First and foremost, UPDATE your firmware ASAP!! God only knows when the burner was shipped to the stores. There could be two to three updates by the time you get the burner home and into your computer. Look it's free and it doesn't hurt to do it. Secondly, Get some really good media like Ritek G04/5 or Memorex (I've never used memorex but I have heard it is good), and Sony media. Find out what media is best suited for YOUR burner. The battle between which is better +R or -R, I think it doesn't matter. That's just my opinion. I use -R for all my needs. Don't get caught up in this hoopla little media battle. For my burner BeNQ DVD DD DW1620 I just went to the website and found a list of all compatible media that my burner was tested with. Then I knew what was good and what was bad. But I think the Ritek G05 are the best for my burner. Trust me, the initial cost very much out-weights the numerous times the backup didn't work and restart and just plain crashed. Guess that's my two cent's in.
Not sure about Memorex, from what I read on this forum they are only good for beer coasters. I've not used them but due to negative feedback I shall not even try them. But of course you are right in saying use media that suits your own writer as I have found in mine it likes Sony, Verbantim, TDK and Imation.
Review on zrobot points if you don't mind. 1.If you are a new to burning on flash your writer when needed.Firmware updates are free and normally work well.But hey if it works well why mess with it i say. 2.Media most find Ritek to be great and at a good price as well.Memorex would not touch i class as a difficult media as many do. 3.As zrobot said checking out the best media for your drive is good idea and the best place to find out is from the web site of the maker of your writer.zrobot is spot on with this one .
A good reason to upgrade the firmware is because you don't know when you will need the updated abilities involved. If you run into a situation where the new firmware would solve a problem, how would you know if you needed the firmware to solve that problem or not? Usually there aren't that many firmware upgrades involved with a particular burner. My oldest burner has had only 1 firmware upgrade necessary since I purchased it. As long as one is careful and follow the directions, there is little that normally goes wrong. Inattention and not following directions can lead to a damaged drive though.
Memorex media really bites, as for firmware updates I always do mine. I have ALWAYS had better read/burn times with updates.
Bardie, He was saying if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In this case I believe in preventive medicine, flash the firmware. However, a lot of people are reluctant to do so and they don't report any problems. It's a personal judgment call.
Some interesting questions. Are we talking about Memorex being a bad brand or are we talking about Memorex selling some questionable media supplied by a manufacturer and sold under the Memorex brand? Are the Memorex-Ritek bad? How about the Memorex-Ricoh discs? How about the Prodisc Memorex media? Then we have the CMC Magnetics media, is that the bad one? Currently most people are saying the CMC material is questionable. I haven't had much to do with it, so I can't make a judgment call. I do know that several top brands use media made by CMC, Verbatim among them. So, it is not always a good idea to condemn a brand without looking deeper to see who the manufacturer is. Freeware tools such as DVDInfopro and DVD Identifier can be used to read the manufacturer code from media. That way you know what you have and what you're calling good or bad. A number of manufacturers sell to different brands. It takes a lot of database cross referencing to just start to sift through the confusing mess. Depending on the format, all those media mentioned by bardie could have been made by the same manufacturer. Ricoh makes media for TDK, Verbatim, Sony, and Imation. Ricoh manufactures the +R/RW media for a lot of brands.
Keep in mind that knowing the manufacturer doesn't always help. Ritek, for example, is well known for selling media that doesn't meet quality control standard as B, C, or D Grade. The fact that Verbatim uses CMC media doesn't necessarily mean anything either. They also use it for their cheap CDs but their good ones use metal AZO (Verbatim's parent company) dye. From the consistent comments I've seen about Ricoh dye it sounds like the media that doesn't pass quality control is probably tossed, so that would mean it's probably fine. Prodisc is a little hard to be sure about. They used to make crap discs but from what I've read about them recently they may have turned that around (remember Ritek hasn't always made good media either). The thing is unless they consistently sell good media I'd still call Memorex a bad brand. That doesn't necessarily mean all the media they brand is crap, but if you can't trust that it will be good most of the time it's a poor brand.
No one questions the fact that Memorex has hurt it's name over the past year or so. Their association with manufacturers with poor records is the problem. Poorly manufactured items which makes the buying of Memorex media a crap shoot. One has to wonder if they'll get good media or bad, making it a poor proposition to deal with Memorex. So, in the end the situation does fall back to the manufactured product. Too much bad media sold by a brand can give the brand a bad name. Just as a little questionable merchandise can be sqeezed in as the cheap end of the line, i.e. CMC in the Verbatim line as Vurbal mentioned.
As far as graded materials, that has been an ongoing question and no one has yet to prove Ritek or any of the major manufacturers have a system of A, B, C, D grades that get sorted, sold and shipped accordingly. Those categories are usually something added by those doing their own testing and putting media into their own grading categories. The manufacturers claim to destroy substandard merchandise. Ritek has been the object of scams in Europe and some of their merchandise quality has been questioned. Some media with Taiyo Yuden (TY) manufacturing codes have also been cheap knockoffs. Many of the Ritek problems didn't reach the North American market. In the US, everyone appears more worried about how the dye change in the G04 line is going to affect the product. Also, much of the forum fodder in Europe was fueled by the merchants themselves trying to move their product over the competitors. I saw statements like, "My Ritek is superior because of my supplier". Guess that supplier only sold to one sales outlet. The best thing a consumer can do is buy the branded line of a product from a reputable dealer with a good guarantee. That way if a problem crops up with the media, one stands a good chance of having their complaint resolved to their satisfaction.
