TDK and General Question About CMC

[Jayhawk]

Having been to www.nomorecoasters.com a few times I was aware of CMC's listing as "pathetic garbage, landfill". Typically I buy Maxell but took a chance on a couple of 50 packs TDK 4X +R (bought at different locations). The deal was too good to pass up so I took the chance. Sure enough, the media code was CMC MAG-F01-00.

So far I've burned through the 1st 50 and am well into the 2nd 50. Not a single coaster. I've used both my Plextor 708A and my Sony DRU-500A. My question is:

Has TDK / HP / Verbatim gotten CMC to resolve their quality problems or am I just lucky that 75 of 75 have burned perfectly?

I already have my favorite brand (Maxell) so I'm NOT looking for recommendations (we've done that enough in this forum). I'm looking for recent experiences with CMC MAG discs.

[888888]

CMC+Rs are not THAT bad. I think their bad -R quality reputation is to blame. I have read a lot of good things about these discs and have had good experiences with them myself.

Still, I prefer Maxell and Prodisc and don't expect to be buying CMC in the future.

[lordsmurf]

My recent experiences remain unchanged.
While I've used plenty of good CMC DVD-R and DVD+R media in the past, the overall experience is still quite miserable.

You may just have a burner that is more attuned to CMC.
There are a few drives that seem to do better with them.

[garryheather]

So far I've burned through the 1st 50 and am well into the 2nd 50. Not a single coaster. I've used both my Plextor 708A and my Sony DRU-500A.

That's all well and good, but what are you playing / reading them back on ? I have a troublesome standalone that generally has problems with CMC media as it's not as widely compatible. A coaster as far as I'm concerned is a disc that can't be read by my target device, whether that be my DVD-ROM drive or my nuisance Sony DVD player which is still an excellent player and not going to be replaced any time soon just so as to be able to read inconsistent media. I have found a great many discs that record perfectly and can be read back by the recorder but can't be read on anything else - and a high percentage of those discs have been from CMC.

On the occasions I have used them at the request of other people, I have to say the quality of the -R's has improved over the years - but my experience of them means I do not use them out of choice. They are just too unpredictable and I can't verify every single burn I make "just in case".

Incidentally, a brand new CD writer I've just bought still refuses to write any faster than 12x on their CD-R's... and in CD terms these days that's an eternity. I guess the hardware manufacturer's aren't convinced either.

[Jayhawk]

Lordsmurf, I do value your opinion so I'll run another question by you if you don't mind.

Is it possible that a TDK CMC is not a Kypermedia CMC. I ask this because of my experience with other industry OEM manufacturers. Sears for instance sells Whirlpool but if you read the specs, they use different parts in several areas. I know Sprint delivers detailed specs to Sanyo regarding cell phones and charges them back penalties for "test performance misses". Is it possible that CMC discs delivered to a TDK might have better dyes, more quality controls, more reject testing etc. than those delivered to a Kypermedia. I'm sure TDK might pay more for those benefits which might explain the higher price, or might receive special treatment due to higher volume orders, fear of losing a major account, etc.

Any thoughts / experience on this.

[lordsmurf]

You sort of have to extrapolate your own conclusions on this, based on how business is run, and then with a tad of common sense.

CMC has long been known as "Coaster Media Company". But, it's also been in charge of producing the oft-flawless TDK media for quite some time. We're talking media codes here, not brandings. Now they've taken the MCC line overage for the RG20 media. These are almost as perfect as the Singapore media. Why?

The answer lies in the locations and materials.

There is a great chance the KHypermedia machines and TDK (CMC code) machines are difference, maybe even in different places. It's honestly hard to keep up with. If some of us just paid attentino to 1-2 companies, sure no problems. But try to watch them all. Gets a bit sticky, especially when this is just a hobby (though a serious one).

Your conclusion is sound. I wouldn't go half-cocked saying it's "the word of God" or anything, but it's a likely scenario. To this day, I bet the TDK and MCC is still made on the same machines it has always been done on. Just instead of being in some other location, it's now in a CMC plant, operated by CMC employees.

Otherwise, CMC would be great too. Or, inversely, all MCC and TDK would equally be pretty shitty. But neither of these has happened so far.

The vendor business can be a real pain.

Because TDK and MCC are pretty lucrative contracts, I'd say ABSOLUTELY do they give it extra attention. Again, just business sense.

I'm not as much concerned as who, why and how ... merely a person that wants to know what works, and for what % of the time it's a good burn. So far, CMC ID media has not made the cut, not for me, and not for so many others out there (some of whom are fellow testers who have input on my site).

[-jsl-]

CMC media (especially the +Rs and when sold as brand media) are not bad at all nowadays if you have a decent burner. CMC 8x +R is for example one of the few discs the Pioneer A08 allows to be burned at 16x speed. Pioneer would naturally not do this if the media would be "landfill material" as some people here claim...

