chinese dvd-r

[superray]

i was searching for blank media and came across these at big pockets
http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/cat.php?search=DVD-R+Printable&lang=&session=7d0dc30d18cf9...afac5749fab8ed
they are listed as duplication quality made by UMIDISC with dye type AZO.
the only info i can find is that they are made in china.
has anyone any experience with these or encountered them before,apart from the single review on the site.
they retail at £7.99 for a 50 pack

[nwo]

deleted

[classfour]

You were looking for coasters to put your drinks on, yes??

I've burned enough crap media to know better....it's Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim for me from now on.

[superray]

no intention of buying -just curious!

[pepegot1]

China = Japan 50 years ago

[jman98]

Around here, we pretty much just recommend Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden because the quality is high and they work. We get a few votes every now and then for a few other brands that http://www.nomorecoasters.com claims are good too, like Sony, but you're not likely to find many of us who have tried these odd brand discs. I've found that it's not really worth trying to save money on cheap media, but if you feel lucky, my personal belief is that AZO dye may be excellent for archival purposes, or put it another way, it's likely to last a long time. Whether these discs REALLY use AZO is a good question and even if they do, the quality may still be poor.

[oldandinthe way]

I have used disks with a UME mediaID which I suspect are made by UMIDISK.

They have burned without making coasters. They have not become unreadable in the past year.

As a dissenter from the common wisdom on this site, I believe the major advantage of "quality" media is the wide selection of burners which they generate satisfactory results on.

DVD media reports on this site show mixed results for UME media based on brand of DVD writer.

Lower quality levels may still yield perfectly acceptable results but with a smaller selection of drive manufacturers and models.

[solarfox]

£7.99 for a 50 pack, at the current exchange rate, works out to US$0.33/disc.

A 100-pack of premium-line Taiyo Yuden 16X inkjet-printables can be had from Supermediastore.com for US$43.99, or US$0.44/disc. If you don't mind the slower burn speed, you can also get 8X premium TYs for US$0.39/disc.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if the data you're saving is worth so little to you that you aren't even willing to spend a lousy six cents more per disc for quality media, why are you bothering to save it in the first place?

[lordsmurf]

UMEDISC has to be some of the worst crap ever. More Chinese garbage. It's often sold under brands like Nexxtech, Playo and house branded media. May as well stick pancake batter in the DVD drive, it'll burn the same.

While a DVD writer can affect how well media burns (in minimal amounts only, mind you), even the best burner cannot make crap like UmeDisc give you reliable discs.

Overpriced garbage. The people who made that junk got paid 33 cents for the whole day (or week) of work. I don't want to support that either. Don't buy it.

[superray]

will now add to my "don't touch with a bargepole" list
thanks

[OneSickPup]

I've never purchased any MIC media but a few years back someone gave me some Playo 8x they purchased and discarded rather than attempt to burn. It was UME01 and AML 002. I experimented with numerous burners and had the best results with a Benq using Solidburn IIRC. Definitely unspectacular results and visible defects were exhibited in a very high percentage of the media. Good for experimenting I suppose but extremely risky for anything else IMO.

[oldandinthe way]

I burned 100 UME Playo 8x Disks last year without a coaster on my now defunct LG4163 drive. Over a year has past and none of the disks has shown a failure. A failure being defined as being unable to view the movie recorded there on any of my equipment.

When the DVD standard was written, it was assumed that DVD media was crap. A recording standard was devised with robust error correction and redundant information to allow the information to be retrieved in spite of media failure.

When the DVD-R and DVD+R specifications were devised they allowed wide variation in conforming media, and minimal burner testing with media, assuming that the error recovery schemes would be adequate to insure compatibility and reliability. This was supplemented by requiring drives to provide for differing write strategies for different media (most often seen by users as the need for firmware updates).

A DVD-R drive is tested with a single media type as part of the certification process. Needless to say that media which is most similar to that standard media is most likely to work on all drives.

All of the media on the market conforms to the appropriate specification. All of the burners on the market conform to appropriate specifications. All of the burners on the market cannot successfully burn all of the media on the market, even when specified to do so.

Some media can be burned on virtually all burners. Some media can be on some burners. I have not encountered any media which cannot be burned on any burner.

Some burners can only burn "good" media.
Some burners can burn virtually all media.

Can a more stringent standard of rating media be developed than the DVD standards - ABSOLUTELY - Lordsmurf has.

His higher quality media can be burned on both "good" and "crap" drives.
His lower quality media can only be burned on "good" drives.

