Why do people use inferior media?

[instigator_008]

[quote="Rookie64"]

Save the printing for your cases - I often wonder who it is some of you are trying to impress anyway


What counts is what's on the disc - not how pretty you can make it look.

I'll just sit back on enjoy the replies to this one

[cim]

I buy the cheapest I can find... simply, because they work just the same for me. My Pioneer burner and standalones are not very picky when it comes to media, so, neither am I. I've burned about 200 "house-brand" DVD-R's with only one coaster.

[macleod]

I have been buying the cheapest media around. Aside from a princo incident (the white label stuff was always fine), they all work as well as the day I made them. I would say about a years worth on cheap media and they work great in all of the dvd players I have played them in.

One thing I noticed about my burner and a co-workers burner is that mine shows a "Deep" burn whereas his almost looks like nothing was burned on the dvd.

[instigator_008]

I have been buying the cheapest media around. Aside from a princo incident (the white label stuff was always fine), they all work as well as the day I made them. I would say about a years worth on cheap media and they work great in all of the dvd players I have played them in.

Do a read test with DVDInfo Pro on these and let us know what you find.

[crashnburn]

Simple, what superior to you might be garbage to other and vice versa. Just because a number of people voted Riteck to be good and all that doesn't mean shit to the rest of the community. There is a difference between smart shoppers and dummies. Smart shopper goes out to find good bargain for quality that they think is right for them at a good price. Dummies are one that believe what other people say is good when in fact it could be the same shit as no brand or lesser known brand. Example, you got a person buys a pair of jean at Banana Republic for $60. Then you got another dummy who think the high price designer jean are nicer looking when in fact it looks gay on them. High price jean for example could be from Versace which might goes for over $400. Now you got 60 vs 400. The guy that wears the $400 jean might think it make him look good and think he's all that because he was able to buy it. Who knows, that guy might live on Top Ramon noodle and sleep in a car to save up for that pair of jean. Either way, both jean will not last forever or yet might run out of style so why pay for something that is not worth buying? Then you might have another guy who shops at Walmart and think he got a good bargain for $20 jean. The bottom line is buy what you think is right and worth buying. Don't buy shit just because of what people say is good or bad.

I tried the cheapest media to the expensive ones and for my experience the cheapest media doesn't work on some of the stand alone player. Same goes for the expensive media. To me it's crap as well. Luckily I was able to find a media is is semi-cheap and works on all the players I put in.

[hech54]

I wonder how many people have been put off of DVD Burning in their new Christmas Present because they went to some retail place and bought the cheapest DVDR's they had....just because that philosophy has worked for years for them with CDR's?
NOW their store bought backup software is choking on bad media...leaving the newbie asking "What's all the fuss about....the original DVD is MUCH better looking and only $19.95".

[PJGS]

I have high quality CD-R's burned 3 years ago and still play flawlessly so why risk with DVD media?
I pay a bit more but I get what I paid for.
Cheap madia is ok but only for daily use. For long term storage they are too risky for my liking.

"Have you ever thought that people buy cheaper dvd media because that's all they can afford? Or that they are economical because they have families to support and buying the best dvd media which is costly would put a cramp in there budget? "

Paying a few € for good media once in a while can put a cramp in their budget. How come they can afford to pay 150-200€ for a burner without ruining their budget?. How can they pay 20~25€ for a DVD movie and can't afford 1€ to back it up?


Your reasonong are ok if we talk about those persons that burn losts of DVD´s every weak for many reasons other than back up purposes.
But in that case they only buy cheap media

[crashnburn]

"How can they pay 20~25€ for a DVD movie and can't afford 1€ to back it up? "

In America we don't need to buy movies. There is something called Netflix.

[SatStorm]

Yeah, we Europeans are third world citizents. We still buy DVDs....

[thxkid]

1. can now buy brand names on sale just as cheap, $1 ea for TDK, Verbatuims, memorix, etc....
2. covers, I got glossy labels on all 500 DVD+R's, not a failure yet on 10 different players and recorders, impressing, hey only matters to me, no one else, if I give one out it has the label covers burn on the DVD, so if that person wants to put them they can use their own printer and labels, plus what plays in my good quaility players and recorders may not play in someones cheap ass $30 apex, orion or those other last-6 months-only players for under $50.

[andkiich]

In capitalist economies, an item normally comes into the market because there is a need or niche to fill. If the "cheap" media niche was "dumb" or not needed, then companies that make them would go belly up.

[SLICK RICK]

I buy inferior media because I like wasting my money on shit.

Just joking, I have been using Ritek G04's and have been pretty happy with the results.

SLICK RICK

[arrived03]

I have to agree with THXkid , why buy cheap chinese players that are only going to last 12 months at most and have inferior picture quality.
It amazes me that a lot of people are trying to find the best tools to burn there movies for high quality and then play them on a supermarket DVD player, You just lost around 30% picture quality.

