Bad Taiyo Yuden discs

[jman98]

Bix - I'm not trying to insult aedipuss as I don't know him and have no way to check, but I also cannot rule out that he is simply wrong. For all we know he could simply have his TV set up to display everything in 16:9 and is thus not recognizing the problem even though it exists. Or he could simply be the exception to the rule. You can decide for yourself which seems more likely.

JohnnyBob - Apex never made burners. They made DVD players earlier in the decade. Their CEO was a Chinese national living in the USA and he went back to China on business. They jailed him on tax evasion and the company essentially ceased to exist. I was just absolutely amazed at the time about this because China is nothing if not corrupt and I could not believe that he could not simply pay his way out of this issue. I don't know if he ever got released or if he's still in jail or what. Apex was one of the very first manufacturers to make DVD players that could be made region free by entering a code. At one time they were the 2nd largest seller of DVD players in the USA due to their cheap prices (mostly) and a desire by consumers for region free players (to a lesser extent). Now because of a tax issue they are no more.

[JohnnyBob]

I remember the Apex DVD player sold by Sears, a cheap model for like $25, which I returned for a refund because it skipped, froze, etc a lot. I tested quite a few different DVD players during that period 8-10 years ago, and all of the cheap ones had that same problem. I settled on an Emerson model from Walmart for about $40-$50 which was a reliable player and still works OK but won't render Dolby 5.1 audio.

That was the era of the local movie rental stores, before DVD rent-by-mail from Netflix and Blockbuster, and we had several competing with each other in my small town. Previously it was all VHS tapes, but DVDs were starting to become popular. I recall being in one of the local stores and a lady came in to return a DVD, complaining that it skipped, froze, etc a lot. Little did she know that the problem was probably her cheap DVD player, not the fault of the DVD. Since OP says he has an 8.5 year old Apex player, I'd have to bet that's his problem.

I've similarly tested some recent DVD player models and advise against buying the cheapest ones, the ones without an HDMI connection. Even if you don't need HDMI, it's better to buy one of those models because the components are likely to be better quality - less likely to have chronic stalls, skips, freezes, pixelation, and refusal to play certain burnt DVDs.

The only brand which is retaining S-Video connectors (that I need) is Magnavox. It looks like none of the BluRay players have a S-Video connection, although some HD TVs such as Emerson have it.

[aedipuss]

Bix - I'm not trying to insult aedipuss as I don't know him and have no way to check, but I also cannot rule out that he is simply wrong. For all we know he could simply have his TV set up to display everything in 16:9 and is thus not recognizing the problem even though it exists. Or he could simply be the exception to the rule. You can decide for yourself which seems more likely.

the tv the apex 1500 feeding is a large 4:3 tube sony wega, no widescreen setting. the 1500 is set to display "normal/lb". to be honest this is the first i've heard of a model wide problem with the 1500. i get pal anamorphic dvd screeners every few months and if my 1500 didn't play them properly i would have tossed it long ago. i got my $30 worth out of it, if it had only lasted 1 year i would have been happy. all i remember is having to search the inventory of at least 4 major retail outlets to find one with the proper serial number at the time. i would miss the custom startup picture i put into the firmware instead of the ugly blue apex logo if i got a new player.

[lordsmurf]

"Bad batch" is a myth, as referred to in user forums. The problem here is very likely something else -- burner or player, not the discs.

[johns0]

The op has an apex player,not burner so its most likely the player is at fault and not the burner and you dont need DVD/CDSpeed for scanning,just burn with imgburn and verify burn,it checks to see if the burn also matches the image file and/or files and folders on the hdd.

[bbanderic]

The 8 year old Apex player is most likely the problem. Try it on another more recently built player if you have one, or take the discs to a friend or family member, check with their player and then report back. Until you do that there's really no point in speculating any further.

[JohnnyBob]

"Bad batch" is a myth, as referred to in user forums. The problem here is very likely something else -- burner or player, not the discs.

Wrong! It is you who are propagating a myth. Bad batches of discs are commonplace, happens all the time, probably caused by poor quality control from the manufacturer. Or they could be cheap fakes, forgeries, from uncouth manufacturers and sellers. Regardless of the problem, you never blame the discs - always the user, burner, or player - but bad discs are often the cause. Why?