How do I know the difference in drives? The media lists on this site offer very strong suggestions. Where performance of media is mixed, there is a consistancy in brands/models of drive which report problems. Burn only brands which meet Lordsmurf's higher ratings - "crap" drive.

Have no history or experience burning - use only "quality" media, if you do not wish to be surprised.
Have a history of burn problems with your drive - use only "quality" media or replace your drive.

A frequent post on this site is a recommendation to use Imgburn rather than Nero to burn. This is because Nero does not observe requirements in the DVD-video standard to appropriately space redundant information.

As is often the case on these forums, I cannot determine whether that is repetition of what they have read or heard or is based on actually problems they have experienced. If recommended by a crappy drive owner using quality media, and based on experience, it is suggestive that even good media may not be able to mask the inferiority of the drive.

[OneSickPup]

I burned 100 UME Playo 8x Disks last year without a coaster on my now defunct LG4163 drive. Over a year has past and none of the disks has shown a failure. A failure being defined as being unable to view the movie recorded there on any of my equipment.

That series of comments helps me define why my opinion of this media differs. For clarity of discussion let's drop the term coaster from our vocabulary for a few minutes. I discard any media I burn that cannot pass a TRT on what I deem a picky reading drive (example in my case would be a NEC 3550A or an LG H22N). By passing a TRT I mean a steady progression graph curve with no distinct slowdowns. If I encounter slowdowns in reading I assume it will only get worse over time so into the trashbin it goes. Now obviously exceptions occur on short term stuff as I don't have time to TRT everything. Another reason why quality media is valuable because of piece of mind if you are a volume user. Call me anal - but anything important (archival) is TRT'd as well as burned at least twice on different media. My whole point here is I discard media that would meet your standards of success. Probably why we all tend to disagree so much on issues like this one.

[lordsmurf]

"A failure being defined as being unable to view the movie recorded there on any of my equipment. "

A 100% flawed method for assuming the burn is good. For starters, you're not watching the screen 100% of the time (nobody does). Then the DVD player has error correction. You're also reading at realtime, which is slower than a 1x read speed. The disc would basically have to be entirely dead to not be read. This method misses flaws.

While the burn will be good enough to view now, the aging rate of media will strike these discs down much faster. It still won't be a bogus 2-5 years, but it'll be closer to a decade (singular), and not decades (plural).

Fat chance copying these discs or reading them on a computer.

[oldandinthe way]

OneSickPup

I'm sure you are aware that your methodology is not in keeping with the recommendations of OSTA

http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa12.htm

Nor does it fully account for the affects of the burner used to write the disk. A marginal burner can generate results which mimic bad media.

Your methodology does succeed in keeping your data out of trouble, and as such is useful and valid for you.

My standard is more in keeping with the average computer user, who at best verifies his writes. Perhaps he and I should have a higher standard but neither of us is likely to adopt a more expensive and more time consuming alternative without cause.

Most recently I have been burning on Verbatim 16x DVD+R at 18x because I like the short burn time and 26 cent/disk is attractive. And as I have made clear in other posts, my backups are on magnetic media. And I believe in multiple backups.

It has been a very long time since I have had a burned DVD "go bad" and in general, I have been able to read and copy these bad disks in another machine. But indeed that could change tomorrow. If it does I might become more media-sensitive but frankly I don't expect that result. Nor am I likely to accept any new drive which does not write to completion with the consistancy my current drives provide.

If as LordSmurf suggests lower quality media will last a decade (which I consider optimistic for all burned DVD media) I doubt that I will be in command of my senses when the empirical evidence is in to prove me wrong.

[OneSickPup]

OneSickPup

I'm sure you are aware that your methodology is not in keeping with the recommendations of OSTA

http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa12.htm

Nor does it fully account for the ........

I fully understand and am not disagreeing. I'm merely pointing out that we all have differing methodologies and motivations that influence how we arrive at our opinions. My methods work for me in my given environment but could be totally wasteful and idiotic to someone else. Just trying to offer an explanation for the less experienced readers to better understand how our methods and motivations impact our decisions.

[oldandinthe way]

OneSickPup

I was not questioning the applicability of your methodology to your environment.

The nature of DVD is such that we each develop techniques, test and rituals which are appropriate to how we wish to use the technology.

The areas in which the standards are loose makes this inevitable.

Whether the decisions we make are our own or based on the suggestions of others, they are never universally correct.

I find myself forced to question all of the survival methods posters on this forum use because none are fool-proof.

[TBoneit]

So far All the DVDs that I have burned starting back when the Sony DRU500a came out and I was able to score one still work.

I have had some of the cheapo Generic staples silver top CD-R discs go bad to where some of teh files were readable and some were not.