shop4tech's Matrix 4x DVD-R report. (New Version)

[Faustus]

This media has a long and dubious history, before you even think of buying or trying them, I highly suggest you read through this thread. I stand by the finding with the 3 that were tried of this new batch of disc, BUT I cannot say anything of the quality control, and I cannot swear that they didn't dig through an entire stack of disc trying to find the good ones I was sent. Of course I cannot say that they did either, but please be aware of the chance if you do decide to order them.


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So a good friend of mine hooks up with some of the samples of the Matrix 4x disc that shop4tech.com seems to be pushing so very hard, after about a week he gets a couple of them to me for testing.

The media itself looked ok, viewing the top "shiny side" I did notice the internal part seem to be slightly darker then the outside which I found odd. Upon insertion my DVR-105 it took a strangely long time to be ready to burn, it seems to not like to ID as a burnable media very quickly. After the burn it would not read back in my Apex DVD player, personally this is the kiss of death, I will test no further, and I did not.

Today I get awakened by a phone call, without request my friend has gotten another small batch in, they claim they are more compatible with the Pioneer drives now, "Ok here we go again" I think. The results were quite acceptable so far. What follows is the Nero dvd speed, and kprobe results from the media.




Its ID time seems to be alot closer to most other medias, it sees its a burnable disc at a decent speed. It burned fine at 4x all the way through in my testing. Also the media seems to play fine all the way through on my Apex AD1500, but I have not tested it on any other players at this time.

Please note that I'm not sure if these new samples that we have are what is currently shipping, if I was going to order and try them I'd call and ask first cause if instead of the new ones they sent the old ones I think you would be quite disapointed. Also these are not Certified 4x disc from the DVD Forum, like most the cheaper 4x disc.

Just an FYI.

[Faustus]

Almost forgot the ID code:
00 6C 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 F7 0E 0B .L...@....R.....
77 88 70 00 03 4C 4F 4E 47 54 45 00 04 4E 20 30 W.P..LONGTE..N 0
30 31 00 00 05 AA A2 22 22 20 01 00 06 0B 0F 12 01....."" ......

[defense]

these disks are the same ones I tested and reported on a month ago or so. The disks suck to put in bluntly. They CAN be burned but If you want a real test...I encourage you to get 25 of them and honestly report back how many you burned successfully. I think you'll be very disappointed.

These disks had issues I've never even seen before with any media. Just to name a few things....freezing issues towards the ends of the disks...but this one is weird....the disks burned successfully...but wouldn't get recognized in any standalone player or DVD ROM.....some disks would just have sense errors all over....just to name a few things.

I wouldn't reccomend these disks to an enemy. As I said on those posts a month ago...they are the absolute worst media i've ever used. Others had similar responses. I did get SOME OF THE DISKS to burn successfully...but I highly reccomend anyone who mistakingly purchased these to return them quickly..or at the least...keep it UNDER 3.75 GBs for all of them.

By the Way...these disks are FORMERLY "SPEEDY." The name "SPEEDY" came out and when I posted the negative results on the forum....the next day Shop4tech changed the name to MATRIX disks..lmao...the media id's are exactly the same...SPEEDY/MATRIX...who knows what they'll come with now. An accurate name would be "SLOWY" OR "CRAPPY" but those are just some suggestions.

[Faustus]

defense: The disc are the same brand you tried about a month ago, if you read my entire message they are the same I also tried recently and was displeased with. However the message I have in my hand seems to suggest that some changes have been made to the media since then. I would tend to agree since the results I got this time was the exact opposite of the previous batch. Will this quality stand up? I dunno. Are these disc the same that are currently in their supply chain? I dunno. But I can say these seem MUCH improved from the previous ones. I was only handed 2 of these disc this time, last time I thought my friend had actually ordered them, but as it later turned out he had a free sample and gave me 3 of them, those were to put it lightly total crap. These however make me interested again, and perhaps willing to give them a try as long as they can promise the that samples I tried and the disc I get are both indeed the same.

