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  1. Member Faustus's Avatar
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    Just a tiny update to the list, mostly in the CD-Recordables section. My DVD Burner is a DVR-A04, and my primary testing settop player is a Apex AD-1500 followed closely by my brothers Mintek and in SOME cases my cousins Panasonic. I have tried several brands of disk so far with widely varied results. I figured you guys could also toss in your two cents. The idea is to find the cheapest brand that WORKS, I don't personally care about the 1x 2x thing, but 2x would be nice.

    Also it seems some of the cheaper media only get bad near the end of the disk, therefore all my new and future test results are with DVD data that excedes 4GB

    On last note: I own an Xbox system and will be buying the DVD remote and testing with it also when I do.

    "*" Indicates new info in this section.


    *Smartdisk DVD-R:
    Purchased from CompUSA for $4US each in 5 packs. (meaning 20 dollars per 5 pack) So far the seem ok, burned a full DVD-R and it seems to play find in my Apex AD-1500 BUT only burns at 1x. Good for a quick pickup if your compusa carries them and you dont have time to mail order. NEW: My brother owns a cheap Bestbuy purchased Mintek dvd Player (unsure of exact model) and his player is locking with these disk near the end of long movies.


    *ESbuy Generic Media:
    After ordering another 8 of these I've had zero problems with them, they burn at 1x, but personally thats not a big deal. Others have reproted pixilization with them and this seems to be settop player specific as I'm starting to think alot of the dvd-r media problems are. I've tested them on the Apex AD-1500 as well as the cheap bestbuy player brand (Mintek). They also played perfectly on my cousins Panasonic DVD player, as well as my PC.
    NEW info: Second and Third order of these disk also seem to work great, so it wasn't a fluke.


    *Mertline.com DVDPro disk:
    Ick! Been through 3 disk and not one that works correctly, lots of video stutter near the end of the disk. 1x Speed, Tested on my Apex AD-1500 and my PC. Wish I hadn't bought 25 of these... maybe the actual meritline disk themselves are better. NEW: Seems to work fine on project around 3gb or smaller, I'm using them for short stuff until they are used up then ordering no more.


    Pioneer:
    Came with the burner, worked fine, even burned at 2x, BUT we all know how much more expensive these things are.


    *cdrecordable.com disk:
    TAKE 1: Got 5 of these in the mail this weekend, burned at 1x for me. (though some people report 2x recording, maybe it works on the A03 or something) Video on my Apex AD-1500 was very freeze and stutter filled from the very start not the end like usual for cheaper media, it also had this issue on my cousins Panasonic. HOWEVER Computer playback was PERFECT, this brand seems very settop specific as to rather it will work for you or not. I payed about 2.50$us each for the disk and plan to use them for data storage only as they seem pefect for PC uses.

    NEW Take 2: After an email conversation with the company they ensured me that the new version of their disk solved many of my problems, so I figured what the heck I'll order 5 more. Just got the disk and they are the ones with the deep purple inner ring that people have previously spoken about on these and other forums. Burned at 1x and played back pefect on my PC, in their defence they no longer jump and stutter on my settop player, INSTEAD they ID as a DVD disk then say error and will not play at all. Unless big big changes happen with these guys I am done with them and suggest staying away, on a side note their CD-R media seems quite nice.


    *Apple Media:
    Cost about 5.00$us each in sets of 5 only. Records at 2x and has played back perfect on ALMOST all players, the one that would not play it properly was a Sony Playstation 2, it did have the freeze and stutter issue on it, which is strange because that seems to be the media type being used by the PS2 copying people. New: Tried another apple disk burned at 1x in a PS2, seems much more reliable this way.


    Anyway thats the state of things as I have found them to be so far. Updates have not been happening as quickly I would have liked because the cost of buying all these disk is adding up, quite fast given the number of crummy disk I've found. I'll update with any more info I find through my playing around. Next up is still: Princo's (I've heard mixed results and want to test for myself)

    Happy Burning.
    -Flaystus
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    I still don't understand how you are having problems with the Meritline (DVDpro - manufactured by Princo) discs. I've burned dozens of these discs with 4.31+ out of 4.38GIG and I haven't had one bad one yet. No stutter, no problems at all.

    Have you tried playing the DVDs on another player?

    I really think it is a heat problem, since the disc/drive will get hotter the longer you are burning. Have you measured your internal heat temps lately?

