Don't buy Sony CD-R media

[DarrellS]

I never thought CD quality was a big deal until I bought this last spindle of CD-Rs from Sony. I've been burning CDs for 10 years without any problems at all.

A month ago, I burned my first CD coaster. I was using Nero to burn a music CD and it froze on me half way though the burn.

I burned 5 or 6 XviD/MP3 files to CD and every single one of them freezes and jumps on me in my Philips 5140 DVD player. I've seen a lot of Ritek DVD-Rs do this with DVD movies but I've never seen a CD-R or DVD-R do this with data files.

[hech54]

I've been using Sony CDs almost exclusively for 5 years now....never had a problem. Those and my 800MB TDK CDs are all I use.

[DarrellS]

This is the first time I've ever used Sony CDs and I've already had a boat load of coasters which I thought was impossible with CDs.

I usually use TDK or Memorex but have used all kinds of media including Maxell, Imation and Office Depot CDs and I've never had a problem until now.

All I can think might cause it is that they don't really hold 700MB of data. An 80 minute CD should hold 737,280,000 bytes of data and all of the files that I burnt are smaller than that. I'll pick up some different discs tomorrow and see what happens.

[lordsmurf]

You're blaming the disc too quickly.
The player and burner could just as easily be at fault here.

[oldandinthe way]

As in all cases, the burner, the player, the media and the burn process could be at fault.

All of the SONY CDs I have burned are relabeled TY, unless there has been a quality control slipup (look at the disks for defects), I'd bet on any of the other choices.

[DarrellS]

I scanned 10 Sony discs with Nero and all 10 discs showed damaged (yellow) surface on the last 1/5th of the discs (one was yellow thoughout the whole disc) and showed red squares (bad) near and at the end of every disc which is where all the discs are freezing and skipping.

I am using the same burner I've used for four or five years and the same DVD player that I've used for two years. I did install a new MB and CPU and can only use one burner since I only have one IDE controller but some of the bad burns came with the old MB and CPU. I could switch burners to rule that out and I have an old Philips 642 that I could hook up to rule out the 5140.

Before I go through all that trouble though, I'll go buy some new CDs and see if that solves the problem.

[Relayerman]

I echo the other posters here about the Sony discs. I've never had a problem with them. I have, however, just had my Philips DVP-5140 start acting up so badly on ANY disc (even commercial ones) that I bought a Philips DVP-3960 to replace it and have had no problems so far with any of the older discs. (besides, the 3960 player was only $39 US).

Relayerman

[orsetto]

There are many many negative reports to all the usual consumer and "tech" sites regarding Sony CD-R media: apparently its manufacture is much more sloppy than their DVD-R media. While problem reports on Sony blank DVD-R have been escalating of late, especially with the Made-in Malaysia versions, these are mostly "incompatibility" complaints. The complaints re the Sony CD-R media claim the write layer self-destructs very quickly, with the silkscreened white lacquer top flaking off and causing additional complications.

Even granting a large grain of salt for incompetent users etc, I would still have a hard time trusting Sony CD-R even though I do (for now) use quite a lot of their DVD-R media. I guess my point is to be careful when buying large amounts of ANY media, and don't assume because the mfr has a good rep in one type of media that all their media types are equally good, or even that what's good now will remain at the same quality/reliability level indefinitely. Things change in this field- rapidly. Blank optical media is now a loss-leader commodity business with VERY little old-school quality control or predictability: carefully check every batch you buy before making a really important recording.

[RonBoy]

The last Sony cd-r I looked at said mad in Malasia. Needles to say I didn't buy them.

[oldandinthe way]

A four-five year old burner inspires no confidence.

What is the mediaID on your SONY CD-Rs?

[DarrellS]

Well, I bought a 100 pack of TDK yesterday and burned one of the movies to the TDK and it played flawlessly without a glitch so I'm leaning to the problem being the Sony discs and not my 5 year old Liteon SOHW 1693S or my Philips 5140 DVP.

I'll burn the rest of the movies to TDK to confirm my assumption.

EDIT: The Media ID on the Sony discs are Sony.

[DarrellS]

Burned 2nd movie to TDK and it played flawlessly with no glitches.

So far > 10 of 10 Sony burns bad ... 2 of 2 TDK burns good.

[orsetto]

DarrellS, you really need to make up your mind whether you're posting about CD-R or DVD-R. Your initial posts mentioned "Sony CD-R" and "700 MB", now you've suddenly shifted to talking about "movies"? What exactly are you doing: burning DVDs or burning some crap-ass VCD files to CD-R? Many people will look at this thread for advice and end up totally confused.

Regards Sony DVD-R: as I said earlier they used to be decent but have been in a steep decline since moving their production from Taiwan to Malaysia. If you're actually talking about DVDs that could be your Sony problem: the new stock at your local store is from a later crummy batch. (Sony CD-R quality disappeared years ago, if you meant CD-R and only started having problems with it recently you should consider yourself lucky.)

Re TDK: the CD-R blank media is still passable, the DVD-R is TERRIBLE and getting worse by the day. If you really are talking about DVDs in this thread, do not put all your eggs in the TDK basket, especially if your burner is old. Sooner or later you'll start a new pak and find not one disc will burn: that experience has been reported over and over again both here and elsewhere. Pick up Verbatim instead, its always on sale at the office supply chains for just a couple dollars more than TDK.

[lordsmurf]

A four-five year old burner inspires no confidence.?

Lasers age.
Combine it with crappy Malaysian discs, and it's no shock really.

Taiwanese and Japanese Sony are fine.

[hech54]

I just checked....my most recent batch of Sonys are made in Slovakia.
Burned 6 in the past two days.....zero defects on my old LG 4167B drive.

[DarrellS]

orsetto,

Not sure where you got confused about DVD. Nowhere in this thread did I mention I was having a problem burning DVDs or that I was trying to burn DVDs.

I guess I should've used the term video clip instead of movie so members would not get confused about XviD/MP3 being a DVD ISO.



My TV and Stereo equiptment is all Sony but I would not even think of buying Sony media (except for the Sony audio cassettes I bought 15 years ago), DVD or CD, that's not what they are known for. The only reason that I bought these is that they cost half as much as the TDK and Memorex.

You guys can keep buying Sony media if you want but I've learned my lesson. Burning CD coasters is not impossible so don't buy cheap media. When the day comes that I start burning CD coasters with the TDK then I'll look into getting a new burner. I have a 10 year old Teac CD Writer that still works great, it's just slow as molasses.

[turk690]

I have a different problem with Sony CD-Rs. I bought a recent batch, all duly ID'd Sony (Made in Malaysia). They record OK, but while on my LG 4167B DVD-writer they show maximum record rate of 48X as expected with Nero 6.6.1.15, on my LiteOn 20A1S SATA they only show 16X max. Thinking the LiteOn may be faulty one way or the other, I put in it Imation CD-R (Made in India, MB) and it showed 48X max. What's going on here??

[RonBoy]

Really good cd-r media is getting harder to find.
The last Verbatims I bought were MIT Ritek. Had no problems with them.
The last MIT Maxells were Prodisc and again no problems. The Maxell colors are Ritek.
Even the MIT HP that were CMC worked fine.
Last time K-mart had MIJ Fuji (Taiyo Yuden) on sale I bought 12 50 pacs @ $7.50 so I'm good for a while.
If you want Taiyo Yuden about the only options locally are MIJ Maxell music and Maxell CD-R Pro.

note-Walgreens has Maxell music on sale this week 30 @ $9.99.