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Post Your Bad Media Experiences Here
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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6. April 2007 @ 09:07 |
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It's always possible that you accidently had the simulation box checked so that everything looked as though it were being recorded when it was not. If that happened, then the drive should be able to record onto the "recorded" discs again. If the drive no longer sees the discs as blank, then there was a different issue; and it could be a number of different things.
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big_d_63
Newbie
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6. April 2007 @ 09:10 |
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just had a friend come over w/ new dell laptop and that is the only thing in the house out of 5 drives that will read it. any way i can get other drives to work?
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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6. April 2007 @ 11:42 |
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That means they were definitely recorded. The NEC drive should be able to read the discs, but only if you have playback software that works with the files. Nero has playback software built in, and Windows Media player can also play DVD video files. How does the Dell laptop differ from your computer in terms of playback software? Are the files in the DVD video format or another format such as AVI?
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big_d_63
Newbie
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6. April 2007 @ 11:45 |
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actually i just opened it on the laptop under my computer d: being the dvd drive in the laptop and it shows all the files/folders. my other 2 computers and laptop dont read the disc at all though.
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AfterDawn Addict
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6. April 2007 @ 11:49 |
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My Guides--------->http://webpages.charter.net/bacitup/
Newbies------------>http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/183136
Software ------->http://webpages.charter.net/bacitup/software.htm |
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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6. April 2007 @ 12:03 |
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You recorded it as a "recordable DVD+R DL" disc. In newer drives, this is perfectly understandable. In older drives, the combination of "recordable disc" and "double layer" is not understandable because the two concepts are contradictory--in the days when they were made recordable discs could only be single layer; all double layer discs were DVD discs.
The way to get around this is to lie about what the disc is by changing its book setting from "DVD+R" to "DVD-ROM," the name for DVDs, either single or double layer. The book setting is done by changing a bit identifier if your drive and recording software allow it. I believe the NEC ND-3520 can be changed, and the latest Nero software and other utilities allow the change to be made. Then all the DVD+R DL discs you record will appear as "DVD-ROM" discs capable of being played on all but the oldest DVD players. I suspect that the drives you have are fairly old while the Dell laptop is relatively new.
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big_d_63
Newbie
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6. April 2007 @ 14:06 |
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hmm...the wierd thing is that it reads the couple hp DVD+R DL discs just fine.
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AfterDawn Addict
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6. April 2007 @ 14:27 |
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I am trying to tell you just update the firmware!
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Newbies------------>http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/183136
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Benri
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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10. April 2007 @ 21:49 |
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Originally posted by eddE:
I have purchased all kinds of dvd+R's (fugi,imation,sony,memorex,ect.)one big waste of money.I always get a successful backup,but its like rolling dice when putting it into the dvd player. sometimes it will play , sometimes with glitches , and sometimes not at all.I've tried many ways to back them up to dvd shrink/nero,dvd express"which sucks"and platinum.But since ive moved away from thes + format disc and went with maxell - r's not a bad disc yet. Does anyone know if it has anything to do with + format?
Definetely it's the way you are backing them up.
I have been using the Fuji from BJ's $30 / spindle of 100 very succesfully.
Benri Mantos
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Shultzy
Newbie
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11. April 2007 @ 07:49 |
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I've got a older Toshiba DVD player hooked up to my TV and it plays 'em all, no matter whether a "good" brand or cheapo CMC bargain ones, but my friends don't have as good luck with the same discs. And sometimes it's the cheaper ones that play in their machines!
Go figure.
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Member
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22. June 2007 @ 08:17 |
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Greeting all! This is my first post. I have been reading here for quite sometime now and decided to join. I have been researching options for creating professional DVD discs. I started with lightscribe DVD, to CD/DVD labels, now I'm onto Printable DVD Media.
1. Lightscribe too expensive for B/W images.
2. CD/DVD refills are cheap, but you can only use center hub stickers on DVD, not full face. When I use full face, the movie ends up skipping. Then they have just DVD labels. At first I thought this was just a marketing ploy, but now I see it isn't. The DVD memorex printable labels are nice, but still too expensive, .75 for one label.
3. Now onto printable DVd media. This is the best choice since the media is about the same price as regular DVD-R media. The only extra cost is really the ink from printer.