Interesting, as Ricoh and Taiyo Yuden also make the Datalife Plus line of Verbatim, their top line. Since MCC and CMC produce most of the -R media, one can look at the packaging for the metal azo on the lablel and tell if they have the MCC or CMC product in hand. With the +R line there is some worry, a consumer will probably get 1 of 3 top products, MCC, TY or Ricoh. But, CMC is in the mix, until you get it home and check it, you won't know what you have unless you see the metal azo on the label.
Once again some really good points by brobear and vurbal.The reason i mentioned the flashing of firmware is that when you start in the dvd burning world we all know very little about things.Most drives function well without being flashed.Flashing your drive normally needs doing when you become a little more sure about things you are trying and more than just the basic burns.Firmware updates are sometimes media related updates for the drive to support certain media better.The first drive i had the pioneer 104 a bloody good drive for the time of purchase.I never flashed for the first 12 months and had no problems.When your new to the dvd burning you just want to get your burns working well that is your first main thing.Obviously once you get a little more advance you then begin to look for problems before they happen like brobear mentioned.But before i flash my drive i always ask myself for what reason and do i really need to. Memorex discs i have used which are under there own name ie Memorex i have always found to be of poor quality.This is probably one of the reasons memorex are sold under the names such as brobear mentions which are good quality media.Peronally i prefer to use Datawrite Ritek G04's as i have never had any problems with them.I myself believe if you find a good media that works for you then stick with it.It can't do your drive any harm sticking with one good quality media rather than throwing all sorts at your drive.
john179 On the Memorex, I think everyone has just about covered that one. Selling too much media that has playability issues has damaged the brand name. Until early this year I was still using Memorex +R media. Memorex was still being supplied +R media by Ricoh. (Memorex had swithched to using CMC as the major supplier of the -R media much earlier than the switch to +R.) Luckily, when I ran out of my bulk supply, I ran out to a local shop to purchase some media to use while placing another bulk order. Lucky in that I purchased only a small supply, Memorex had switched manufacturers and gone to CMC Magnetics as their primary manufacturer. Turns out the new media was the CMC that Memorex had switched to. About that time I experienced some systems failure and am not sure if some of my coasters were media or system related. Those failures along with a bad rep steers me away from CMC and Memorex. As Ricoh is my disc of choice, I have plenty of other brands to choose from. I just picked up a bulk order of Fuji (branded) that are the Ricoh media I like. I buy branded merchandise (various brands) on sale and have had good luck getting quality media. I pay particular attention to which manufacturers have been supplying a particular brand before I buy it. The vendors I deal with have a good return policy and guarantee. So, if I do make a mistake and the merchandise isn't what I wanted, I have the option to return.
john179 Forgot to mention. Several of my associates use the Ritek media and support it with a fervor. However, since the dye change with the G04s, some have switched to the Ritek-Ridata 4X +R media. Unless they've changed, the +R media in question is a Ricoh product. As most drives now use +/- R/RW equally well, it is no problem to switch from - to +R media. Since the dye change, some of my friends prefer the +R Ricoh to the -R G04. Same companies, so I doubt the vendors or suppliers care which they use. I hear Ritek is starting to phase out some of the older media and are pushing sales of the newer media. Seems orders of G04 from Meritline couldn't be filled for a while, either overly popular or decreased production. Word is the latter, rumor mind you. A friend told me a sales rep mentioned the move with the Ritek and the comment was unsolicited. It was mentioned because my friend was having problems ordering the G04s he'd been using in the past.
As i said brobear you know your stuff mate and of course your well aware of your media.Its trial and error for all on what suits us best depending on your burner.Media is changing all the time these days trying to keep up with the latest burners.I believe in the long run we will see lots of poor quality meadia on the markets.This will be from all makers and not just memorex as they all try to match the speed of the media to the latest speeds on the latest burners. I remember when G04's first came on the market there was many that were less reliable to the 2xspeed.But they got it right in the end and now there is many good quality G04's about.So were now going through the same phase again with the G05's.I have found sevral brands when testing with them to be less in quality to those of the G04.To be honest i'm a firm believer that 4 x speed is fast enough if you want to ensure on quality.
john179 You imparted some good advice when you mentioned burning at low speeds for DVD movies. 4X is plenty fast enough. One is only spending a few more minutes to insure a good burn. As the speed increases, so does the chance for write errors. Most branded merchandise of the major brands have to meet quality standards. So, I buy branded merchandise. On sale and in bulk, it's no higher than much of the low quality merchandise on the market. There are a lot of no name products flooding the market, much of it Taiwanese . You also touched on another subject. Personal preference. Whether the placebo effect or in some cases true compatibility issues, one has to pick what is right for them and their drive. Most of the top line manufacturers have most of the compatibility problems solved and most of the new drives work equally well with + or - media. Besides the manufacturers working toward compatibility, the hardware companies are also working toward the same goal. Many firmware upgrades are aimed toward making drives more able to use a broader variety of media. So, the search for compatible media isn't quite as difficult as it used to be. Just a note here, people shouldn't mistake compatibility for quality; they're not always the same.
Very good point mate and well pointed out.I know bulpak media is very compatible with one of my dvd writers.But i do not use as these do not have the same quality as my regular brand i use.Just the same as when looking for value for money media you have to decide where to draw line line between price and quality.
Thanks for the comments guys. Yes i do beleive if it ain't broken don't fix it. It was just in my case that I had to update my firmware. It was a pain spending money on all of those coaster anyways
zrobot Just out of curiosity, what media was it you had that you needed to upgrade the firmware to be able to use? The brand, speed, and the manufacturer code would be handy to know; just in case someone else runs into the same problem.