The op has an apex player,not burner so its most likely the player is at fault and not the burner and you dont need DVD/CDSpeed for scanning,just burn with imgburn and verify burn,it checks to see if the burn also matches the image file and/or files and folders on the hdd.

Wrong! Just verifying a burn is a crude 'yes' or 'no' tool (no 'in-betweens'), whereas scanning with DVD/CDSpeed is a precise analytical measure of the exact quality of the burn and of the media being used. It's the only way to catch borderline burns that are likely to fail later. Anybody who is interested in the archival quality of their DVD collection (How long will it last?) will almost certainly use DVD/CDSpeed for appropriate testing. There is no other way.

[videobread]

JohnnyBob: I agree that "bad batches" are not a myth and I like colorful response - red and green. Spiffy!!!!!!!!!

[johns0]

"Bad batch" is a myth, as referred to in user forums. The problem here is very likely something else -- burner or player, not the discs.

Wrong! It is you who are propagating a myth. Bad batches of discs are commonplace, happens all the time, probably caused by poor quality control from the manufacturer. Or they could be cheap fakes, forgeries, from uncouth manufacturers and sellers. Regardless of the problem, you never blame the discs - always the user, burner, or player - but bad discs are often the cause. Why?

The op has an apex player,not burner so its most likely the player is at fault and not the burner and you dont need DVD/CDSpeed for scanning,just burn with imgburn and verify burn,it checks to see if the burn also matches the image file and/or files and folders on the hdd.

Wrong! Just verifying a burn is a crude 'yes' or 'no' tool (no 'in-betweens'), whereas scanning with DVD/CDSpeed is a precise analytical measure of the exact quality of the burn and of the media being used. It's the only way to catch borderline burns that are likely to fail later. Anybody who is interested in the archival quality of their DVD collection (How long will it last?) will almost certainly use DVD/CDSpeed for appropriate testing. There is no other way.

This is your own opinion so you can't say i'm wrong.Most of what we see is only through your own experience so unless you have 1000 friends and relatives that you can go to and exprience whats on their computers first hand then nothing you say is real fact.

[budz]

IMHO if any TY discs have poor quality scans using CD/DVDspeed it doesn't necessarily mean the disc is bad. Hell, I had a spindle of TY from rima.com about 3 years ago that had low quality scores using CD/DVDspeed. But the discs played back perfectly fine with all of my dvd players including all of my APEX players & the dvd players that I have now.
In fact I started out with only APEX dvd players then moved on to RCA and some COMPUSA no name brand that I can't remember, they were all region free and NTSC & PAL. Then I moved on to getting a SONY hdmi dvd player. From my experiences the popular named brand dvd players were the ones that were so finicky about dvd media.

So it's the new year, so can't we just get along!

[VegasBud]

Just verifying a burn is a crude 'yes' or 'no' tool (no 'in-betweens'), whereas scanning with DVD/CDSpeed is a precise analytical measure of the exact quality of the burn and of the media being used. It's the only way to catch borderline burns that are likely to fail later. Anybody who is interested in the archival quality of their DVD collection (How long will it last?) will almost certainly use DVD/CDSpeed for appropriate testing. There is no other way.

Just for the heck of it, I thought I'd filter out the misinformation contained in that paragraph, and post what was left...but it turned out nothing was left to post, so (as an alternative) I decided to just correct the misinformation provided (where possible), and delete the parts which were unsalvageable. The corrected paragraph would be:

Verifying a burn compares the contents of the source material and the burned disk, and notifies the user of any differences. Scanning with DVD/CDSpeed measures the approximate readability of a specific disk in a specific drive (when using specific firmware, when reading at a specific speed).

If there are any questions about why editing or deletion was necessary in particular areas, and the answer cannot be found in this earlier thread, I'll be happy to answer them here.

[JohnnyBob]

"Bad batch" is a myth, as referred to in user forums. The problem here is very likely something else -- burner or player, not the discs.

Wrong! It is you who are propagating a myth. Bad batches of discs are commonplace, happens all the time, probably caused by poor quality control from the manufacturer. Or they could be cheap fakes, forgeries, from uncouth manufacturers and sellers. Regardless of the problem, you never blame the discs - always the user, burner, or player - but bad discs are often the cause. Why?

The op has an apex player,not burner so its most likely the player is at fault and not the burner and you dont need DVD/CDSpeed for scanning,just burn with imgburn and verify burn,it checks to see if the burn also matches the image file and/or files and folders on the hdd.