[SaSi]

Sure, no problem
600 x 2 hours = 1200 hours = 50 days.
I'll get back to you in a couple of months.

Actually I use a statistcal approach. Pick a random one and watch it
every couple of days. Surely if there's a systematic problem , I'll find
out eventually.

And when you do, what's next?

Slightly off topic, a friend just finished his phd work and backed-up all his work on a no-name CDR. Cost him next to nothing. When I asked him if he would bother if the CDR became unreadable, he gently asked me to make him to copies on TDK media. And he immediately realized how stupid he was to save a buck (actually a Euro) against two years' effort.

I think how much you save depends on how much you value the information you record on the disk.

Backup purposes requires high quality and durable media. If you do repeated backups (once a week) you really don't bother if the disk fails after a year. Or do you?

Archival use requires even higher quality media AND, high quality storage media. I remeber a poor co-forumer who discovered his disks failed becaused he put them in a certain brand of cases.

And if you record 100 copies to distribute, you certainly buy the cheapest media your burner can reliably burn at a reasonable speed.

[FOO]

Well I sure as hell don't pay $60 for jeans either
I'll go nekkid first.

[FOO]

The vast majority of mine are TV captures of ancient movies
which aren't that good to begin with. It won't kill me ( but it will
piss me off) to lose them. I don't actually watch movies anyway . I just
play with them.

[Kingnog]

I'v been using a cheap media that is very good,i'm talking 8x rip speed on these 4x's

lol....a 4x disk means 4x writing speed, not ripping/reading speed...

[intelliQ]

i buy cheap media because..................drum roll......................



I'm a cheapskate.

Go with either Primes or the Ritek G03 combo 1x
100 Media, 100 cases, and 100 labels anywhere from $110 to $120.
Works for me with a NEC ND 1300A and just about any software.

If you have a lexmark, walmart has a knock-off brand of ink cartridges called NuKote for half the price.

[Kingnog]

If you have a lexmark, walmart has a knock-off brand of ink cartridges called NuKote for half the price.

Know anything like that for HP? officemax has one, but the cartridges are different...i dont feel like wasting money trying to see if it fits

[gmatov]

Did anyone ever stop to consider that every individual disk was a new crapshoot?

That a spindle of Ritek GO4s had a statistical number of bad disks? That QC checked every thousandth disk and said, "All good, so far."

We have people saying that they have spindles that are perfect down to the last 10 or 15 disks, then they turn to crap. They ask if they are hiding the bad ones at the bottom of the spindle, not taking this site's users into consideration, as, I would bet, this site's users burn a ton more CDs-DVDs than most anyone elses. They don't sit there for a year, to where you might say, "Well, they're getting stale, have to go get a fresh 10 pack."

A lot of the replies here sound like the writer is still spending Daddy's money, "Well, 189 bucks for a hundred pack isn't all that much."

[Will Hay]

I have to agree with THXkid , why buy cheap chinese players that are only going to last 12 months at most and have inferior picture quality.
It amazes me that a lot of people are trying to find the best tools to burn there movies for high quality and then play them on a supermarket DVD player, You just lost around 30% picture quality.

I doubt 30% picture quality is gone in an instant, without any substantiation or foundation it simply sounds like you just made that statement up to be dramatic.
I wonder how many you tested to form this opinion
But turning to the reason for my post...
...I don't see anything wrong with buying a twelve month lasting DVD player for £30.00 but then again I'm not particulaly anal when it comes to DVD picture quality.
For me, the benefit is their longevity and far superior quality when compared to VHS.
I have always found it comical how people can argue to death the 'which software is best', or the ones that 'can clearly see the pixels on my 51" HDTV".
You find a level you're happy at, and you stick with it.
Without this site I would never been able to produce the stunning home movies of my son three or four times a year (year three almost), nor would I be able to preserve the original toy story set now that my son (aged 23 months) can open the DVD drawer, take out the disk and replace it with the one of his choice...
....this is why I remove the menus and extras and have them autoplay, he can't operate the remote control yet (I'm giving him six months for that)
Personally I don't wish to spend £500 on the latest DVD player which may or may not be twenty times better than my supermarket brand and will certainly be obselete in two years time.
I don't have the funds to spend £500.00 every two years on a mchine my son likes to play with.
If the cheap shit I buy from the supermarket breaks down after the first twelve months (guarantee period) I'll buy another, simple.
If I get any more than a year out of it then it's served it's purpose, it's been a bargain.
Saying that my TV is only 25", maybe I'm not with it anymore
I do invest in Ritek GO4's though
Will Hay

[arrived03]

In reply to Will Hays post.

