OT: DVD brands and how yours stacks up

Julius_ wrote on 2/2/2015, 8:48 PM

I usually burn bluray disc but for small projects and dvd copies for clients I've been using Ridata for over 10 years (it used to be another name before). I must of burnt about 2000 dvds....today a few clients came back because their dvd freezes a few seconds or skips (I did copies for them based on a dvd they gave me).

AT first I didn't believe it, but when another client also complained a red flag went up. I burnt one myself and this time I decided to watch the whole dvd (normally I just watch about 4-5 minutes to know that it works)...after all I've burnt about 2000 dvds! The little bugger of a DVD skipped on me! The setting was 6,000,000 and burned at 8x (dvd was capable at 16x). So I try another DVD and another...all with problems!! I was freaking out! How could this be? Maybe my burner?

Then from another batch of DVDs that I had, I tried a different brand, and burned the same project and voila! Worked like a charm!

I did some digging and found out that after all these years, the Ridata brand that I was using is a crappy 2nd blend quality...and the Taiyo Yuden that just saved me is a premium quality brand.

There's nothing more unsatisfying than having your good work being judged on its media....lesson learned. Buy the good stuff!

See how your dvd brand stacks up here:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm

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Comments

videoITguy wrote on 2/22/2015, 1:12 PM

The original benchmark test code was written by particular programmer many years ago for Nero Ahead software. That code under corporate support was linked to a particular firmware that could be distributed to hardware companies. Very few chose to adopt it - namely BenQ and Lite-on.

When Nero changed owners, the programmer left the company and took his code to be independent. But as a single person entity he no longer had the clout to force any growth of the distribution into hardware, that Nero once did. And since the code rights were taken away from Nero in the separation clause - they could not do anything about it either.

Some parts of the test with Nero still have a minor function as you demonstrated with disk uniformity - a sort of optical disk defrag test - but is better to have the correct ROM drive with chip.

astar wrote on 2/22/2015, 4:51 PM

Checking your media with that DVD surface scan, the test that writes the DVD full and verifies the reads, is a good way to sort out inferior media. I have also found that DVD read error rate goes way up beyond about 3.75GB. I always try and get my project around the 3GB mark but not more than 3.75GB. Also smaller data sizes means quicker duplication. When I used to work in metal stamping fabrication, we would check measurements every so often on a run. I tend to do a full verifications on DVDs about every tenth disk for each drive I am using. Keep the burnt media separated by drive, that way you do not have to verify each media from all the drives you are using if something comes up bad. Visually inspect all media before burning and toss any media that has even a the slightest surface manufacturing flaw. I use only DVD+R Verbatim media, DVD+R drive compatibility is not the issue it was, and the +R standard has more error control features.

DVDA --> Test Disc --> ISO -->verify the ISO--> Windows ISO burn --> 4x DVD drives on separate SATA controllers. This works great for me, but only I run about 1-200 DVDs at a time, more than that I outsource the duplication to replication.