If you look back across the forum archives you'll see I have a fairly extensive history of posted media test results, from very early attempts at just finding a cheap disc that works all the way to my current method of testing with DVD speed and Kprobe, I never take any other reviews into consideration other then as hints of problems to look for. That way my findings are not tainted by others work that I cannot verifiy for myself. I'm not saying anyones findings are wrong, I'm just saying its best if I can vouch for what I find myself.

Soon as I get the time I'll be adding the results to http://www.crystalmidnight.com/dvdtest along with all the info about the different batches I was send that is in the message above.

[defense]

@flaystus...I was aware that these Speedy/Matrix disks "formula" was going to be changed because someone from Shoptech told me that via an email after I complained to them about how crappy their media was. They said I should "bare" with them. I told them that even though I didn't pay for the media...It was just dead wrong to attempt to sell it to anyone listed as 4x media when it isn't...especially because there were so many other issues.

Another thing to note is that I received another response saying they would amend their site to reflect which drives actually burned the disks at 4x ..which were basically none other then the Pioneer A05 with the hacked firmware. Gee..that was nice of them to amend their site with truthful information, huh? lol

Anyway, I then received yet, another email saying that shop4tech invested millions with this "LONGTEN" media and that they needed people to bare with them. Man, if that isn't unethical I don't know what is. They are basically sending out Beta disks which are untested and then selling them without actually even knowing what kind of quality/comaptibility the disks actually are?

I don't think i'll be doing business with a shady and deceiptful site like shop4tech. That's like selling bug plagued freeware for a price....that's just wrong. Spend the time to do the internal testing...don't sell the product until you get it right....that's why shop4tech is offering so many samples....they want to hear people's results...that's great...but they shoudln't be SELLING THE MEDIA AT THE SAME TIME...when they haven't got the slightest clue which media burns in which burners and at which speeds and how compatibile it is..etc..etc.

Even if this "NEW FORMULA" is better....given the above facts...I wouldn't go near shop4tech.

[Faustus]

To each their own I guess, personally if the quality of these new disc remains where it is I'll gladly order them.

Also you do not need a hacked firmware to burn them at 4x with the 105, my firmware is hacked but only to allow 2x burning on 1x media, I've not seen one that allows 4x on any disc. In my 105 it IDs at 4x and burns as 4x. Just thought I'd correct that one point.

I'm not suggested that people buy the disc, I'm not even suggesting that people NOT but the disc. I'm providing the information that I myself have found and can vouch for so that people can make up their own minds instead of having an opinion forced down their throat.

Personally I'm considering a small batch of 50 (wish they did 25 packs though) for further testing, but ONLY if the can promise that the disc I get will be the same as the recent test batch.

[Faustus]

Update: the disc also seem to play well all the way through on an Oritron DVD player from Best Buy (unsure of exact model) HOWEVER this disc did have a slight whine to it when being read back in that player. Strange, but it did work.

[defense]

Also you do not need a hacked firmware to burn them at 4x with the 105, my firmware is hacked but only to allow 2x burning on 1x media, I've not seen one that allows 4x on any disc. In my 105 it IDs at 4x and burns as 4x. Just thought I'd correct that one point.

Actually, you must of misunderstood me. I was referring to the older formula Matrix/Speedy disks...not the apparently "NEWER" Matrix disks. If your Pioneer burned the OLD Matrix disks @4x that would really be interesting considering it said dead on shop4tech's site it didn't without the firmware "HACK." Also interesting how their site said the Sony burners would burn the Speedy/Matrix 4x disks @4x as well...but after I sent a couple of emails telling them that was complete B.S they amended their site. As I said..that was NICE OF shop4tech to be truthful and not misleading. You're right...to each their own..if you have no problems doing business with a shady company like that....by all means..purchase away...anybody. But i'm gonna let the facts be known the way they are.


I go with the facts man. I don't fabricate stuff and I "personally" don't make judgments just on my OWN experiences. I also don't make judgments with media i've tested unless i've had an ample amount to test. Just curious..how many of the Matrix "NEWER" disks have you burned? According to you not many.