    Regards,

    Savant
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  3. Member Faustus's Avatar
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    DVD Burner is inside of a very very cool computer. I'm 100% sure its not a heat issue. Not sure of the exact temp inside as I'm not there now, but I can always lead my IDE and power cables outside the box and test there. But like I said I'm sure its not the problem. I'm using the frontdoor antec case with 2 fans in the front 2 and the back and 2 on the powersupply... temp is always super smooth.

    I still have a few around, maybe I'll give one to my brother or cousin to test...
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    Originally Posted by Savant
    I still don't understand how you are having problems with the Meritline (DVDpro - manufactured by Princo) discs. I've burned dozens of these discs with 4.31+ out of 4.38GIG and I haven't had one bad one yet. No stutter, no problems at all.

    Have you tried playing the DVDs on another player?

    I really think it is a heat problem, since the disc/drive will get hotter the longer you are burning. Have you measured your internal heat temps lately?

    Regards,

    Savant
    Princo discs suck (or at least the 1X one's I've tried suck). My drive is in a Firewire case with its own fan. So far I've tried Apple, Princo, generic from 1 store, and generic from another store (that specializes in media). The generic from the first store and the Princo were bad.

    The Princo would burn without error at 1X but not all of the discs would play consistently in the burner even (rare stutter at the very end of the disc). None of the discs would play absolutely perfectly on my Apex AD-600A (which is very picky with media). The Apple stuff works fine.

    From Meritline's own description: "Not suitable for Pioneer S-201 Drive, Panasonic DMR-E20".

    The Panasonic DMR-E20 is a DVD-R General compatible set top DVD recorder, and holds the majority of that market. IMO if the the discs don't work in those machines then the discs are not worth much IMO.

    Heat has nothing to do with it, because if other media works fine with this level of heat (which is probably less than most people's) then Princo should too. But it doesn't.
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  5. I had no problem with the Princo Silver burn at 1x on my pioneer 104, play without problem on my Sony and Pioneer standalone player. I have problem playing DVD-R on my Apex 600a using generic brand from Hypermedia and Princo. I guess the Apex 600a just can't play those DVD-R. My apex 1500 plays them fine.
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    Well there has to be a reason that I don't get any failures with these Princo discs. Perhaps we should look at the recording process.

    I do all my mastering with DVDit PE using dolby digital audio. I burn using PrassiPrimoDVD. My source files have a fairly low bitrate. (by comparison to regular DVD, I usually have files with a VBR around 3Mbps)

    So is this problem people have a result of the mastering process or of the bitrate maybe? Any thoughts?

    Regards,

    Savant
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    Originally Posted by Savant
    Well there has to be a reason that I don't get any failures with these Princo discs. Perhaps we should look at the recording process.

    I do all my mastering with DVDit PE using dolby digital audio. I burn using PrassiPrimoDVD. My source files have a fairly low bitrate. (by comparison to regular DVD, I usually have files with a VBR around 3Mbps)

    So is this problem people have a result of the mastering process or of the bitrate maybe? Any thoughts?

    Regards,

    Savant
    For my tests I have simply used non-encrypted commercial DVDs (rare, but they do exist), so I know that my authoring isn't the problem. I have also used a decrypted sub 4.7 GB DVD for testing only. Thus my bitrates are very variable.

    The key is though on my system, the burned Princo discs often work fine in the burner and some DVD-ROM drives. They even work fine often in my Panasonic DVD player. However, my pickier player (Apex AD-600A) stutters with it. If I'm lucky the stuttering is rare, but it still usually does occur somewhere. You could call it the player's fault, but Apple media works fine in it, so I blame the media.

    Actually, most of my interest in DVD-R at the moment is to make secondary backups of my data. However, I use DVD-R Video playback consistency as a quality gauge for the media. I won't trust my data to sub-par media, even if it seems to read fine in my DVD-ROM drive. And anyways, the Apex player uses a standard DVD-ROM drive. (I know because I've installed it into my PC and it works fine as an ATAPI drive.) So, if the Apex can't read it consistently, I'm sure other DVD-ROM drives can't either.

    Oh, and the other issue we haven't addressed is batch quality. It's quite possible that your batch(es) have been good quality. However, a quick surf around the net shows that Princo are fairly consistently rated poorly. I'm surprised they even put their name on it.
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    Well for the price I don't expect 'premium' quality. However, the fact that it doesn't play on a particular player would be more indicative of a player problem, not a media problem. If there were errors on the disc in which NO player could read, then I would say the media was a problem.

