We all know that it's bad practice to fill a DVD to 100% as that's when you get problems, that last 5%.
But why is it so, after all we paid for a 4.7GB disk, we should be able to use all of it. The explaination is that the first part of the stamper (the thing used to press the DVD plastic) that wears out is the outer edge. Now the low rent manufacturers like to save a dollar and those stampers are pretty expensive so they just keep using them.
So the Catch 22 here is they can justify what they're doing because everyone knows not to use the last bit of the disk anyway!
What's no doubt even more confusing is that depending on when the stamper gets replaced some of the same manufactured disks will be fine to 100% but the next batch you buy might not and who'd think the problem was the disks.
Of course the solution is to only buy good quality (and expensive) media.
But why is it so, after all we paid for a 4.7GB disk, we should be able to use all of it. The explaination is that the first part of the stamper (the thing used to press the DVD plastic) that wears out is the outer edge. Now the low rent manufacturers like to save a dollar and those stampers are pretty expensive so they just keep using them.
So the Catch 22 here is they can justify what they're doing because everyone knows not to use the last bit of the disk anyway!
What's no doubt even more confusing is that depending on when the stamper gets replaced some of the same manufactured disks will be fine to 100% but the next batch you buy might not and who'd think the problem was the disks.
Of course the solution is to only buy good quality (and expensive) media.