Ok, I know what I?m about to say will not be well received but I?ll say it anyway in an effort to stimulate insightful and constructive conversation about DVD media quality and ID codes.
Prior to finding this site, I was happy living in my unsophisticated little world burning backups of my family vacation videos and pressed DVD movies. I still use a Pioneer A05 DVD burner that I bought in like 2001. The firmware was flashed w/ a hacked v.1.33 which unleashed the drive?s true potential. I have always used Princo 4x DVD-Rs without any problems (even burning at 4x speed). I have DVDs that are three and even four years old that still play (perfectly) on my two set-top DVD players. So imagine my surprise when I read here and over at www.digitalFAQ.com/media that my media of choice is junk. Well, almost junk it?s considered 3rd class media.
So, I go off and arm myself with DVD Identifier, DVDInfo, Nero CD/DVD Speed, etc., etc. and I start thinking ?Hey, I need to get myself some of this 1st class media!? But I guess being on the www.digitalFAQ.com media code listing isn?t enough because I see how some 1st class media (e.g. TDK, Maxell) still gets a black eye here and there when compared to the heavyweights (TY, Sony, and Verb.) which gets me back to thinking this is all really a popularity contest. So, I guess it comes down to what works best for each individual with his/her setup.
I did find the experiences posted on www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters.php very useful when finding media for your particular burner or finding media codes for specific speeds of a particular media brand.
It is difficult for novices to sort the wheat from the chaff on digitalfaq. Although half of the information is correct, the other half is incorrect and sometimes even goofy. That makes it a poor source of information or of ratings. (Unfortunately, the better rating sites for media are written in German and not much use to most people.)
If your discs work, even after years of storage, they are acceptable and compatible with your drive. Others may tell you that your discs are actually no good at all and that you are stupid to believe that they actually work or that they are bound to fail when you least expect it. Some readers have actually been gullible enough to throw out good media in order to "join the crowd"! The subject is a complicated one made even more complex because of the number of variables; but after reading advice like, "My computer won't turn on. Why?....Brand X is junk media. Switch to Brand Z and everything will be better" over and over, one has to shake his head in amazement.
Your Pioneer A05 is a great DVD-R/RW drive with a wonderful and expensive pickup head. It is the drive I reserve for reading typically unplayable discs in order to recover people's lost files.
Digital faq is just guidelines. It lists TDK's TTG and TTH as top quality stuff,but I see many burn logs with those MID codes.Some drives do have harder times with certain media.
Outdated firmware is the usual culprit.
Then you got Burner Quality. I've used 8 DVD-RW drives now and there's a huge difference between their quality. Compatability,PIE/PIF/CRC errors,coasters,and stand alone playability.
There's some quality drives: Plextor,Benq,Liteon,Pioneer,NEC
There's some quality rebadged drives
Some crappy rebadges
Then there's some purely crap burners out there-HP being a good example.
Every burner is different. Some brands-like my benqs will burn anything I slap in them and still burn ok,just like my tys and verbs.I'll burn ritek and ricoh all day long. Cmags are no trouble burning,but I can see the difference on my stand alone player.Compatability is also a major factor. After booktyping the plus format to dvd-rom,they'll play virtually anywhere I desire.
With some of the weaker drives out there,the lower quality media will give them more issues. Same goes for the older stand alone players-having a lot of wear and tear on them.
Got a quality burner,slow burning,keeping compression to a minimum,only playing backups on a couple drives?Then someone may not notice any difference with media quality.
Playing those backups in a slew of game consoles,pc drives,stand alone players,automobile players-you'll see the difference with media quality.You'll also see the difference when ripping other people's backups.
Media quality is the #1 issue and it's always the first thing to rule out when issues occur.Then you got the counterfit discs using taiyo yuden MID codes.
A good test to see how your backups check out:
Re-rip them back onto your harddrive. If something is wrong with them,you'll get crc errors. If ok,then they should have no trouble re-ripping. An even more stringent test-if you have dual drives: Re-rip and burn on the fly to an RW disc. That'll give you a clearer picture as to the quality of your backups.
Quote:I did find the experiences posted on www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters.php very useful when finding media for your particular burner or finding media codes for specific speeds of a particular media brand.
Please sign up and add your feedback. I'm always going to that site searching for other members with issues and I also add to the site.I have to add some feedback for the Plextor PX-716A.
Yes it is true that every setup is different so what works for some folks just will not work for others. But what kinda bothers me is when folks throw around general statements like "that media is crap" or "just try to get it to read two months later." So far I guess I've been lucky.
This all got started for me when I bought a PSTwo two months ago.
I did get in on that deal at OD 16x Verb. DVD-R for $7.98/50 pack. That was too good to pass up. And they coded out at MCC03RG20s.
I also have a LG 4167B w/ hacked FW v.DL13 I'm gonna use in my soon to be assembled PC.
