Anyone else getting "odd" Ritek's from Newegg?

[godbeer]

I've been buying Ritek G04 4x matte finish discs (DRD-47-4X-RDSM) from Newegg.com for a while now and have never had any problems - they all burned at 4x and played fine, not a single coaster. They are the Ridata stamped discs in the red Ridata wrapper.

Recently, I received two more 50 packs and I have some doubts about the quality. I opened the first pack, and the first thing I noticed is that the matte finish on the top isn't smooth, but has some (minor) streaks/lines, swirls, etc. Almost all are like this, and the pattern is almost identical on every one. Also, around 75% of the discs would only burn at 2x - there were just a few that would burn at 4x. They all burned and played fine, and Nero CDspeed and Dvdinfopro showed no errors.

Anyway, yesterday I opened the second pack. When I pulled off the wrapper, I noticed that the edges were pretty rough. At first glance, it looked like there were "heat blister" type bubbles around the edges, but on closer inspection, it looks as if the top coating of the disc ran over and dripped down the side of the disc and dried. They all burn at 4x, but while burning (with Dvddecrypter) the buffer levels go crazy, dropping up and down suddenly every few minutes (before it has always remained steady) - or even dropping down completely, at which point the disc pauses burning for a second and then resumes. I've burned several of them and again, no problems burning or playing back, an no errors found when testing the disc.

So, I was wondering if anyone else had received discs like this from Newegg and if so, if they caused any problems?

Also, should I be worried about the quality and/or longevity of these discs, or are imperfections like this fairly normal and nothing to be worried about?

Thanks,

Roy

[Capmaster]

Not from newegg, but a few weeks ago I ordered 100 of the red-wrapper Ridata from Meritline. They came in 2 cakeboxes of 50. They were the matte sliver. One cakebox was almost all coasters, and the other cakebox seems to be fine.

I think that rough edge you're seeing is glue that squeezed out when they glue the layers together.

Check out Lordsmurf's excellent media site at:

www.nomorecoasters.com

He mentions surface irregularities and has pics of examples. Maybe that site can tell you more about it.

[LanEvo7]

Its probably a bad batch. Ritek makes them from time to time. Just try to exchange it. I noticed newegg now sells branded ritek g04s at a lower price, maybe those are better,

[Capmaster]

Lately I've been thinking that paying a little extra and going with the branded ones is worth it. I've wasted so many the last few months it's sickening.

I just got in 100 Maxell branded I got at Meritline for $1.40 each. No coasters yet (fingers and toes crossed)

[MysticE]

Meritline has the branded RIDATA G04's.... good price too.

http://meritline.com/meritline/ritek-ridata-g04-4x-dvd-r-blank-media-disc-matte-branded.html

[godbeer]

Lately I've been thinking that paying a little extra and going with the branded ones is worth it. I've wasted so many the last few months it's sickening.

I just got in 100 Maxell branded I got at Meritline for $1.40 each. No coasters yet (fingers and toes crossed)

Thanks for the replies. I may take your advice and start shopping around for different media and see what results I get. The reason I've been sticking with Ritek is that they have always given me a perfect burn and have played perfectly in every player I've tried. I've burned more than 200 of them, in a NEC ND-1300a, LG GSA-4082B and a Panasonic E-100 standalone, without a single coaster. Even the recent batches I've gotten with the imperfections, uneven recording speeds and buffer wackiness have all, in the end, completed burning without incident and playback perfectly.

Before I settled on the Ritek's, I tried Imation, TDk (The good ones - G02...- not the recent CMC discs) and the cheapo Compusa discs. The Imation discs (purchased during the Office Max $4.99 sale a few months ago) were generally good, with only a coaster now and then. The TDK's worked flawlessly, but are expensive (and now the quality of the newer ones has become suspect) - I have a couple of the "good" 100 pk TDK spindles left, but I save those for really important stuff like home videos, etc. Surprisingly, the Compusa discs yielded excellent results - out of around 50 I only got one bad burn, which was my fault. Still though - I don't really trust the C-USA discs for long term storage - so I mainly just pick some up when they are on sale for a ridiculously low price (like the recent 25-pk for $7.99), and use them for test discs, discs I'm lending out to friends, or to record non-important stuff like sitcoms, etc.

Next time I order, I'll probably pick up some Maxell's if I can find a decent price, or at least try the Ritek's mentioned above from Meritline to see if they are any different than the ones I'm getting now from Newegg.

My only concern now is how stable the backups or video/dss recordings I've made on the "imperfect" Ritek's are - they play fine now, but if the discs do have some problems that haven't shown up yet, who knows for how long. I wonder if i should go through the discs and make a HD backup of the more important ones, just in case.

