"your comments VideoCurmudgeon just show your lack of knowladge period .. "

My lack of knowladge... okay.

"i DO know what I am talking about and can back it up .."

We're still waiting.

J--

Every media company samples product from their production lines.

"Grade A" product is what is usually used for the OEM. In Ritek's case, these are the discs that go for Fuji and other companies. With CMC this could be for Memerox.

"Grade B" product are the ones that still fall into the companies' "specs". Though they tend to have very slight blemish, or over glue. The recording quality is the same/extremely close to the grade A media. This could be KHyper for CMC. These discs can also contain over prints. Which is when company A orders 1,0000000000 discs, they get labled, then the order is cancled. The disc then gets over printed with another label. This is cleary visible.

"Grade C" product is still considered to be usable, and is still sold once an abundance of Grade C product is obtained. It is lower quality than the Grade A and Grade B. These are usually labled for a "no name" OEM, and sold at a discount price. Can also contain over prints.

"Grade D" product will contain errors, but like grade C media, is stocked until an abundance is obtained then sold at an even lower price.

Below "Grade D", most respectful companies will use these as tax write offs.

In Ritek's case, their Grade D production line was overprinted with mountain scenes, and sold off at an extremely low price. Don't confuse these with the Orange Ridata/Arita labeled discs.

Each company has a different grading system, and set of specs for their production. But they all grade their products, and sell to distributors.

Such as MAM's gold line of CD-Rs. They have two gold CDR lines, a standard and an Archive line. Both CD-Rs are produced from the same production lines. A sample is taken every so often to examine the quality. The cream of the crop goes to the Archive brand.

To ask Ritek questions contact the main US company at Advanced Media INC 1-626-854-5266. Advanced Media INC is The Only authorized US distributor. A Distributor buys Millions and millions of discs and distributes thousands to the retailers (Meritline, Rima, Shop4tech etc....). A retailer may buy bulk quantity, then sale to other retailers also.


as for problems with recent riteks -- don't just take OUR word for it (with a couple of million vistors a month on our website and the largest database in the world of dvd player compatabilitty as well as dvd media), but also at http://www.dvd-recordable.org



here is the link ... Ritek problems recently

Quotes, no sources. Nothing but more opinions!

From your source: "The discs which are causing the problems are the ones described as 'Landscape', 'Mountain Water' or 'Mountains and Streams' and should be avoided at all costs."

Not the discs Newegg is selling, as far as I can tell.

"I have done a survey on the various Ritek discs and as far as I can tell the grading is as follows." (ibid)

More of this person's opinion, which he is entitled to, as are your, BJM, and as I am. At least I'm knowledgable enough to discern between opinion and fact and state my opinions as opinions.

J--

"don't just take OUR word for it (with a couple of million vistors a month on our website and the largest database in the world of dvd player compatabilitty as well as dvd media), ..."

Actually, I did. That's why I chose Ritek! Too, I went to your site, and the discs you switched to, Taiyo Yuden, had all of two users comments. That hardly constitutes overhwhelming approval.

J--

go by the media codes .. there are many many replys to the same media code

but there is also a couple of active threads on this issue ...

Yes, I've read the threads (I guess you're referring to the ones on grading DVDs), and it's the same issue. Just opinons, no facts, no substantial, credible sources are cited!

One guy referred another poster to a site he claimed was the offical DVD Forum, which it wasn't. It was a site selling a specific brand, Universal. All it showed from the DVD Forum was that their discs passsed four tests, as I'm certain many would, including Ritek.

Don't misunderstand me, BJM. I think your site is wonderful. It's full of useful information. But the vast majority of it is opinion--that's great! Frankly, I'd rather hear from a user than a company, because the user (usually) has no agenda.

All I'm saying is, let's make certain that we are not peddling opinion as fact, and leave it at that.

J--

ordering from a large or reputable dealer can also get you stung -- at least a good dealer will take returns .. companies like newegg and meritline have in the past sold fake maxells , lower grade disks and other bootleg mismarked disks ...

they will ussually admit when called to task -- but in several cases they have continured to sell the fake disks on thier web sites ..

not sure what your point is or how much "proof" you may need -- when 100's of people around the world all start to report the same problems, in the same time frames, reported on many different news groups and web sites, tested by using industry standard media testing tools and by physical inspection -- and all reach nearly the same conclusions independently ..

I would take that as being a pretty good proof.....

I remember in an advertising class I took in college many, many years ago, there was an example of "truth in advertising" given.

There was company that canned and sold salmon. However, their product was white salmon. Their ads included, "Our salmon is guaranteed not to turn pink in the can," or something like that. The claim was true! It was a fact! Their white salmon would not turn pink!

The problem was that their statement implied that the competitions' salmon had turned pink, which is untrue. It had always been pink! They had to pull all their ads that contained the "will not turn pink" claim.

I see the same thing here.