Now the question is, I need the best possible DVDR media that will:
1. Play on the highest percentage of stand alone dvd players
2. Print a nice quality image on printable surface.
3. Provide a nice disc life longevity.
If I can find the perfect disc for this that would be great. Im tired of finding Media that will play on my stand alone player as well as my parents and friends player. Any one here have a nice chart for compatibility? Any one know the best Printable DVD Media for Stand Alone DVD Players? I don't mind paying more, just want the best solution, I don't have enough drinks for these coasters. How can you buy a DVD from the store, and it works everywhere...I want those DVDs!
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AfterDawn Addict
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22. June 2007 @ 09:53 |
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I would suggest you go with either of these
TaiyoYuden
Verbatim
The Verbatims are probably the little better disk right now, but both are excellent choices.
My Guides--------->http://webpages.charter.net/bacitup/
Newbies------------>http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/183136
Software ------->http://webpages.charter.net/bacitup/software.htm
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frbernard
Member
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22. June 2007 @ 10:10 |
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c1c I have over two thousand successfully burned Ty or Verbatim white ink jet printables and they play on a multiple number of players. I would recommend Supermedia store as the most reliable source. The cost a little more but it is well worth the price if you won't almost certain reliability.
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rick5446
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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22. June 2007 @ 14:57 |
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c1c..Add this to your quality LIST Ritek Ridata very good,I've been using them for many moons.Theirs another Ritek Arita stay clear of these.I've also used quite a few Store brands & found Office Depot to be the most consistent & reliable in quality as all there store brands are Ritek.I mostly buy DVD RWs frm them when on sale for 7-bucks for 50
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atomoid
Newbie
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18. July 2007 @ 13:24 |
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Confirmed Bad Media: Memorex 16x DVD-R
These are manufactured by CMC Mag according to "DVD Media Inspector 1.0 b1" when looking at the Lead-in info: (...CMC MA..G).
I bought a 100 pack of these from OfficeMax for about $24 and got about a 80% failure rate when i tried to burn them, even at 1x speed.
My Computer: Mac PowerBook G4 12"
My Burner: Superdrive (Matsushita DVD-R UJ-825)
After becoming frustrated with my attempts at burning and thinking my superdrive was going south, I came to this site and read all the horror stories about CMC media.
Fortunately, I was able to return that unfathomnably crappy Memorex junk to OfficeMax (they actually gave me a full refund even though i had already tossed out ten coasters in the trash).
I then bought a 50 pack of Verbatim 16X DVD-R (lead-in says '...MCC 03') for about $17 and have so far had a %100 success rate.
Similarly I had a %100 success rate with all of my Maxell 4x DVD-R (lead-in says '..fx...TYG01')
Epilogue:
I just dont know how Memorex continues to buy from CMC and both of them stay in business. I really cant figure that one out. Usually bad quality will doom a company... eventually. But at least my horror story has a happy ending slapped on :^)
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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18. July 2007 @ 13:35 |
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Your conclusion is false. That Matsushita UJ-825 does not support that MID code. Therefore all discs with that MID code, whether they are HP, Imation, Memorex, Maxell, Philips, Sony, Verbatim, or anyone else's will not work. Slowing down the speed to 1X may increase the slope of the jitter curve for a default laser power level, but it cannot resolve the problem if the pulse rate is incorrect.
When a disc fails for lack of firware support, the consumer has no way to tell if the disc was good quality or bad quality. All that is known is that it is incompatible. A different drive that supports those media will likely give much better results. Unless Panasonic develops new firmware that includes that MID code--not likely--you will not be able to use it. You may want to try Ritek media since Maxell's DVD production has switched to Ritek.
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atomoid
Newbie
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18. July 2007 @ 16:21 |
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I'm glad i listened to the threads here and decided to buy the Verbatims since the digitalFAQlists them as 1st class (95-100% reliable) and puts my the CMC's down in the 4th class (0-50%) dungeon.
I'm still unsure what the MID code is all about, ill have to teach myself all about that to be able to screen my purchases for compatible blanks (and how could an average buyer have the foggiest idea of what media is compatible, especially since none of this info is given on the package? (which may be why the Memorex/CMC axis of evil remains strong)), but i do know i cannot get a firmware upgrade for my Matsushita DVD-R UJ-825.
oh yes! Thanks for the info.
