What kind of DVD-R's are you using now?

Comments

farss wrote on 10/22/2005, 5:27 AM
Interesting article, storing anything at 25degC +/- 2 degC is quite a task, add the 55% RH +/- 5% and that's a pretty serious storage facility.
This article:
http://www.prodisc.com.au/files/journal-109-5.pdf
is a far more detailed investigation under real world archival storage conditions. It pretty much shows that the azo dyes used in cheap CD-Rs and all DVD +/-R media simply will not last. The best performance is from gold or gold/silver alloys with phthalocyanine dyes which offer archival storage of at least tens of years. Problem is of course no one is making DVDs using that technology.
These findings are backed up by what several people are telling me, even with careful storage after as little as 12 months their DVDs are developing unrecoverable errors.This is further backed up by several reports of IT staff being unable to restore data archived some time ago onto DVDs.
Bob.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 10/22/2005, 6:08 AM

Regarding DVD longevity, one article says "yes" another says "no." One says "long" the next says "short." One says "months" one says "years." What's a person to believe? I believe what I see, based on my own experience.

So far we've got DVDs (Ritek & Verbatim) that we made over three years ago and they play as well today as the day they were burned. Some are stored in CD boxes (I don't want to hear it). Some are stored in DVD cases. Others are stored in paper envelopes. They are kept away from the sun and in an air conditioned (between 72 and 75 degree) editing suite on a shelf.

As the one article clearly stated, right up front:

Factors that affect disc life expectancy include the following:


craftech wrote on 10/22/2005, 7:14 AM
One thing I am not 100% sure of is the percentage of the market we make up. I couldn't find it when I used Google to search it. I realize that we mustn't make up the majority judging from the "faster is better" trend and that it must in fact be the average consumer that makes up the majority of the market, but I am not sure what percentage we actually make up. If we make up anything siginificant at all, then a loud collective cry from us NOT to discontinue 4x media for example should yield results.
It appears from the responses that 4x media from Taiyo Yuden, Ritek, and MXL RG02 (according to my research ) have yielded the most compatibility with standalone DVD players. But the Taiyo Yuden seems to be all that is left in significant availability. I have no doubt that if the current trend continues unaddressed that will be gone as well at some point in the not too distant future.

John

PS: I have noticed that there have been compatibility issues even with the above mentioned types on computer DVD Rom drives that various customers own. It hasn't caused anyone to return a disc, but some of the customers I know well have complained about that factor particularly when they have the ATI DVD player software installed. Anyone know why? It is a pretty common software DVD player.
I, for one, never have a problem playing a burned disc on mine because I am using a hardware decoder card. But that isn't what most people use on their computers. Strange though, because most ATI video cards have built in hardware decoding and of all the software players I would think the ATI DVD player would play the best because of the built in hardware decoder in the ATI cards.
craftech wrote on 10/22/2005, 7:28 AM
Thanks John - Disk Identifier describes them as TTG02
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That's TDK's own 8X media as far as I know. A few others apparently use it as well including SOME Memorex.

According to VideoHelp, the results are better with the TDK branded TTG02 than with the others, but still "Mixed" in terms of console reliability. Happy to know you haven't experienced any problems with them Peter.

John
craftech wrote on 10/22/2005, 7:42 AM
I personally like Taiyo-Yuden and had poor experience with Ritek G04 and G05 media, but I appear to be unusual in this respect. Here are the error rates I measured from my own DVD-R archives.
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John,
Thanks for doing those tests. They were very helpful and I am sure others besides myself really appreciate it. I did notice on your website that you link Ralph LaBarge's 2002 DVD media tests that appeared in DV magazine. The problem I have always had with that report is that it never addressed media ID in the comparisons only "brands". That surprised me coming from Ralph and really made the report virtually useless.

John
farss wrote on 10/22/2005, 7:49 AM
I was pretty nervous about this switch to 8x media however the only reliable input I've had is that the TY 8x media burnt at 4x is better than the older 4x TY media. Longevity maybe a different issue though.
Regarding compatibility. I had a really curly issue sometime ago with a new Samsung player. Issue was caused by burning with RecordNow DX rather than DVDA. Don't remember the precise specifics but it had to do with the file system. DVDs used a modified file system compared to a DVD Data disk, almost all DVD players don't care but this Samsung one sure did. Burnt the exact same files onto the exact same media from DVDA and disk played flawlessly.
I see a lot of guys burning with Nero etc, unless Nero lets you burn a compliant DVD-Video disk you might run into the odd problem.
Bob.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 10/22/2005, 7:58 AM

John, for what it's worth, I've sent Ritek an e-mail, with a brief explanation, asking them not to dicontinue the G-04. I would suggest you and anyone else who feels likewise to do the same. It certainly can't hurt.

ridatasales [at] ritekusa [dot] com


johnmeyer wrote on 10/22/2005, 10:43 AM
First, in answer to the original thread, I use Ritek G04, but as they get hard to find, I am switching to Tayo Yuden 8x. So far, so good.