J--

look for a thread by a meriline employee (one of the largest sellers of riteks) that lists the grades of ritek disks ..

or just look for ritek grade or any brand grade -- its such a known fact to people in the media industry its pointless to have to re-prove something just to you for your own piece of mind ..
the information is already out there and not hard to find .. google is a good start ..

You claimed that Newegg was selling B grade discs. You claimed that Ritek was making and selling various grades of discs and implying that they were hiding this from the consumers. I have, as of yet, seen any proof, other than that which is antidotal.

Perhaps they turned out a flawed batch. It has been known to happen!

J--

"... its pointless to have to re-prove something just to you..."

So the bottom line is you can't provide any evidence. That's fine. You're happy where you are. I'm happy where I am. So long as we're all happy, it really doesn't make any difference, does it?

J--

"... just look for ritek grade..."

I did. Didn't find any facts, either, just more opinion.

J--

this information is already published .. since we deal with ritek directly and not ritek usa , we have a little further info than what you might find ..

B_JM: Yes, I would like to see that.

http://www.google.com/search?q=ritek+grade+++forum+archive&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&domains=www.dvdrhelp.com&sitesearch=www.dvdrhelp.com&as_qdr=all

http://www.dvd-and-media.com/Ritek-dvd-r-media.htm
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread/t-91491.html
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/22304

or do a search on google ...

there is a thread on dvdrhelp.com (videohelp.com ) by meritline on the different grades of ritek disks but i cant find it right now ... over 800,000 posts there ..


HOW to test different media -- a good read by my friend is posted here for free tools to do it if you dont want go by the other testing methods and equipment , which can cost some serious coin.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

Results 1 - 10 of about 13,900 for ritek grade.

well i get 13,900 hits .... you might want try google ... if you narrow that down to say
Results 1 - 10 of about 184 for ritek "b grade"

The last link, to the site that used to be called Lordsmurf, is the most useful. He has always had pretty good information.

Also, the supplier (MrYang) that posted in the UK forum had interesting things to say about Ritek's lower grade, although it seems from his and other posts that the bad stuff usually has a "Mountains and streams" label printed on it. Thus, if the media has no label, or has a Ritek label, it sounds like it should probably be "A" grade.

My God:

What happened to my post? All this controversy.
Ok.....I read through all this and let me give you a follow up. I don't know where the fake Ritek disks are coming from, but I can tell you that I don't believe they are coming from Newegg.
For example, riredale posted this link

A quote from that link said that "Grade A Ritek was Ritek own branded, Ridisc, Ridata, Traxdata, and Datasafe. There should be no problems with these brands whatsoever. "

The last two spindles of Ritek G04 that I got from Newwegg both said Ridata on them. They tops were a frosted white color. Non-printable variety. The last order came one week ago and was the same part number as the offer I posted above. I have no doubt that anyone who orders it will also get Ridata which means Grade A I guess.

John

BJ_M is a frequent presence on the DMN forums and always gives high-quality, trustworthy information.

He was the one who discovered Vegas could handle HD resolutions before Vegas 4.0b came out. He also showed Sony's Dithermaster how to get it to work on his machine.

He is the only person I know who edits in Vegas on material that started as 70mm film.

He is not just legit, he is way beyond legit.

BJ_M is a frequent presence on the DMN forums and always gives high-quality, trustworthy information.

He was the one who discovered Vegas could handle HD resolutions before Vegas 4.0b came out. He also showed Sony's Dithermaster how to get it to work on his machine.

He is the only person I know who edits in Vegas on material that started as 70mm film.

He is not just legit, he is way beyond legit.
=============

I think he is way off base on the Ritek G04 from Newegg.

John

John,

Can you post the Media ID of those disks?

We have two debates going on here.

1 Does Ritek make different grades of media.
2 What grade are the Riteks in the newegg offer.

Brand name is Ridata. According to the link posted by Riredale it is Grade A.
Complete ID as read by DVD Identifyer:

** INFO : Hex Dump Of 'Media Code'-Block Listed Below
** INFO : 4-Byte Header Preceding 'Media Code'-Block Discarded
** INFO : Format 0Eh - Pre-Recorded Information In Lead-In
0000 : 01 40 c1 fd 9e d8 52 00 02 76 0e 14 88 9a 80 00 .@....R..v......
0010 : 03 52 49 54 45 4b 47 00 04 30 34 00 00 00 00 00 .RITEKG..04.....
0020 : 05 88 80 00 00 00 01 00 06 08 12 11 86 67 80 00 .............g..
0030 : 07 88 80 00 00 00 00 00 08 05 1b 0e 10 08 09 00 ................
0040 : 09 97 06 0d 0b 80 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 ................
0050 : 0b 04 1d 18 a8 88 85 00 0c 89 ac 88 80 00 00 00 ................
0060 : 0d 00 00 d0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0070 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0080 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0090 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00a0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00b0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00c0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00d0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00e0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00f0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................



John