    I bought a JVC DVD player unit and it plays these DVDs no problem. I've tried it on many other name brand units without error. I've yet to run it by an Apex though. Another thing to keep in mind is the age of the player. Pre-2000 models are alot more likely to reject the media.

    Sure one could say the media should play on every player, but each player has its own unique qualities. Some play SVCD, some play XVCD, some play MP3 and some play none of those. The flexibililty of the particular unit is up to a manufacturer. The ability of a unit to play DVD-R disc is up to the manufacturer.

    I sorta consider it like gasoline. One can buy cheaper gas that will run in most cars, but if your car won't run right with regular unleaded, is it the fault of the gas maker? If you NEED to use premium gas in your car that is a problem of your car and not the gas. (perhaps it needs a tune-up) It's up to the car manufacturer to make their cars able to use different kinds of gas, not the gas makers to make their gas suit every kind of car.

    My two cents anyway...

    Regards,

    Savant
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    Originally Posted by Savant
    Well for the price I don't expect 'premium' quality. However, the fact that it doesn't play on a particular player would be more indicative of a player problem, not a media problem. If there were errors on the disc in which NO player could read, then I would say the media was a problem.

    I bought a JVC DVD player unit and it plays these DVDs no problem. I've tried it on many other name brand units without error. I've yet to run it by an Apex though. Another thing to keep in mind is the age of the player. Pre-2000 models are alot more likely to reject the media.

    Sure one could say the media should play on every player, but each player has its own unique qualities. Some play SVCD, some play XVCD, some play MP3 and some play none of those. The flexibililty of the particular unit is up to a manufacturer. The ability of a unit to play DVD-R disc is up to the manufacturer.

    I sorta consider it like gasoline. One can buy cheaper gas that will run in most cars, but if your car won't run right with regular unleaded, is it the fault of the gas maker? If you NEED to use premium gas in your car that is a problem of your car and not the gas. (perhaps it needs a tune-up) It's up to the car manufacturer to make their cars able to use different kinds of gas, not the gas makers to make their gas suit every kind of car.

    My two cents anyway...

    Regards,

    Savant
    I don't buy that argument. Good media, regardless of brand, works on most drives, and bad media does not. This Princo media is not even regular unleaded. It's like poor grade gas that's doesn't even meet the specifications of regular unleaded. Like I said, the media doesn't even always work well on the burner itself. It usually does, but sometimes does not. Good media OTOH, essentially always works on the burner itself. Furthermore it seems to work in the vast majority of players without issue.

    Anyways, that's not what I'm concerned about mostly. I've found that 2nd tier CD-R media degrades with time. I can't say the same about about DVD-R, because I have not had it long enough, but I don't want my data to be toast a year from now like what has happened with some of my cheaper CD-R media.

    By the way, off topic, but running premium gas in a car designed for lower octane regular gas doesn't make the car run better. A regular car is specifically tuned to run with 87 octane. 89 octane doesn't help it. For a motorcycle it's a different matter however.
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    The problem with your argument is that it gives the DVD player/burner manufacturers no responsibility for poor equipment.

    Who is to say that the player that balks at playing these DVDs isn't at fault? How do we know that a player is 100% redbook compliant? How do we know that a burner is burning a 100% redbook compliant DVD? How do we know that a program is creating a properly formatted DVD image?

    There are a LOT of assumptions being made, and when something doesn't work people are WAY too quick to blame the media without even examining other possibilities.

    Yes I will grant that some media can be bad, but I do ot think that a manufacturer could make media that is INHERENTLY bad and stay in business. There is no way you can market a business model like that.

    My gasoline parallel was for cars designed to run on premium gas. Many high end cars require it, as do older vehicles. What I was saying is that in a car that REQUIRES premium gas is it the fault of the gas maker if unleaded gas doesn't work well in those cars?

    In the end it's sorta like a chicken and egg problem. Who is responsible?

    Is it up to a media manufacturer to account for ALL different makes/models of players AND burners?

    Or is it up to a player/burner manufacturer to account for all different brands of media?

    Seeing as there are over a 1000 different players/burners out there and only a dozen brands of media, I tend to think the responsibility falls on the player/burner manufacturer to test their equipment with all available media, AND (in the case of burners with firmware) to continually make adjustments to account for new media.