Wrong! Just verifying a burn is a crude 'yes' or 'no' tool (no 'in-betweens'), whereas scanning with DVD/CDSpeed is a precise analytical measure of the exact quality of the burn and of the media being used. It's the only way to catch borderline burns that are likely to fail later. Anybody who is interested in the archival quality of their DVD collection (How long will it last?) will almost certainly use DVD/CDSpeed for appropriate testing. There is no other way.

This is your own opinion so you can't say i'm wrong.Most of what we see is only through your own experience so unless you have 1000 friends and relatives that you can go to and exprience whats on their computers first hand then nothing you say is real fact.

That pure baloney! What I said stands.

[JohnnyBob]

... If there are any questions... I'll be happy to answer them here.

No questions. Nothing you say has any merit.

[lordsmurf]

The ramblings of JohnnyBob were already discredited in this thread: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic376174.html

Anybody that thinks a single spindle is a "batch" --- or a couple of spindles or even a few dozen spindles --- is an idiot. Discs are made thousands and thousands at a time in a huge assembly line, with mass use of materials. This is not Ford or Honda, built one car at a time.

And if there really was a "bad batch", then you'd hear many, many people raising hell about it, especially in the professional community. John Q Nobody on a random forum with a couple of bad discs has not run across some kind of "bad batch".

Good grief.



edited for typos

[JohnnyBob]

IMHO if any TY discs have poor quality scans using CD/DVDspeed it doesn't necessarily mean the disc is bad...

That depends on how you define a "bad" disc. There are 2 points to consider for burnt discs with poor DVD/CDSpeed scans:
(1) Longevity may be reduced.
(2) It's less likely to play in finicky DVD players.
I have one such finicky DVD player on hand (a Durabrand model) which rejects TY discs that have bad quality scans (especially high broad PIF bands with high PIF totals), but recognizes that same TY brand & batch of discs OK otherwise. This is a reproducible observation.

...it's the new year, so can't we just get along!

A worthy ambition but to borrow a phrase...
It depends on how well they can answer the questions of the Keeper at the Bridge of Death?

[JohnnyBob]

...

The ramblings of lordsmurf are ludicrous. His perpetual mythology expounds that all discs are good, none are bad, and if something goes wrong it's always the fault of the user. Only he knows the answers and the truth, which nobody else can test or verify on their own, because the only proof lies in a hidden banned source of proprietary info which he can't even quote for fear of prosecution. Absurd on the face of it.

[johns0]

What happens when a disc is burned with files getting corrupted during the burn process and you run the the dvd through DVD/CDSpeed and it test ok?It doesnt test the integrity of the files,just the disc quality of the physical burn.

[redwudz]

If the posters want to just argue, go someplace else or this thread will be locked.

Moderator redwudz

[JohnnyBob]

What happens when a disc is burned with files getting corrupted during the burn process and you run the the dvd through DVD/CDSpeed and it test ok?It doesnt test the integrity of the files,just the disc quality of the physical burn.

What happens? Like any software, DVD/CDSpeed is designed to test certain things, but not everything you might dream up and put on your wish list.

[JohnnyBob]

If the posters want to just argue, go someplace else or this thread will be locked.

Moderator redwudz

Where should we go? You're locking all threads that debate on this subject, it seems to me. So is it a taboo subject on this forum? If so, please say so. If not, let the debate run it's course. Nothing extreme has happened so far, except certain people disagree.

[budz]

IMHO if any TY discs have poor quality scans using CD/DVDspeed it doesn't necessarily mean the disc is bad...

That depends on how you define a "bad" disc. There are 2 points to consider for burnt discs with poor DVD/CDSpeed scans:
(1) Longevity may be reduced.
(2) It's less likely to play in finicky DVD players.
I have one such finicky DVD player on hand (a Durabrand model) which rejects TY discs that have bad quality scans (especially high broad PIF bands with high PIF totals), but recognizes that same TY brand & batch of discs OK otherwise. This is a reproducible observation.

...it's the new year, so can't we just get along!

A worthy ambition but to borrow a phrase...
It depends on how well they can answer the questions of the Keeper at the Bridge of Death?

