Since I just discovered it :) avoid Vivastar. I had two dead discs I had to recreate recently and discovered both were made from Vivastar discs, at nearly the same time, and both had passed a series of tests, when they were created a year ago, for 5 different DVD players, ranging from two PC drives, to a Panasonic DVR, to a Playstation 2, to a stand alone. So, after a year, they has the same problems: pixelation, skipping play back, failure to be recognized in Windows. This leads me to think they use dye that decompresses quickly. Thus, I won't use them again... although I've NO idea where I got them from. :> The Manufacturer ID was Vivastar, but, I've no idea the store or "what" DVD's they were.
Havn't used their DVD-R's but Vivastar's CD-R's are just as bad, they started developing C2 errors after only 18 months, these were stored well too & not used at all, just burnt & archived. I've since re-copied them to DVD+R's.
I personally won't be buying any Vivastar product's anymore, so be warned, it's not just small taiwanese or other developing countries which have poor disc manufacturers situated in them, Switzerland's aren't much better :( (Vivastar are an actual manufacturer like Ritek, not just a brand-name).
Yeah, these 2 Vivastar discs had only been played during their set of tests post burn to make sure they burned okay, and then stored away in a safe manner. They still went bad.
Yeah, again. :) There are a handful of DVD manufacturers, and they make them for all the other people who sell them with their name on them. You can only trust the manufacturer ID, and, even then sometimes not that. :) That can be faked, too.
I believe I must have gotten then Vivastars from Meritline or Shop4Tech, but, I didn't record that X disc with Y manufacturer ID was from Z distributor from A online store. I've since started doing that, keeping the list for the long term, as I've seen that it can take for a year before problems may surface.
Vivastar dvd-r's are very bad. I have a vivastar dvd-r/ram drive. That seems to work fine but their media is poor. Maybe 1 out of 10 will play in my stand alone player but after a few months, that one won't even play anymore. Avoid Vivastar (hint, thats why they went out of business.)
