Oh, great...just bought a spindle in preparation for a 100+ disc job.
Spot, is there a way I can tell if I got the same crappy discs you did?

If I was home, yes...I could look at the lot number.
What happens is that some just freeze partway through playback on some machines. Driving us crazy, because we check them on 2 DVD players plus computers and they seem to be fine. Then I took one home and it won't play in my TV/DVD combo unit.

Hm,
perhaps not a media problem. I've had that very issue and it was the rate of change of the bitrate that was throwing some players off. Check the mpeg stream with BitRate Viewer for a possible spike.
Bob.

Hoo boy. Sorry to hear that...
If you get a lot number and/or manufacturer, please let us know!

Use Taiyo Yuden now for everything.
Never a problem.
Big fan.

Where do you purchase them, Pea?

Bob, you can still get 4 x Riteks from www.rimedia.com.au in Melbourne.

Peter

(edit - forgot the .au)

Bugger, just bought 200 Taiyo Yudens!
Still I think the TYs are better, cost 3 times more though.
Just checked them, Ritek -R 4x, discontinued, ya gotta be quick!
Bob.

Phew -I bought 200 yesterday!

Are these the 8x ones, and + or -? I'm on my last spindle of my +R 4x's & am weary about buying the 8x'ers.

I just bought a couple of hundred Ritek 8x discs. I'm about 50 or so into the first spindle with just one bad disc which seems pretty good. I have an 8 bay duplicator with Pioneer A09 burners in it, and I know that they are all up to date firmware wise. I have a feeling that at least some of the problems some people are having with the Ritek 8x drives are because of older firmware in their burners.

DSE, you mentioned in another post that you were going to buy some A09s at a bargain price to fill out the drive bays in your duplicator. Are they installed yet? Did you check to make sure that they had the latest bios update? Putting some new drives with older bios revisions into a duplicator might give you the problems you are experiencing.

Verbatim 4x have been fine for me so far.

I bought Maxells coated (500) and have had no problems whatsoever. However, they cost a touch more.

Dan Millican
www.s-films.com

Doug,
You have new burners if I am not mistaken. The burners may not have a firmware that works as well with that media as say your older burners did with Ritek G04, for example. I would suggest you try burning at a slower speed for starters or experimenting with a different burner program. If you are using a duplicator, then the burn speed experiments may be the most practical variable.
Try here to see which media and firmware combination seems to work best with your burners.

John

This site may also be of help.

Nope...the A09's that I bought from NewEgg won't arrive til later this week or early next week. This has been a problem for about 2 months, or roughly 500 disks worth. There have been maybe 2 dozen so far that have been problematic.
No spike issues, Farss, at least not on the one disk I've brought with me while traveling. Thanks for the reminder though, because I'd not checked that.

Nope...the A09's that I bought from NewEgg won't arrive til later this week or early next week. This has been a problem for about 2 months, or roughly 500 disks worth. There have been maybe 2 dozen so far that have been problematic.
No spike issues, Farss, at least not on the one disk I've brought with me while traveling. Thanks for the reminder though, because I'd not checked that.
==============
So how about the burn speed experiments? Try it at 2x.

John

I mean how many more skills do we have to acquire in this game. We gotta know how to use a camera, light a set, record half decent sound, calm talent when they spit the dummy, edit audio and video, mix audio, Eq audio, know how to get a half decent encode for DVD and then work out which media at which speed will burn in our burners and then find out they don't make it anymore or someone else makes it now and it's c**p.
Twas so much easier when we shot on VHS and at the end of the shoot stuck a label on the tape, gave it to the client, they gave us cash and we went home and slept well.
Ooops I forgot, this is progress.
Bob.

Bob - you don't know how much this is true.

K.I.S.S.

I have unconsciously driven my whole arts career on this concept. I've "driven" my businesses by what "customers" I want and the product I wish to make - oh yes!

I know you make the case for the ways in which we become Swiss Army knives VERY quickly and that there is a search and a longing for the VHS>label and away yah go way days. But I say they never went! What I can do in this NEW digital age is far quicker and attainable than back then - that's the progress part answered. Our job as artists is to make things simpler and clearer - mustn't forget that one.

. .and yes I haven't lost my sense of humour . .. I do find what you say as being funny if not a tad wistful. However, we all have choices.

Best regards,

Grazie

Costco has 50 TDK printables for $30 - I've just come off a bad spindle of Maxell printables with about 15 of them not working. Will play fine in the 'puter drive but hesitate, freeze or just won't play on at least one of my set top players. Never had a problem with the jewel-cased Maxells though.

Mike

I wasn't being so wistfull, there's still guys out there making a living doing this.
Recording stock wedding intro with the couples name onto a VHS tape, put in VHS camera, shoot wedding, hand tape to couple after reception, get paid.
Bob.

...calm talent when they spit the dummy...
Bob, is this an Aussie thing or...?
Randy

i mentioned here about 6 - 7 months ago problems with Ritek were cropping up a lot (after years of being the best to use) ..

they are very spotty in quality right now - and also depends on which grade of riteks you get and you rarely know (newegg doent alway sell top grade for example) ..


Taiyo Yuden inkjets i would also suggest - as well as using only pioneer burners (many of the older models are the best still) .