Thanks Again,

Roy

[QuaiBoy]

FWIW, I've burned over 800 RiData branded discs from Newegg and (mostly) Rima now on my Pioneer 106. Only one coaster and it was my fault. Some have the rough edges, some don't. Some smell like "burnt lightbulbs" as another forum member put it, some don't. All burn fine, and verify in Nero Drivespeed and DVDInfo without issue.

Best of Luck,
-Evan-

[godbeer]

FWIW, I've burned over 800 RiData branded discs from Newegg and (mostly) Rima now on my Pioneer 106. Only one coaster and it was my fault. Some have the rough edges, some don't. Some smell like "burnt lightbulbs" as another forum member put it, some don't. All burn fine, and verify in Nero Drivespeed and DVDInfo without issue.

Best of Luck,
-Evan-

Thanks, that makes me feel a little more at ease regarding the stability of the discs I've already burned (with the rough edges). Just out of curiosity, have you had any burned discs that have become unreadable over time?

I examined the batch of "rough edged" discs that I mentioned, and CAPMASTER was correct - it is glue that was squeezed out when the layers were pressed together. Looking at them closely you can see where the glue bubbled out and dried around the edges, creating the ripply, heat-blister look I mentioned. I've even come across a few discs in this batch that have some gaps where the layers didn't get glued together at all. I did a test burn on one of those and everything went fine, but afterwards I discovered that I could actually put my fingernail in the gap and pry the layers apart - so I just trashed those, figuring they weren't worth taking a chance on. If I had discovered this earlier, I would have just exchanged the whole batch, but they're almost gone so I'll just salvage the ones I can.

I haven't gotten any of the "burnt lightbulbs" ones yet (what does a burnt lightbulb smell like anyway?) - hopefully I can avoid those, it doesn't sound too pleasant.

Thanks for the post,

Roy

[QuaiBoy]

Hello godbeer,

I haven't been in this game long enough to judge longevity of the discs. All of the discs I have burned successfully continue to play perfectly well. The only discs I've ever had trouble with were a few Optodisc Gold Tops 4x, Prodisc 4x, and TDK 2x. All of the RiData, TYs, and Memorex 4x I've burned have turned out fine (barring user error).
A few of the Ridata I've burned had delamination in the inner spindle part of the disc, but nowhere near the written/dyed areas. I wouldn't burn to a disc with edge delamination... that's a coaster.

Best of Luck,
-Evan-

[GreyDeath]

Looks like I might be running into bad batches from the Ritek mattes too. I picked up a pack of 50 from newegg a while back and those for the most part came out fine. I bought a batch from CDRDVDRMedia and I've been coastering the 4x media even at 2x speed. Out of 2 batches of 50 I've made over 10 coasters.

Maybe I'll switch back to BeAlls. Although the last batch of BeAlls I picked up didn't have a normal clear center, it looks like the media layer goes all the way to the very inner ring of the disc so there's only like 3/16" left clear. Odd.

[Capmaster]

FWIW, I've burned over 800 RiData branded discs from Newegg and (mostly) Rima now on my Pioneer 106. Only one coaster and it was my fault. Some have the rough edges, some don't. Some smell like "burnt lightbulbs" as another forum member put it, some don't. All burn fine, and verify in Nero Drivespeed and DVDInfo without issue.

Best of Luck,
-Evan-

Thanks, that makes me feel a little more at ease regarding the stability of the discs I've already burned (with the rough edges). Just out of curiosity, have you had any burned discs that have become unreadable over time?

I examined the batch of "rough edged" discs that I mentioned, and CAPMASTER was correct - it is glue that was squeezed out when the layers were pressed together. Looking at them closely you can see where the glue bubbled out and dried around the edges, creating the ripply, heat-blister look I mentioned. I've even come across a few discs in this batch that have some gaps where the layers didn't get glued together at all. I did a test burn on one of those and everything went fine, but afterwards I discovered that I could actually put my fingernail in the gap and pry the layers apart - so I just trashed those, figuring they weren't worth taking a chance on. If I had discovered this earlier, I would have just exchanged the whole batch, but they're almost gone so I'll just salvage the ones I can.

I haven't gotten any of the "burnt lightbulbs" ones yet (what does a burnt lightbulb smell like anyway?) - hopefully I can avoid those, it doesn't sound too pleasant.

Thanks for the post,

Roy

I've never gotten any that were delaminated. That would qualify as an automatic coaster. I'd be too worried about air getting in there and oxidizing the reflective layer. That's apparently one of the few ways a DVD can fail over a long time.