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asianm
Suspended permanently
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19. July 2007 @ 00:06 |
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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19. July 2007 @ 06:51 |
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digitalfaq determines "quality" by the remarks given by multiple users of discs and drives. It is far more indicative of the timing of firmware updates than quality issues, although quality problems do enter into the mix. For the past six years as new drives hit the market, they were often very limited in their support of certain discs. The reason for that is that it takes a lot of time to design the firmware instructions for scores of different MID codes for multiple formats at multiple speeds. That time spent in engineering meant time lost in getting on the shelf with the latest competitive speed. Drive manufacturers instead set up the drives with support limited to essential discs (Taiyo Yuden because TY holds the patents on CD-Rs; Verbatim because MCC holds the patents on DL media; a few other Japanese brands because, well, the drive manufacturers were Japanese and the Taiwanese disc makers were not.) Support for more MID codes came later when firmware updates expanded the use of more discs on the market.
Things have changed since Taiwan is now making the majority of both drives and media (you do know that the evil CMC makes Verbatim, too, don't you?) and the rush to the latest speed increase has slowed down considerably. There is better support for more MID codes as drives come from the factory, but there are few if any firmware updates these days because the low prices for drives have forced drive manufacturers to cut back on that support. They would rather have customers buy new drives than keep updating their old drives.
The MID code is the manufacturer's identification code that is combined with field identification data in the lead-in area of the disc to tell a recording drive (a player cannot access this lead-in information) what type of disc the code is on, what dye type it uses, its speed rating, and other information to assist the drive in setting up the laser power levels and pulse rates. The information is molded into the discs' substrate as binary information. The MID code identifies the stamper, not necessarily the factory that is making the discs.
The original intent of all the MID field codes was to have the drive calculate the proper write strategy from the given information in order to adapt to a wide variety of discs. That, however, takes some processing power and a more expensive chip. At today's prices, drives only use a memory table; and if the MID code is not in the memory table, then the drive uses the hit-or-miss default write strategy, refuses to acknowledge that there is a disc in the drive at all, or complains that the disc is "illegal" or "invalid." Your Matsushita UJ-825 is using the default write strategy on the CMC discs, and it is not working. This is a known mismatch. There is probably nothing wrong with your drive; it is just limited to certain discs. There is probably nothing wrong with the discs; they are not being recorded with the right settings.
It is ironic that you blast CMC as "evil," then decide to use the discs made for Verbatim by the very same CMC. The real story is far more complicated and tinged with some political intrigue as well as economic concerns.
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atomoid
Newbie
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19. July 2007 @ 10:10 |
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Thanks for the very illuminating information.
It still leaves me somewhat aghast at the dischordant state of the drive/media industry and how it seems that no useful standard was ever reached when it came to the manufacture of blanks so there is this ham-handed way of trying to patch all the gaping pot-holes left in the road by this lack of standard, unless you have "the right information" to link up your blanks with your drive which is not provided by the industry but left for the more resourceful user to discover, untangle and attempt to steer safely through this minefield on their own. One could have hoped for a universal standard, if that makes any sense and i think it does. But as with many other things, its another case of buyer beware.
i'll concede CMC is probably not evil, that was really just sardonic hyperbole on my part, it sounds like they just dont have the benefit of manufacturer firmware support. I can only guess that Memorex DVD burners probably do read Memorex CMC blanks without any problem.
It raises the question, since it is true that some disks are more compatible with the greater population of drives out there than other disks are, and since CMC can apparently make Verbatims just as well as MCC does, why wouldnt CMC (or the industry for that matter) just settle on using a more universal MID code system, since if there is a finite combination of dyes X speeds X otherstuff (media-specific data), with any other other info being media-independent encoding, one can envision needing only a handful of MID codes industry-wide to ensure compatibility with disks created to a specific standard going forward, but then again maybe there is some proprietary legal stuff going on there and preventing that, or business as usual. One can only hope that the successor to DVD reaches some better approach toward this conundrum.
An additional reason i soured on CMC Memorex is that there are a lot of reports here about the data on them going bad after a few months. I dont have experience with this, and perhaps it is due to the same issue (and if the disk were read on a Memorex DVd it would be fine) but to avoid any possibility of this problem i bought Verbatim, since i havent heard any problems with those blanks in these threads.
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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19. July 2007 @ 12:54 |
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You bring up very good points. I can address a few of them:
1) There is a "standard" of sorts in the field ID information, but it requires a more expensive chip than that used in simple memory tables. Retailers and consumers have voted for price without fully realizing the sacrifice of compatibility.
