I live in the United States and the computer store Microcenter is selling Platinum 4X DVD-R and 4X DVD+R in packs of 25 for $19.75 ($0.79 each) from 3-15-04 to 3-28-04. Has anybody heard heard of this media or know who manufactures it? I have some Ritek G04s for backing up my movies, but thought if this media is respectable enough, I could use it when I don't want to waste a Ritek. Thanks.
I have been using these from microcenter for a few weeks now. They have been burning very well.
My Digital research 8X writer burns them flawlessly at 4x.
My optorite 201 only does 2.4x even after reflashing.
On the plus side the Supermedia brand samples burned fine at 4x on both drives. Before flashing the Optorite it only burned the supermedia at 2.4x.
I do backup movies with the platinum. They always work fine. Get 100 at a time and the price goes to about 17.50 per 25 pack.
So far my only bad experience with media was with memorex. After burning a few 100 memorex just fine I got the 100 pack printable DVD-Rs that were horrible.
They had regular errors when burning and they all had difficulty reading on most of my machines. The pioneer 333s read pretty well.
All the good memorex discs were Ricoh. The bad ones were CMC af1.
Thanks for your response. I have only had my burner for about two weeks now. I have used Verbatim Digital Movie 4X DVD-R, Maxell 4X DVD+R (made by Ricoh), and RiData Ritek G04 4X discs without making any coasters yet. The RiData discs have had some unreadable sectors from the surface scan using Nero CD-DVD Speed Scan Disc utility, but the discs play without failure in my stand-alone dvd player. The other types of media that I have used have not exhibited unreadable sectors during the same test, but to be fair, that was with different backups.
Be very careful when using Platinum data! My first batch of 25 performed flawlessly (burn and DVD playback). However, my second batch was horrific -- 18 failures out of 25. Now what I mean by "failure" is that the burned disc would no play in my DVD player. The burn process occurred without incident. I used Verbatim Datalife 2x's for the redo's. Having purchased my second and third batch together, I returned the third batch without even opening it. A very close collegue of mine who was returning HIS batch, said that he saw piles and piles of returned Platinum spindles behind the counter. If you plan on continuing to use the Platinum product, I would get a verbal agreement from the manager that they will honor an exchange of bad disks.
Since then, I've used Princo 4x (white tops) and will be testing Ritek's Ridata 4x (white tops) soon. Despite the mostly negative "press" I've read about Princo's, they performed fairly well. I've gone through 2 50-paks and got 90% and 88% success rates, respectively. I'm expecting the Ritek's to perform even better, especially since I've heard nothing but positive things about it.
I ended up buying a spindle of 25 Platinum DVD-R about 2 weeks ago. The manufacturer according to Nero CD/DVD Speed was AN31 on my batch. I guess that is supposedly pretty crappy media according to some posts that I have seen. The media backed up some of my movies and played well on my home player and on my PS2. Nero DVD Scan said it had no errors an was 100% readable. I have about 8 disks left which I will probably use for data. I am not against buying this media again, but will most likely not purchase it again. I just got a 50 pack (for $50) of Memorex DVD+R that are Ricoh disks. These disks can burn at speeds up to 6X in my burner. I ended up sending back my RiData Ritek G04 disks due to inabilty to play properly in my PS2 and an older Panasonic 3 disk changer. I have read many threads and messages detailing the problems with the Ritek G04 media and my NEC drive.
Quote:I've gone through 2 50-paks and got 90% and 88% success rates, respectively.
With Ritek G04, my last two 50 packs had 100% and 100% success rates respectively. Something to keep in mind. The cheap discs aren't really such a great deal when you have to factor in wasted discs.
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I have switched to supermedia DVD-Rs for cheap backups. No more platinums.
They have worked very well after 200 discs and have better readability than the other inexpensive discs. They also use AZO dye. For my favorites I still use verbatim and ritek.
I have recently started getting prodisc for my toshiba and optorite so they can burn at 4x. They are now about 70 cents each for decent quality.