Second, anecdotal stories are useful to a point, but they generally are more misleading than helpful. There are dozens of things that affect the outcome of a burn, and none of the stories contributed by users gives you any information on ALL of those dozens of other variables (such as bitrate, burner, burner firmware, number of different DVD players tested). In addition, given that some manufacturers are putting fake IDs on the media itself, it is difficult to know what you are getting. Factor into this the usual Internet penchant for urban legends (like using a Sharpie to put black around the outside edge of a CD), and you've got the recipe for voodo.

The one thing for which anecdotes are useful is spotting the really bad stuff.

What's needed is science, meaning controlled studies, with all the variables held constant.

As far as longevity, here are links to organizations dedicated to making such tests:

NIST

Government Information Preservation Working Group

Here's the link to the now-ancient compatibility study done by Ralph LaBarge:

DVD Compatibility Test

I provide this not because it has any information that is useful today (most of the media cited is no longer available), but to indicate the kind of thing that we need to find in order to answer the core question of what media works best. I have searched on "Ralph LaBarge" to see if he has published anything further and, as best I can tell, he is now only releasing the results of his work to manufacturers and other interested parties, and only for a fee.

[Edit]

Here's one more article that you'll find interesting:

When Good Discs Go Bad

jeremyk wrote on 10/22/2005, 1:34 PM
I've been using Ritek G04 with a Pioneer 105 burner, though my last batch of 100 had 4 discs that failed during burning. The last time I wanted to order inkjet-printable Ritek G04s from Meritline they were out of stock, but Mertiline suggested Arita 4x as a substitite. The Aritas were also cheaper.

The Aritas, which seem to work fine, are identified by DVDecrypt as being Ritek G04. Somewhat mysterious.

Jeremy
MyST wrote on 10/22/2005, 8:26 PM
There's a reseller in Montreal selling Ritek. I asked him if they were G04s and he said yes.
"We just have the printable Ritek G04 DVD-R"

I'm not sure how reliable he is, but I'm probably going to order in the next few days.

http://www.blankdvdmedia.com/products/Ritek_4x_DVD-R_Inkjet_Printable.php


Mario

Edit: I doubt the shipping is free outside of Canada.
farss wrote on 10/23/2005, 4:30 AM
Don't know if this really helps but over the last two years for one client I've authored over 200 titles using DVDA. Those he has duplicated onto a variety of media, on average 20 copies per title so I'd say that's around 2,000 DVDs out there. To date using this process we've had one return!
When he first went from VHS to DVDs he was just using STB burners and getting around 30% returns.
Why did things get so much better, in all honesty I don't think it can all be attributed to DVDA and my authoring. Most Australians are now on their 2nd or 3rd DVD player and they've become much better at playing anything, the switch to add DivX playability seems to have loosened them up a bit too.
A good percentage of the problems are also the fault of the players, I think over at VCDHelp there's a list of Hollywood releases and which players will not play them. Bear in mind that a DVD isn't much different to a web site and we all know the issues trying to get any browser to correctly display all of them.
Bob.
JJKizak wrote on 10/23/2005, 6:15 AM
I have been using Verbatim -R 8X with the Pioneer 109 and Plextor 716A burners on a small scale and have no problems. I noticed that the 716A burn looks deeper (speculation) than the Pioneer. I also burned one Dual Layer Verbatim 2.4X disc and it worked fine with DVD-A3. Having worked in the plastics industry for many years I know what sunlight can do to plastic items. The extrusion processes add all kinds of "UV" and "anti-static" supplements and if the discs are injection molded then the base materials are somewhat different in composition.
If the dude on the machine is running a bit of a hangover who knows what you can end up with.

JJK
craftech wrote on 10/23/2005, 9:34 PM
Here's one more article that you'll find interesting:

When Good Discs Go Bad
============
The article was interesting. However, this quote took me back a little:

"Vendors like Maxell and Verbatim manufacture discs on their own production lines"

They don't.