I'll tell you straight up...I got 100 Matrix disks from shop4tech...and the majority of them are CRAP...plain and simple. lol....I'm not gonna lie or fabricate stories and say otherwise. I wouldn't want somebody else to do that to me, so I damn sure won't do it to you or anyone else. I think burning 100 of the longten media is reasonable to get a nice assessment of them..don't you?

As I said..I suggest you purchase a large quantity since you are so comfortable with the media...you'll probably end up finding out the hard way..but that doesn't seem to bother you so it certainly doesn't bother me. It's obvious with the facts i've stated..this just isn't an opinion on the media..it's confirmed from reps directly from shop4tech..and shop4tech's business practices are completely unethical. I'm not saying shop4tech is the only online company trying to screw people...but they are certainly the most obvious.

And last but not least...do a search on LONGTEN media...you'll see that the majority of the people who purchased it had issues. Three of those people I've personally responded to..so I know you'll find at leat that many posts on LongTen..but I am sure you'll find even more. So as you can see...the media just doesn't have a good rep...even with the people who don't know all the details.

Let us know if you purchase a large quantity of these NEW MATRIX disks.

[Faustus]

How many have I burned? I'm working currently on the 2nd of the 2 that I have. Shop4tech says the batch mine came from was sold out, but says a even newer batch is on the way. I'm splitting a 50 back with my friend to see how well they work out for us, at least thats the plan at the moment.

[defense]

@flaystus..when you get those 25 please update this post. You may even want to amend the post saying "NEWER" FORMULA in the title..so that these aren't confused with other MATRIX media posts. Apparently these are the new formula Matrix disks...and although I won't be purchasing any...it would be good for other posters to know these are better then the former Matrix disks IF, in fact they are.

Just curious..what type of burner does your friend have? I'd be interested in hearing how the newer Matrix disks work with the Sony burners. In the email I received about a month ago...Danny said these disks would burn flawlessly @4x. Of course, that's what he said about the original Matrix/Speedy disks too.

[Faustus]

I never suggest when I test a media that people run out and buy a ton based on my results, they are there so that people can get an idea of how the ones I tested performed, then perhaps if interested order a small number to test for themselves.

As far as how the perform on the Sony burner, I don't know. My friends is a 105 just like mine, we got them within a week of each other when we both upgraded from our 104s. Our setups are virutally the same on most levels, even down the the brand and model of your external Firewire cases we use. So a result from one tends to be almost exactly the same as the result from another. I would be interested to know how they work for Sony burners myself even though I have no intention of buying one myself, it helps to know what to tell people with different burners.

My 2nd disc tested fine, however I did not use my usual movie for the test, see when I do a report on a disc every single one since I started using Kprobe and DVDSpeed is the same movie over and over again, because the movie in question fills very close to every single bit of the disc up. This time I just used something I needed to burn off anyway, it barely hit the "danger zone" at the end of the disc.

When my friend gets around to burning the ones he has left I'll let you know how they also turn out, I'll have to PM him to find out how many they gave him to test with.

[Faustus]

Update: there were 5 test disc in the first batch (the crappy one), the new batch only came with 3, of which I've burned 2. I'll let you know when I can how the 3rd turns out.

[defense]

@flaystus..cool man....it will be interesting to see how your test results turn out. Hopefully they will be great and give other posters, yet, another option for DVD Media.

[Faustus]

BTW yes the batch of Disc I got about 1 month ago burned at 4x without any special hack other then the 2x All hack, which should not effect the 4x disc at all. They were horrible, I could not read them back on my DVD player, but they did burn at 4x. I forgot to mention this is my earlier post.

[Faustus]

Update:

The third disc burned fine, and played fine on a Panasonic DVD-RV32. We are going to split a 50 pack of the new ones soon as shop4tech has them in stock again. I'll keep everyone updated on how consistant the quality is.