Yuh, know if you don't like the replies given then just take it with a grain of salt! Geez, everyone's experiences will differ from others. I've had the spindle of bad TY's discs in a dark closet for 3 years now along with the ones that I burned. The 3 volumes of a Japanese Ninja TV show still played back fine and was able to rip the files to my hard drive without any problems. Lmao! I even loaned them out to my Uncle to watch who had no problems with them & he has a old Toshiba dvd player. So basically I'm saying we all will never know how long any dvd disc will last. Whether or not anyone will believe in quality scanning is their own opinion.

Nuff said already! Moderator redwuz should lock this thread because it's no longer becoming informative! Just my 2 cents!

[JohnnyBob]

Ah, yes, the proverbial grain of salt! I'm willing but it seems some others aren't. Obviously much of the debate was peripheral to OP's original question. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing more to say, or debate, so suggest leaving the thread open in case anyone has something new to contribute to solve OP's problem.

[classfour]

The most recent bad burns with TY media were using a Plextor (made by Lite-On - I think) drive. I ended up pulling the thing out after 4 or 5 bad burns. Stuck the old Optiarc back in, good burns again. Likely last (pseudo) Plextor that I'll own....after half a dozen or so.

[ROBERT BLACK]

Chances are those Tys are fakes. I once ran accross a spindle that I bought at a flea market. Yeah, I should have known better but the longtime seller swore by them, the packaging was exactly the same as the legitimate discs and the price was right. I've burned at least a few hundred Tys on three different models of pioneer burners, an old NEC, and now a new LG burner. Never a bad burn that wasn't either user error or the problem of the software,the DVD Player, or a dying laser which was the latest cause. Bad discs DO happen but in the case of TY it's extremely rare.

[ROBERT BLACK]

So it's the new year, so can't we just get along!

No. :P

[budz]

^^^Very informative, NOT!

[videobread]

Fake TY's would explain a lot of things. Bad mouthing TY's is like farting in church.

[budz]

Fake TY's would explain a lot of things. Bad mouthing TY's is like farting in church.

Lucky it's not Sunday huh!

[orsetto]

Its probably his ancient Apex player, but until the OP reports back on attempts to play the problem TYs on other hardware we won't know which direction to take this discussion. My own experience with TY "premium" TYGO2 has been stellar: in over 1200 DVDs used over the last two years, perhaps three gave me problems. Two of the three failed in my Pioneer 531 recorder, whose burner was on the fritz: when I replaced the burner, the rest of that spindle burned perfectly. I was never able to trace the cause of the third failed TY disc, so chalked it up to the expected random coaster we all eventually hit. So far I have not had any issues playing my TY recordings on other hardware, and I've got some old friends with old hardware, let me tell you (no Apexes, though). I've had way more problems with Verbatims than I've had with TYs. If I stick to the DataLife Plus 8x Verbs, I'm fine: no issues, the silver top and hub-printable versions are as good as TYGO2. If I use the retail 16x Verbatim, its a roll of the dice every damn time, so I don't bother with those anymore (most people seem to love the retail 16x Verbs, so I'm the exception to the rule there).

In the OPs case, the burners in his duplicator may be due for replacement. Circa 2003-2004 Pioneer burners would definitely be at "end of life" by this point, and my experience with aging Pioneer burners is they behave erratically and get persnickety about disc types/brands. Then again, of the many Pioneers I've gone thru, they won't successfully burn anything but TYGO2 once they begin crapping out: this makes me more suspicious of the Apex player as the culprit. (The old Pioneer 106, 107, 108, 109 burners were all designed around the TY spec and its usually the only disc they'll burn once they start heading for the graveyard.) If the burners were not Pioneers I'd be more inclined to consider them as likely suspects, since some other older burner brands were more known for not working well with TY.

Regarding disc error scans, these are completely useless for evaluating TY burns. I don't really know the technical reason, but test-happy sites like CD Freaks have often noted TYs test worth sh*t while performing fine otherwise in the "real world". Something in the TY dye structure results in scary error spike results using consumer-accessible testing software hosted on a PC. This used to worry me no end, until reports over time indicated many disc brands that tested "great" became borderline and unreadable within a year or two while the "awful-scoring" TYGO2s remained readable and durable. If testing is your thing, and you need the broader compatibility of 8x media, avoid TY and opt for the Verbatim DataLife series. If you don't put huge store in tests, TY is fine.

[lordsmurf]

Chances are those Tys are fakes. .

No, they are not -- not from cdrom2go. If you have doubts, call Microboards.