Different types of blank cd's

[JuliusEdlavitch]

Dear Mr Baldrick
I enjoy your site and it has been very helpful

I want to figure out which blank cd's to purchase

They sell audio cd's and data cd's

I actually learned that the memorex platinum rw
works best for me

But i'd like to learn the difference when purchasing
blank cd's which to buy and what brands are better
or
does brand matter

Thanks
julius Edlavitch
edlav001@tc.umn.edu

[hitechjunkie]

here is an excellent writeup on CD-R quality. the site itself also provides much more info on CD media.

[speedy]

Use either CD-R or CD-RW. Brand does matter in the sense different media brands use different coatings which vary among other things in their reflectivity. Some CD burners and setup DVD players may have trouble with certain brands because of that.

[int_53185]

ive had good luck with several brands...fuji is perhaps my fav avoid imation discs at all costs!! my cd burner goes into convultions when i try to burn with one....coaster rate is over 50%!

[markm]

Fuji == Taiyo Yuden. I've found Taiyo Yuden to be the best so far. You can't really go by the name brand on the CD's. Imation is listed as Taiyo Yuden at Media World, but the last spindle I bought was made by CMC.

I could never figure out why some of my CD's would start flaking out near the end of the disc, and others were OK. All the ones that flake out are made by companies other than Taiyo Yuden, mostly CMC.

One of the tips I picked up from Media World is to look for the country the CD's are labeled as being manufatured in. Taiyo Yuden is one of the few manufacturers in Japan I think. Most of the rest are in Taiwan.

Of course, based on your players, your mileage may vary. But since I now have a few hundred discs that are hit or miss as to wether they'll play to the end, I'm sticking with Taiyo Yuden, which always work.

[tgpo]

I just bought a spindle from wal-mart and they suck! The company name is Durabrand and over half much be burned at speeds lower that my 12x max. I have a spindle of Vertatim 80min and they worked great! As did Fujifilm. Over all I'd say I'm most pleased with the Vertatim discs. Excelent quality and price.

[vitualis]

The best quality media are from those companies that actually PRODUCE their own media and don't OEM to some third party. This means that the quality between batches is consistent.

My favorite media would be Kodak Ultima and Verbatim DataLife Plus.

Regards.

[Craig Tucker]

Maybe I've just been lucky but I have tried all sorts of cdr media and never had any trouble with any of them.

Sony
verbatim
Cheap discs from lidl, cybertron I think
Unbranded
infiniti 99 min
and traxdata.

Craig

[kjmacke]

That's funny int_53185
I have used imitation for vcd or svcd for over two years. Works perfect for my apex player. Maybe the point here would be what player to buy that is good with all kinds of cd-r's.

[vitualis]

Imation (like many other brands) OEM their CD-R production to third parties. Depending on who they use, the "quality" of any batch of media may be good or bad.

Regards.

[int_53185]

pertaining to cd-r quality...my experience with imation discs may indeed be due to a bad batch... i bought a 50 cd spindle...and perhaps half of them wont burn...ive tried tdk and fuji and havent produced a coaster since...to each his own i guess...personally i love fuji's .............. Good Burning!

[markm]

Just because you don't have any problems burning them, doesn't mean they're good. The player will determine if they're good or not.

Around here, the current crop of Imation are all CMC. I'd heard Imation was good, so I grabbed 100. Burnt one fine. Played fine in my player, until about 65 mins in, then started breaking up.

I've got alot of VCD's that seem to breakup at random points, ususally near the end. I always attributed it to the player, until I started using Fuji's. No problems at all anymore.

If they play start to finish in your player with no errors, that's the test.

If I'm not mistaken, the actual video track on a VCD has no error correction information, which is why you can store more data than if it were on a normal data track. I think the lack of error correction is what causes the cheap media to be less tolerant. A missed read screws up the MPEG stream.