    You can't expect a media manufacturer to haul in a 1000 players/burners to test on. It just would not be practical.

    Regards,

    Savant
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    does anyone have some site addresses to buy good DVD-R disc? Thanks in advance.
    Often people fall short, not because they have tried and failed, but because the fear of failure kept them from trying at all
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    Savant, some what you say is true, but you missed the one point which I think is enough to say the media is bad.

    Assuming that my Panasonic LF-D311SC is working correctly, as are the many Pioneer A03/A04 and Panasonic DMR-E20 machines out there, then we can safely assume that Princo media is not good.

    Why? Because many (maybe not most, but many) of the discs don't even work 100% properly with the machine it's burned on. It seems you have been lucky with your batch(es), but that doesn't mean the media quality is consistently good. And this is a commonly reported problem. I see it on the home theater hardware forums for the set top recorders, and I see it on the PC burner forums too. Princo is one brand that tops the list of poor quality name brand media. And remember, there are only a few brands and models of 4.7 GB DVD-R burners out there, not 1000s. And I'm talking about the latest and greatest models.

    Conversely, good quality media like Mitsui or Pioneer or Apple works consistently.

    I agree that a bad burner will burn bad discs, but I don't agree this is the problem here. And how do I know a program is creating a properly formatted image? Well, like I said earlier I'm doing direct backups of commercial non-encrypted DVDs for a few of my tests, and the original disc works fine as do burns on other media.

    Anyways, this seems very similar to the old days when CD-RW media was just becoming available. Even with good burners a lot of CD-RW burns was utter cr@p. Nowadays, most CD-RW media will burn fine at 2X or even 4X with the same burners. (I've only recently upgraded my 4X Yamaha.)

    Feel free to use what you wish, but if your data on Princo discs is corrupt 1 year from now, you can't say you were warned.
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    I agree that media can sometimes be bad, but we still have no RELIABLE way to determine what is at fault. Media, burner, player, or mastering method? Who is to say? Everything seems to be based on loose assumptions.

    Does the fact that a player will play one type of media and not another automatically mean the media is at fault? I have yet to see a person ONCE blame a player for a media problem. Everyone assumes that it is always the media without any thought as to what other problems may be at hand.

    When I mentioned 1000's, I was referring to PLAYERS, not burners. The burner is only one part of the equation. There must be at least 1000 different models of players out there when you look at all the player manufacturers. Do those player manufacturers not bear some responsibility in making sure their players will play this media?

    All I am saying is that people shouldn't be so quick to condem the media when it might just be that they have an inferior player. (PS: Did I mention that I burn those Princo/DVDpro discs at 2x with no problems?)

    Regards,

    Savant
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    Well, I just found a local store that sells US$2.60 DVD-R that runs circles around the US$3.25 Princo 1X media I can find locally. It's way better in terms of compatibility at least for the few test burns I've done, despite the fact it's generic. The colour of the dye of these discs and the Princo 1X look identical but yes they even work well in my Apex. I guess I'll stick with those for now.

    My most important stuff will still be on Apple media however. By the way, the colour of the Apple media dye look the same too, at least to my naked eye.
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  15. Member Faustus's Avatar
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    Here's what I think:

    Take Cheaper DVD player that uses a cheap laser and survo and barely stands to the DVD standard as is, then add cheap dvd media that is produced on a cheaper line without high quality and also bearly sticks the the DVD-R standard. In the end you get zero room for error, and we all know what tends to happen when there is zero room for error.

    Both the player manufactuers and the media manufactuers share part of the blame, though personally I think blame is too strong a word. Personally I have a distaste for the media sellers who sell this stuff knowing its very low grade stuff and won't fess up to it.

    A year or 2 from now we'll all be buying our DVD-Rs from like a buck each and they'll play just fine on almost all players... if you want to wait then wait, but I'm forging ahead cause thats the type of person I am.

    Have fun...
    Flaystus
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    No one has answered any of my questions though.

    Is it up to a media manufacturer to haul in EVERY possible DVD player ever made in order to test for compatibility?

    It's not about blame, it's about responsibility.

    I really don't think it is up to the media manufacturers to make sure their media plays on every player. The media manufacturers make a product, and it is up to the industry to make their players to be able to use that product.

    As I said before, I believe in TWO kinds of responsibility here.

    If there is an error on the media and it will not play in ANY player whatsoever, then I believe that is the fault of the media.