I have been into home theatre and hi-fi since 1994 and in that time I have owned 14 recievers,8 integrated amps,two pre and power amps 4 hi-fi videos,5 sets of speakers,3 subs and 7 dvd players(4 I currently have) .
My current DVD players are GP(cheap crap),Pioneer 655a,Sony dvps735d and Denon DVD-A11(Absolutely stunning picture and sound).
I also subscribe to just about every home theatre and hi-fi magazine there is(on average 4 a week)and in most reviews they will claim around 30% picture quality difference between the crap players and the true hi end players,But from my experience the true value is more than 30%,It is having pure cinema quality in your lounge room as close to how the director intended.The Lord of the Rings is a good example,I hooked up the GP dvd player to my 46" Toshiba and the colours are all out of wack and there are a lot of scenes with flickering and blurring.With my Denon dvd player I have a truly cinematic experience with sound to match any cinema I have ever attended, But obviously going by your post you have never experienced any of that or you would understand where I am coming from.
best of luck to you in you in your dvd world

[jaxxboss]

LOL, you can ask the same question about why people buy a hyandai.
NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

[arrived03]

I have to agree with you there jaxxbox,when I first met my girlfriend she had just bought an hyundai and she thought it was brilliant until things started to go wrong and when she did sell it she only got a fraction of the price she paid for it,I suppose most of us learn the hard way.

[SatStorm]

You use NTSC, right?
Colours are a well known issue with cheap DVD players and NTSC... It is not 100% a player fault: The mpeg decoders are fair enough. The problem rises on the digital to analogue convertion, before the component or s-video jacks. There, the cheap DVD standalones are far inferior the hi-tech ones.
With us, the PAL users, the difference is less: This 30% is fair, I would say it is less, about 25%. It is the nature of PAL which saves the day.

Another issue between the cheap and hi-tech/hi-end DVD standalones, is how they handle framesizes other than the typical 720 x 576/480. Expecially with 352 x 576 and 352 x 288 on DVD-Rs, the differencens are huge. Something which shows on a high end DVD player really well on 352 x 288 (mpeg 2, interlace - it is possible with PAL but impossible with NTSC's 352 x 240) looks like a bad crappy VCD on a cheap one.
There are few exceptions of course: The cheap standalones from Cyberhome and Comet for example, are far better mediocre products from Sony, Philips, Pioneer and other major DVD standalone manufactures.

[Craig Tucker]

I have a £350 Pioneer 636 and a £37.49 Akura DVD player. I can't tell the difference between the 2 pictures on my 36" widescrren Phillips TV, but then I am just happy to watch the movie and not sit there close up analysing the picture.

[arrived03]

No I use pal with all the original movies,I only do the back ups for my sons play room,As you pointed out the backups are not as good as the originals but on my sons 68cm sony you don't notice it like you do on the 46" toshiba.

[DTSL06]

I also can buy good quality media now for almost the same price as the bulk cake pac generics (Princo, Optodiscs or even no name 001's) when they come on sale at Best Buy or Futureshop in Canada. I been using Memorex DVD+R RICOHJPNR01 now for the last 4 months and they have been very reliable, and while using the cake pacs DVD-/+R have been a hit and miss affair. For maybe 10-20 cents more for each Memorex over the the generics, my time is worth more to me then that. Maybe I am picky but I watch every DVD that I make and if there is any digital artifact of any sort, it is discarded as a bad burn...I mean any artifact regardless how minor. I have 3 burners that I use, Pioneer A05 (burns most -R media without prob), LG 4040 (burns most -/+ R, better at -R then the Plex) and Plextor 708A (burns like crap with generic -R that works well in the A05, and burns 100% with any RICOHJPNR01 media and fast at 6-8x). After having had 2 major bad experiences with bulk blanks (printable Princo's and Optodiscs, both -R) where I got 7 good burns outa two 50 blank pac's, most failed near the edge of the disks. I will just buy the RICOHJPNR01 coded media since they work well in both the Plex and LG burners and are easily available and relatively cheap when on sale, not using -R much these days since I got the LG and Plex. Even with the A05's good support of all -R media, even when working at its best I still ended up with ~5 coasters outa 50 burns, that is still 10% failure, but that was using branded Optodiscs 1x at 2x cake pac's. Like previous posters stated, I took it for granted that since bulk CD blanks work well, I made the mistake of thinking thet the bulk DVDs would too. But if the media works for U then stick with it regardless of the cost. For me its the RICOHJPNR01 media that worked the best in both my LG and Plex. The A05 still has a use tho, its good at making backup PS2 games using generic -R media for my nephew. He's a little ruff with discs.

[handyguy]

the media I buy is cheap compared to what it used to cost, but it works fine with my writer, a Sony. Not all media can be used with all writers.

A better question is why do people use inferior incompatible media?

[DTSL06]

LOL, you can ask the same question about why people buy a hyandai.
NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

Dont knock Hyundai untill u driven them. They come a long way since the Pony/Excel years I am on my second Tiburon and they have been great cars for me.