[witeuout]

I had the same problem as you did before and I am happy with my matrix media from shop4tech now because they really work good on my pioneer 105 / 106 and so is the play back which play good on my ps2!!

[garryheather]

SVP here in the UK are selling Longten manufactured discs under the White Label "brand".

http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/acatalog/FOR_DVD_R_RW_CLICK_HERE.html

They reckon they are B grade, and only good up to the 4.1Gb mark or thereabouts. SVP are an honest company and advertise the discs as such - they might be a different formulation / batch of course, but it looks like Longten are having a few issues at the moment and under these circumstances, I would only suggest using these for medium sized data projects until such time that I've had cause to try them myself.

[Baldrick]

Please also post your comments here
https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.php?dvdmediasearch=matrix

[defense]

Even with this supposedly "NEW" Matrix media, shop4tech's site lists 12 burners..out of the 12 burners they list ONLY 3 that can burn this 4x Matrix media at 4x. lmao.... And I would sincerely doubt any of even those 3 can burn @4x consistently.

Oh, and then for customer reviews on matrix media they have "5 stars" LMAO..funny shit....there was only ONE REVIEW..and I had a hunch I knew who had that one review.

Here's the link:

http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?go=list_reviews&id=1600

If you don't wanna check the link..here's the quote directly from shop4tech's site.

by Londa on 8-5-03

I LOVE USING THESE DISK. OUT OF 50 DISK ONLY 2 WERE BAD AND IT ONLY TOOK ABOUT 20 MINUTES TO BURN A HOLE MOVE.

Not even one sentence written and it's equally as illiterate as JOMO/SHOP4TECH/WITEUOUT's posts. Oh, i'm sure that's just a coincidence. JOMO wouldn't post such illiteracies on his own site just because he does so here. By the Way JOMO, A.K.A SHOP4TECH, A.K.A WHITEUOUT... you've never sounded better. You love using these "DISK." Not bad for the first few words. Oh....damn..then you had to screw it up by butchering the sentence. And it only took about 20 minutes to burn 'A HOLE MOVE.' Hey JOMO...just a little advice...you might want to bribe someone to teach you how to speak and write English first. Then try to bribe people to post falsified positive feedback for your crappy media.


You can burn 'HOLE' 'MOVE' in 30 minutes. LMAO....these characters have a "HOLE" in their head. Very nice review JOMO...i'm sure thousands will run out and get that Matrix media now.

[vitualis]

@ flaystus: use the PNG image format next time for screen shots. It generally can work much better than JPEG.

Regards.

[Faustus]

Yeah those are a little over compressed compaired to the originals, but I figure the board will not accept the jpeg files using the same settings I use for DVD covers, so I turned up the compression. Should still get the point across though.

[disturbed1]

That KProbe report looks real bad! There is an abundance of errors, completely unsuable.

Your KProbe result looks worse than the result I posted a while back. ( https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=167355&highlight= )

Shop4tech sent me some media 3 or so weeks ago. The dye layer has already separated on all 5 samples. I litteraly pulled the film out between the two plastic layers on one disc.

I thought this media looked very similar to the "OEM" Maxells. They both have IFP on the center hub.

If your searching for cheap 4x media, Princo and Lead Data (DupEz, Accu) are a far better deal.

[Faustus]

I've used media with FAR worse Kprobe results then that well in the past. Take a look at some of these, and note that not one of them failed to play.

http://www.crystalmidnight.com/forum

[disturbed1]

I'm sure some players can play media with far more errors. My Apex 5131 can play 1x princo past the 4gig mark, where as my other 4 players hard lock at that point, and read errors happen with my PC drives at that point. Doesn't mean it's quality media just because a hand full of players can read it.

I know you still have some of those OEM Maxells. Take a look at those, and compare them to the Longten. The hub codes have the same ID, IFP. If I was a gambler, I'd bet all my money these two discs are made by the same people.