    If there is an error on the media and it will play in SOME players and not in others then I believe the media is blameless and it is the fault of the player manufacturer.

    Here's another parallel.

    Printers use paper. Now is it up to the paper manufacturers to make paper that suits all the printers, or is it up to the printer manuacturers to make their printer so it can print on different kinds of paper?

    If one printer can make a really good printout on a certain brand of printer and another printer cannot, does that mean the paper is at fault?

    Regards,

    Savant
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    The difference is this, there is a specific standard to be followed that will allow you DVD-R to play in most settop players. The cheaper manufactuers do not have high enough quality disk and therefore they do not stick within the fault tolerences of these DVD players. So yes I would say blame rest on them, NOT to provide us with a list of what it does work on settop player wise, but to warn the consumers who know no better that the 2 dollar disk they find on the net is NOT the same as the 7 dollar one at their compusa store.

    personally I dont care, I'll find what works for me and use it....
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    Savant, I will repeat once more.

    There are certain media that don't seem to work consistently at all. If around the world there are such universal problems with this type of media, especially when other brands do work relatively consistently, then yes, the media is at fault.

    But like I said, you are free to use what you wish. I just wouldn't trust any of my video or data to any media which is such poor quality.

    I think you're giving too much credit to this media, when it is clear to the rest of us that the media does not deserve it.
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    Actually, my comments are not directed at any one media at all. It's the principle I am debating here. The question still stands.

    Is it up to a media manufacturer to haul in EVERY possible DVD player ever made in order to test for compatibility?

    I believe that people are being very narrow minded when they suggest that just because their player will play one brand of media, that it automatically means that every other brand of media should work, and if it doesn't then the media is at fault.

    It's almost like people are saying that there is no such thing as a 'cheap' player, and that no matter what the cost of the player it's always the fault of the media.

    Regards,

    Savant
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  20. Member Faustus's Avatar
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    No, but its up to them to make a disk that is not so low quality that it plays on nothing but a very few set top players. And if they do make these disk anyway to inform the consumer of what they are buying.
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    Originally Posted by flaystus
    No, but its up to them to make a disk that is not so low quality that it plays on nothing but a very few set top players.
    Well said. Moreover, some of those discs won't even play consistently in those very few set top players.

    Quite frankly, I think there is some media out there that would not pass any sort of DVD-R certification process, and rarely that media is name brand media unfortunately.

    Our posts here are to warn fellow users not to spend their hard-earned cash on such poor quality media, not to make philosphical arguments.

    Thus:

    1) If media brand A works on players 1-10 consistently: great media
    2) If media brand B works on players 1-8 consistently and not on 9,10 but again consistently: probably OK media but with incompatibilities and/or player issues, or it might be lower quality media
    3) If media brand C works consistently on player 1,2, but inconsistently with everything else: it's possible it's OK quality media with dye incompatibilities, but it's more likely it's just crappy media.
    4) If media brand D burns/plays inconsistently on everything, then it is crappy media (assuming you've done the burns correctly).

    In my experience, there is nothing that quite reaches scenario 1, but there are a few that come close. It seems that scenario 2 is achieved by several good name brands, however.

    Unfortunately, scenarios 3 and 4 exist all too commonly, and we are here posting our experiences to warn others about specific media that fits into these categories.
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  22. just got a pioneer 104. Came with unbranded dvdr.

    Okay. 1/2 d 1 vbr 2.4kbs 600mb film fine.
    Full 4 gig 6kbps film looses it at 15 mins on my standalone but okay on pc.

    went and bought a memorex dvdr. Copied the unbranded disc.

    works great.

    It's the discs.

    If you have a 6000Kbps film taking up the whole disc, if bit are missed it takes time for the data to get re-read. If the bit rate is low then with the speed of the disc, the extra packets will be read in time. no?
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    People have STILL not accounted for ANY responsility for player manufacturers. By these 'poor media' labels one could make a crappy DVD player and then when it doesn't play certain media they can just say 'well it is low quality media' when in fact the player is at fault. So is there no such thing as a bad player?

    Tell me, when do the PLAYERS get the blame for problems playing media? These generalizations of media are extremely biased and one sided.

    Maybe we are looking in the wrong direction. People are saying "it works or it doesn't" when there are a variety of data types that can be recorded to disc.

    Has anyone tried recording lower bitrate video to this media? Perhaps this media isn't condusive to playing high bitrate data. In my case I burn fairly low bitrate data (under 3M) and run into no problems.