Maxell has used their name on discs manufactured by Maxell, Taiyo Yuden, Ritek, JVC Victor, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Optodisc, TDK, Philips, and Ricoh.

Verbatim has used their name on discs manufactured by MKM /Verbatim (another MItsubishi Chemical division), CMC Magnetics, Ritek, Ricoh, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Taiyo Yuden, and Matsushita.

In terms of the first links, I think that standardization is definitely in order in this area of manufacturing and long overdue. The sooner the better.

John

Happy the TYG02 is working out for you as a substitute for Ritek G04. It is starting to look like choice to switch to.
John_Cline wrote on 10/24/2005, 6:52 AM
I don't know about Maxell, but from what I can tell based on Media ID code and error testing performance, Verbatim seems to manufacture their premium "DataLife Plus" DVD media. They have been quite consistent. Their lower-end media is like you said; manufactured by a variety of companies. I would think that Maxell probably does the same thing.

John
craftech wrote on 10/24/2005, 7:07 AM
I don't know about Maxell, but from what I can tell based on Media ID code and error testing performance, Verbatim seems to manufacture their premium "DataLife Plus" DVD media. They have been quite consistent. Their lower-end media is like you said; manufactured by a variety of companies. I would think that Maxell probably does the same thing.

========
Under the Verbatim "DataLife Plus" label, Verbatim has used the following manufacturers:

Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (both the MCC and MKM divisions), Taiyo Yuden, Matsushita, and Ritek.

John

John_Cline wrote on 10/24/2005, 10:49 AM
OK, good to know. Nevertheless, I have never had a coaster or customer complaint out of literally thousands of Verbatim DataLife Plus discs. I guess I'll continue to stick with what works.

John
craftech wrote on 10/24/2005, 11:04 AM
OK, good to know. Nevertheless, I have never had a coaster or customer complaint out of literally thousands of Verbatim DataLife Plus discs. I guess I'll continue to stick with what works.
==========
OK John,
But do check the media ID from time to time to make sure they haven't switched to an inferior manufacturer to save money at your expense.
John
craftech wrote on 10/24/2005, 11:28 AM
There is a decent deal at Supermediastore on Taiyo Yuden 4X TYG01 plain discs for $49.99 for 200 discs by applying Coupon code "techbargains6" at checkout. Expires today 10/24/05.


For those of you in the UK, I have heard many good things about this supplier. AKA SVP.Co
craftech wrote on 10/24/2005, 12:18 PM
There's a reseller in Montreal selling Ritek. I asked him if they were G04s and he said yes.
"We just have the printable Ritek G04 DVD-R"

I'm not sure how reliable he is, but I'm probably going to order in the next few days.

http://www.blankdvdmedia.com/products/Ritek_4x_DVD-R_Inkjet_Printable.php


Mario

Edit: I doubt the shipping is free outside of Canada.
================
Mario,

The best vendor in Canada as far as I have heard is www.blankmedia.ca.

John
MichaelS wrote on 11/3/2005, 9:37 AM
My source for Tayo Yuden 8x has just dried up. Anyone know a dealer that sells this media?

Thanks
Jay Gladwell wrote on 11/3/2005, 9:53 AM

Try here.


craftech wrote on 11/28/2005, 6:42 PM
Just a heads up on this important issue. I didn't post this earlier because I saw infrequent coments, but now it seems that the comments have become the norm.
What I am talking about is Supermediastore (a normally top notch media supply company) selling TYG02 and TYG03 as TYG01. The user results (as you might expect) haven't been as good. I cannot understand this company doing that. They have been so honest up till now.

John
farss wrote on 11/28/2005, 9:01 PM
Guess this is worth a mention here, my local supplier has FINALLY got the factory in China to run a batch of archival grade DVDs, check them out at:
www.prodisc.com.au

Before you rush in, be warned, they're expensive, max burn speed is 4x and they probably will not play in STB DVD players. These are strictly for archiving.

Also please note this is NOT the same company as Prodisc in Taiwan that sells media under that name in the rest of the world.

I believe the first container load is already sold out, I'm trying to get my hands on a few samples to try out as these might be a big leap forward.

Bob.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 11/29/2005, 5:36 AM

John, have you contacted SuperMedia and asked them about this? My experience with them so far has been they are very open and helpful.