burn rings and other errors in TYG01/TYG02 media

[lordsmurf]

This is a "pre-empt" post. I love to make these. Why? Solve a problem and answer a question before people notice the problem or ask the question!

Why post this? Because there have been MANY, MANY, MANY posts in the past few months, where everybody wants to solve the problem by "buying TY media". I can already guess in a few weeks or months, a lot of people will come back here, because TY buying did not help them any.

I know most people want to believe Taiyo Yuden is the disc of the gods, but it's not perfect either. I've seen far too many posts online where people assume TY media is an exercise in perfection. Repeat after me:
- It's just darn good stuff. Nothing more.
- It is NOT "the best" media, but rather "one of the best" media.
- It can have problems too.
TY is MERELY ONE of a handful of high quality, highly trusted media. It shares the list with several others in the same quality rankings. Remember this when shopping.

Like other media, it does not cooperate 100% with all burners or all players. I've seen several high-quality players/DVD-ROMs refuse TY media, whereas most other media was just fine. BTC burners will routinely make TY media a coaster, while most other media is fine. Both the Maxell and Fuji branded TY DVD-R's have given me burn rings on every drive I've been able to test in, at some point in time (1-2 per 50-pack, usually ... sometimes more, sometimes less). And, as usual, these are anomalies in the dye, and were bad burns. It's not often, but enough to show it's not 100% perfect (try 95% or so range). Do not buy TY and then carelessly disgard the source files. You are NOT that safe, and you may be sorry later on. I've also see a few of the "past 4GB" errors. Others have experienced this too. The drives were fine, the media was not fake. It was just a couple of genuinely bad discs.

Personally, I do not like TY all that much. It's great, but my personal burners and players react better to several other discs. I have NOT been jumping all over TY sales and buying hundreds of discs. I'm probably not alone. (The only exception was the Fuji 200 for $32 deal, cannot beat that price, but it'll probably be PRODISC Fuji anyway, which is fine by me.)

Just a thought.

[888888]

Great post smurf.

I have never used TY DVDRs myself (rather use MXLRG02s :P ) but I agree with you that the TY praising is getting a little out of hand.

I am currently using TY CD-Rs and honestly, I am having more problems with them than with my other Ritek CD-Rs. Like smurf said, this may just be my burner.

[wookietv]

can definitely relate... i've been unable to use prodisc or ritek's with any reliability, but MBI's (Spin-X from Office Max) have been flawless in the last 3-50 packs, considered 3rd class media from nomorecoasters... who cares if it's 3rd class, it's working great for me!

[DEMEN]

8x Ritek white injet hub printable also gave me a burnt rings and made DVD's audio skipped while playing back.