    Frankly it seems unreasonable to expect cheap media to duplicate the quality of a store bought DVD movie. (which most people seem to use DVD for - to pirate movies)

    Maybe people should lower their expectations, or their bitrates, before they brand all cheap media 'garbage'. It's like complaining about a Yugo performing poorly in the Indy500.

    Regards,

    Savant
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    Originally Posted by Savant
    People have STILL not accounted for ANY responsility for player manufacturers. By these 'poor media' labels one could make a crappy DVD player and then when it doesn't play certain media they can just say 'well it is low quality media' when in fact the player is at fault. So is there no such thing as a bad player?

    Tell me, when do the PLAYERS get the blame for problems playing media? These generalizations of media are extremely biased and one sided.

    Maybe we are looking in the wrong direction. People are saying "it works or it doesn't" when there are a variety of data types that can be recorded to disc.

    Has anyone tried recording lower bitrate video to this media? Perhaps this media isn't condusive to playing high bitrate data. In my case I burn fairly low bitrate data (under 3M) and run into no problems.

    Frankly it seems unreasonable to expect cheap media to duplicate the quality of a store bought DVD movie. (which most people seem to use DVD for - to pirate movies)

    Maybe people should lower their expectations, or their bitrates, before they brand all cheap media 'garbage'. It's like complaining about a Yugo performing poorly in the Indy500.

    Regards,

    Savant
    Considering that part of the DVD spec is to play up to max bitrate, I will say that any media that can't work CONSISTENTLY with high bitrate data is not worth the money.

    I might have higher expectations than you, if that's the case then so be it.

    P.S. By North American standards, the Yugo was a poor quality vehicle. No, I wouldn't expect it to win an Indy race, but that car couldn't even run reliably with everyday commuting. Thus, I agree, it's a good metaphor for low quality DVD media.
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    Perhaps we've all been deceived and it is the movie industry that is making this media in order to piss off all the people pirating their movies.

    In any case, maybe I should get into the DVD player business. I can make all the crappy players I want, make loads of cash, and if someone complains about something not playing, I just blame it on the media. Sweat deal indeed!

    Regards,

    Savant
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    Macs are not compatable with 90% of computer software - so they must suck!

    If any of you have read the DV magazine recordable DVD article this month, you saw the data showing that newer DVD players had greater compatability with these discs.

    Crappy media or not, player quality seems to play a factor in this.
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  27. Member
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    Finally someone with an open mind! I was beginning to wonder why this site has a MASSIVE section on DVD players with listings as to compatibility and such. The way people talk, all players should play everything and if it doesn't then the media is automatically at fault.

    All players are NOT created equal, and like you said, crappy media or not, player quality IS an issue.

    The phrase "you get what you pay for" should apply on BOTH ends of this arguement. Cheap media shouldn't be expected to perform the same way as expensive media, and a cheap player shouldn't be expected to play all media like an expensive player does.

    It's time some responsibility for this was placed on the side of player manufacturers.

    Regards,

    Savant
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  28. Member Faustus's Avatar
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    Actually I've never suggested that the players share none of the blame, but the players themselves are compliant if only by the smallest degree, its the media manufactuers who manage to slide by with disk that dont work, and since the people selling them often make money reguardless, most dont seem to care if what they are selling works or not.

    Personally I've considered upgrading to the new sony dvd players with the new servos in them cause I here they are alot more "forgiving" with cheap media, but it still doesn't change the fact that the media is cheap media, its just a higher then normal quality player laser/survo.
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  29. Member
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    Radio Shack is selling a very inexpensive GoVideo player that claims to be very "forgiving" also.
    I bought one for testing, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
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  30. Member
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    We're still getting away from the point though. Let's come at it from an opposite angle.

    Should a 'cheap' player play all media just as good as an expensive one? Should there be any difference? If not, then why buy a more expensive player? There are cheap models that will do the same things (features) as expensive ones, so who pay the extra money?

    Also, wouldn't it make sense that it you pay $99 bucks for a player you shouldn't expect it to play cheaper media?

    On the other hand, if you take a given media and it WILL play in an expensive machine and will NOT play in a cheap machine, why isn't the cheap machine at fault? If the expensive machine can be built to read it, why not the cheap one?

    It seems the player manufacturers are getting a free ride here.

    Regards,

    Savant
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