[Jayhawk]

My thanks to all for your comments. As always lordsmurf, very insightful.

garryheather, my three basic everyday DVD players are low-end Pioneers from Walmart (DV-250, DV-300 series). Cheap but play absolutely everything I throw at them (+/-, RW, R. I switched to Pioneers a couple of years ago based mostly on the Forum's comments. I also have tried the CMC's on a Toshiba and Cyberhome 7" portable, my daughter's Yamaha and the neighbors RCA and GE. I have NOT done any extensive testing as I typically would be burning Maxell. I agree with you completely that unless it plays where you want it to play, it's a coaster. I don't watch DVD's on my computer so the end-machine for playback is always a standalone.

888888, I agree. My experience with the CMC's has been all good but I may be just "lucky". I do know my Sony is a little flakey with some brands (Memorex +RW) but for some reason my Plextor burns everything. I plan on replacing the Sony in a month or so with the 12X Plextor.

Again, thanks everybody. All intelligent comments.

[garryheather]

It's funny how the budget - and in particular - no-name DVD players seem to play everything these days. In addition to my Sony in the living room, I have a cheapo Ronin 215 in my bedroom that cost about £45 and a Shinco portable DVD player with an LCD screen that goes everywhere pretty much everywhere with me.

Put the price of those together and you're still only talking about half the cost of a new Sony player of similar specification to the one I've got now, and those buggers play anything. In the case of the Ronin, you can bung raw MPEG-2 files on it and the damn thing will play them. Then I've got a DVD-ROM drive on my work's laptop, and that piece of junk has trouble with pressed discs sometimes.

Fair comment though, my Sony is a good few years old now. But it's only fairly recently that they have started making them more tolerable to recordable media. Companies you would probably not consider as making good products have come a long way in terms of readability, which is why I suspect so many people say "I use mega cheap JapCrap media all the time and have had no coasters", unaware that as soon as they buy a new player they may find them all to be unusable... be afraid. Be very afraid !

Mind you, on the occasions I ever want to test new media, my Sony gets fed them first. If they will play on that, they will probably play on anything - budget or otherwise. The day has come when brand name can mean nothing, unles you have a bad rep like CMC. They're improving - but have a very real image problem. Love them or loathe them, they're still variable to say the least !

[Jayhawk]

Fair comment though, my Sony is a good few years old now. But it's only fairly recently that they have started making them more tolerable to recordable media.

Those are fair comments garryheather. My neighbor had a 6 year old Toshiba that wouldn't play +R / RW. He replaced it with a $69 Toshiba a few months ago and has no problems. The major brands at least seem to have covered all the bases (-, +, R, RW). Not limited to DVD either. I do service calls on PC's in my spare time and have run across a few CD ROM drives (mid-90's types) that would not read by burned "repair discs". Started carrying my own reader with me.

Especially true as you noted, players are cheap and can be replaced. Bad media or a bad burns cannot. I have no problems buying an off-brand $50 standalone player but would never buy an off-brand burner or media.

[TerminalVeloCD]

I have been very happy with CMCMAGE01 8x DVD+Rs, they perform extremely well, even on the outer edges.

Regards,
TerminalVeloCD

[kaphine]

I cant comment on the current CMC but CMC disc Ive used in past had problem (mainly Memorex 4X DvD+R and Phililps 2X). Most of the dvd+r would play fine and would have 0 errors with the scan (using dvdinfo pro).
However the longtime wise, that's a differnt story. So far I have about roughly 8 CMC dvd+r out of roughly 100 (Office depot, buy 1 get one free offers) All of these disc will stat to skips towards the end of the movie. All of these were fine and error free when Ive burned it in the beginning. But after about 6-7 months, it would start to skip towards the end. Since then I've stop buying memorex dvd+r all together. Your milage will vary, CMC, especially dvd+r, I don't buy anymore.

As lot of people mentioned before, when it comes to cheap media, even if it's error free and plays fine in the dvd player doesn't mean it will play fine after long period of time (CMC anyway). Im currently using Ritek G04, RichoJPN and Taiyo Yuden discs only.

Good luck

[PJGS]

It's funny how the budget - and in particular - no-name DVD players seem to play everything these days. In addition to my Sony in the living room, I have a cheapo Ronin 215 in my bedroom that cost about £45 and a Shinco portable DVD player with an LCD screen that goes everywhere pretty much everywhere with me.

I have a cheap DVD player that plays almost everything I throw to it (princo continues to be a challenge though), but my philips DVD player is really picky!.

My experience with CMC has been awful. I bought 2 -R spindles and got too many coasters.

MCC has been working for me flawlessly.