2) There are "dye wars" in the industry, and manufacturers source dyes from different places. MCC uses its own dye. Ricoh has a dye of its own; so do TDK and Taiyo Yuden. Patent issues or compatibility with different production systems are factors in the choice of dye, not just price or availability. Different dyes react in different ways, so there have to be slightly different write strategies. (The same was true with the different oxides used in audio cassette tape. There was an official IEC standard, but the Japanese used it to lock European manufacturers to the standard while the increased coating thicknesses and the concomitant sensitivity to make the European tapes look bad. These games with digital media have been played before.)
3) Memorex drives do work with CMC, Ritek, Prodisc, and MBI media since that company sources discs from all of them.
4) Philips issues most of the MID codes once the discs have passed qualification tests. These qualification tests generally include Philips's recommendations for improvements, and most manufacturers comply with those suggestions. New MID codes can be issued for different dyes from the same manufacturer or significantly different production techniques that will affect performance; for example, inverse stack DL production instead of the more expensive and wasteful photo polymer method. A universal MID code is not possible with all the variables, but the field ID method would work--if any drive manufacturers were willing to make a more expensive drive with a feature that could be easily explained to consumers--not likely, unfortunately.
5) A disc that has poorly formed edges of its dark marks will eventually go bad and be unreadable far more quickly than a well recorded disc. Poorly formed edges are typically due to improper right strategies and/or recording speeds in excess of the dye's ability to change under heat. The poorly recorded discs will work initially and may even have decent PIE/PIF scores; but the jitter will be out of spec and continue to get worse quickly. That is
usually what happens to discs that deteriorate quickly--the wrong write strategy was used to record them. They will not play on any drive whether that drive is from Memorex or Panasonic. (Poor quality discs often show the same symptoms as discs written with the wrong write strategy, but it is a mistake to immediately blame the problem on quality. A death associated with coughing blood can be immediately blamed on tuberculosis, but a bus sitting on the victim's chest may indicate a different cause.)
5) Verbatim is a good choice because the compatibility with drives is excellent and the production quality is consistently good.
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GyroTEX
Junior Member
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15. October 2007 @ 16:22 |
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LG
Fry's electronics
looked nice burned well did absolutely nothing on every dvd-rom drive/player/360/ps2... i tried
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Suntower
Newbie
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17. October 2007 @ 11:53 |
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I've had several crap experiences recently. It seems as though the overall quality of DVDs is going down.
1. June 2007. TDK 16x 100 pack DVD +R. Fred Meyer store. Ridiculous. Almost -every- one had some sort of drop out which was undetected during burning by CloneDVD.
2. August 2007 --- Taiyo Yuden 8x 100 pack DVD -R. SuperMediaStore.com I returned them after the 15th coaster. On the good side, they didn't squawk about a refund. The bad news is that I thought Taiyo Yuden were supposed to be the -good- brand.
3. October 2007 --- Imation 16x 100 pack DVD +R. Office Depot. So far, out of 20 attempts, 4 coasters. But at least all the bad ones here are detected by Nero or CloneDVD.
Overall: Yeah, I'm using the 'bargain brands', but in the past, they didn't give me the trouble they have in the past 6 months. What's the deal? Are there -any- brands that are now trustworthy?
Thanks,
---JC
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delateur
Member
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17. October 2007 @ 21:28 |
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@Suntower: Only TY and Verbatim have performed flawlessly for me in my time of DVD burning. I've had great success with +Rs booktyped to DVD-ROM, and very good results with the DVD-R printables, 8x TY Premium line, that I've used. I've heard some have had problems with TY Valueline, but others swear by them. I may try them next time (printables) if I find a decent deal...
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Suntower
Newbie
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17. October 2007 @ 21:33 |
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The Taiyo Yudens I was referring to -were- from the 'Valueline'. I didn't realise that there was a real difference.
Is there a reference guide that indicates who the -real- manufacturers are for various popular brands?
I guess I can just hunt around for Verbatims, but I was hoping that there were other reliable brands available at the local office supply megalopises.
Thanks,
---JC
Originally posted by delateur:
@Suntower: Only TY and Verbatim have performed flawlessly for me in my time of DVD burning. I've had great success with +Rs booktyped to DVD-ROM, and very good results with the DVD-R printables, 8x TY Premium line, that I've used. I've heard some have had problems with TY Valueline, but others swear by them. I may try them next time (printables) if I find a decent deal...
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