outer edge files over and over again (testing purposes), the later times will start to get choppy, blockiness, and general skipping....and if i play the outer edge files too many times, the player will freeze and may not even access those files anymore.

3) any files inside of the outer edge completely not affected.

4) seems random, as some DVD-R discs do not have this problem, even w/ files burned on the outer edge.

5) if after having problems reading the outer edge files, i start playing some files (i.e main movie) burned on the inside, i can switch over to playing the files on the outer edge and have no problems..however, the same problem occurs if i keep on playing those outer edge files over and over again (refer to 2)

6) i've actually not had any main movie burned at the edge, but i've had some big files that started on the inside of the 4.3 gig mark and ended up in the outer edge.... when i fast fowarded towards the ends of these files, corresponding to the outer edge, i observed no problems.

keep in mind these are really cheap....only $0.81/disc...and have never affected the main movie...only those extras that happen to be in the outer edge. even then, i would need to play those outer edge files over and over again to see the problem. this is for MY player.

[ROBERT BLACK]

I have to concur with you're findings Poop. You're correct about the freeze ups that occur on the outer edges. This is for burns that exceed 4.3 Gigs, and that are up to the 4.4 Gig limit. They only seem to occur if you play those files repeatedly. This has happened on both my stand alone players, Vsonic 9200mx and Malata N996. So it's not limited to just you're Pioneer model.

I have experieced a failure on a Princo 1x this weekend that was burned on someone's Panasonic DMR-30 standalone recorder. it plays fine in my standalone players. But for some reason it freezes at the begining in both Power DVD XP and WMP. All Princo 1x burned with my Pioneer 105 have not had this problem. It seems some media is best suited only for certain burners.

[poopyhead]

All Princo 1x burned with my Pioneer 105 have not had this problem. It seems some media is best suited only for certain burners.

probably....i've always trusted the pioneer brand....they use quality components that are built-to-last. at least my standalone has taken everything i've thrown at it for over 3 years..including some abuse during tests (i.e. with the current princos i'm using). that's why i stuck with the pioneer a04 burner...there were some cheaper brands...(i.e. panasonic and toshiba....didn't trust those even though they were $20-$40 cheaper). in generally, it seems pioneers are less picky about the media they work with.

however, i would definitely suggest checking out the burner compatibility of any media before buying it.

btw, there was a sale at aldi's (mid and east coast only) for pioneer 5 disc changer for $90....a very good deal w/o any rebates to deal with. basically, a 5 disc version of the dv333 and dv343 line. too bad i'm on the west coast. :P

[MrSnake]

I had 2 different badges of Princo 1x, one manufactured by TDK and the other by Princo.

The problem with the outer edge from the Princo 1x is a known issue.
I just use those for data now, or when the DVD backup is <4GB.

I had some Princo's 4x and those were 10x better than the 1x.

[poopyhead]

The problem with the outer edge from the Princo 1x is a known issue.

yes...i mentioned this..but i added the fact that it wasn't as severe as what was previously mentioned..at least not in my case....it only affected a couple of my DVD-R "backups"

the outer edge corresponded to the outer 1/16 - 1/8 inch, rather than the 1/4 inch that had been pointed out earlier...so only a small amount of files fall into this "outer edge." specifically, those burned above 4.3 gig (4.3 gig - 4.38 gig) or roughly the last 90 MB of the DVD-R.

also, ppl have mentioned that they couldn't even play the outer edge, while i've been able to sucessfully play the outer edge files with absolutely NO problem MOST times. only when i test out the problem by playing the outer edge files over and over again, does the pixelation problem show up. this seems to be the case with ROBERT BLACK as well, so it could be burner, dvd player dependent.