Making a test report after burning only 1 or 2 is hardly inclusive. You made the same discovery with the OEM Maxells. After testing one or two pieces, you concluded that the media was great. After the 5th one or so, you sent them back to meritline

The "new" media you just got is the same media defense and I tested a month ago. The OPC and write stradegy is the same.

(Your link goes nowhere)

[Faustus]

Sorry about the link, I'm half asleep at this point. The correct one is: http://www.crystalmidnight.com/dvdtest

As far as players we've now tested these few samples on 3 different DVD players, all 3 played them, but like was noted the Oritron had a strange whine when doing so.

As far as the fake Maxells go, I had bad luck, but I never burned a test disc until the media came in, it was a gamble I knowingly took based on the fact that meritline promised to replace them if they were awful, which they did gladly. Of the ones I tested all but one or two were really crummy. On the same note my friend also ordered 100 of them just days after I did and he is currently on his last 10 or 15 of them with not a single problem at all.

I think that perhaps these disc are better then the previous ones, the only reason I'm not considering NOT ordering the disc is the fact that shop4tech was so quick to show back up with their same old useless tricks again. Just as perhaps they are onto something good, just as someone is willing to say that the disc work they come in and make themselves look silly trying to create a hype that isn't needed if the disc really are better now. Sad really. I'm gonna decide later when I have some sleep rather I'm getting these, or just ordering some 1x optodisc instead.

[defense]

@Disturbed...haven't seen a post of yours in a while...glad to see everything is cool. If you are pissed at how crappy these Matrix disks are...i've got somethin' to tell you that is gonna make you really pissed.

Check your pm.

[CT2]

It's unfortunate, but it is true. These discs simply don't work. This is my first post and I am new (Been making DVDs since April) but I ordered a 100pk of these discs because the price seemed nice for 4X discs. I tried out 15-20 and only THREE of them worked. I have the Sony burner and I have never had a problem like this with any other disc... EVER. I promptly asked for my RMA number so I could get my refund. They told me that they have a version 2 and version 3. Supposedly, they are going to send a sample to me of the latest version to check out. I wish I had known about this forun before I purchased them.... I never would have bought them after this review. But it is true. These discs do not work.

Can someone please give me the names of some inexpensive brands that WILL work? I have been going to Target and Best Buy spending $2 per DVD, but at least they work. There hve to be more inexpensive brands out there that work.

Thank you.

[defense]

@CT2, I feel your pain. First, let me say Welcome to this forum....when I initially saw "1" post and a fairly lengthly one..I have to admit I assumed Jomo was back for the 5th time. Anyway, 3 out of 20 is a fair ratio UNFORTUNATELY.

I wouldn't hold your breath for these so called "versions" of media shop4tech is claiming to send you or anyone else. As a matter of fact, that just sounds about as ridiculous as it gets. Their referring to these disks they are CHARGING PEOPLE FOR as if they were BETA SOFTWARE. ....So Version 3 is supposed to be better then version 2, huh?

You want some solid advice on media...i'll give it to you. First, get that RMA in affect and get some type of credit. Use it on either Ritek or Ricoh disks from shop4tech and never do business with them again. That will help you immensely.

Now, as far as inexpensive media goes. You can do a search on the left of the forum..there is a tab that says "DVD MEDIA" ...you will see all sorts of reviews for it. But if you want inexpensive media "from a retailer" which is solid you really have some choices. The best two would be either TDK DVD-R or TDK DVD+R disks. You can also get the Memorex DVD+R 4X DISKS. Be careful for the Memorex DVD-R disks..they are CMC manufactured and terrible.

Speaking of the Memorex DVD+R 4X DISKS...COMPUSA is having a sale until the 9th on these disks. You can get them for 40% off either ONLINE OR in store. The price comes out to about $1.40 a piece and they are manufactured by Ricoh and made extremely stable. I would seriously doubt you'd have a single coaster due to the disks.

Hope this helped..and you still have a couple of days left to get that price.

You have a dual format Sony burner so you can benefit from -R and +R sales....and I suggest you take advantage of this one if you need media.

Let us know how it works out.