CMC manufactures Verbatim DVD+/-R media as well as their CD-R media. Verbatim media are excellent quality. I know several college professors who take points off any papers written with citations from Wikipedia because of the misplaced credence given to such anecdotal information, and this is an example of the way reports can be confused with facts when readers do not know the difference between the two. As for digitalFAQ, half of what is written there is correct. The other half is either wrong, misleading, or simply bizarre. Optical engineers read their information for a good laugh.
"According to online media enthusiast communities, CMC Magnetics is reputed to be one of the worst manufacturers of CD and DVD media on the market.[1] CMC Magnetics manufactures mostly "value" media according to digitalFAQ, their reputation for quality is almost universally low and the media is not recommended if durability or reliability is a concern. [2] Many Quality/Stress scans by commercial software like Nero CD-DVD Speed reveal the media to be among the worst performing[3][4], showing extremely unpredictable jitter and many CRC errors." 1) Some online media enthusiast communities disparage CMC Magnetics products. Other similar communities do not. "Reputed to be" used without quantitative numbers is a questionable charge. At one time the world was reputed to be flat. Increasing the number of people who believed that did not make it any more true. 2) As I mentioned, digitalFAQ has so much questionable information that it is of little value as a citation. Wikipedia, even with peer reviews, is not considered an entirely reliable source of information either. CMC does not manufacture "value" media any more or less than any other manufacturer. Price pressure affects all. CMC does seem willing to dump B-grade or even C-grade material on the market when customers request the lowest price possible without regard to quality. Spin-X is probable a good example of that, and there is an interesting story behind that decision. The blame there belongs as much or more to the brand that decided to put such stuff in the market. (Kodak and Mitsui were two companies that refused to let B-grade leave the factory. Neither manufactures discs any longer because that approach toward quality is expensive.) 3) "Reputation for quality" being universally low is contradicted by Mitsubishi Chemicals' decision to have CMC manufacture the Verbatim brand. Philips, the pioner of optical media and publisher of the disc book standards, also relies on CMC for their products. So does HP. I suspect that the optical engineers at those companies have at least as much knowledge about true quality standards as online enthusiasts. I know they have much better test equipment. 4) The best work done on long-term reliability of CD-R and DVD+/-R media under the most stringent standards found that CD-Rs would last 120 years under good conditions and DVD+R media would last over 40 years. Most of the discs in the test were off-the-shelf CMC production. (Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs, by the way, will not last as long as the CMC discs, not because of any quality difference, but simply because the dye they use is less stable than the phthalocyanine dye used by CMC and most other CD-R producers. So much for "not recommended if durability or reliability is a concern." 5) Commercial scanning software displays how well or poorly a drive reads data coming from a disc. That involves: a) the reading drive; b) the software itself; c) the recording software; d) the recording drive; e) the quality of the recording; f) the condition of the disc being read; g) the initial quality of the disc; h) the compatibility of the recording drive firmware and the disc to be recorded. Such software alone cannot reveal enough information about the initial disc quality unless all the other factors are eliminated as contributors.
My doctoral work was in a different field, but I switched to analogue and digital storage a long time ago. Particulate magnetic storage, photo-optical storage, and electron flash storage were the areas of expertise; and I wrote or helped write some standards in use today.
Hey Joe, what media do you use or recommend for backing up movies? Thanks How do I do this? Which app? I use DVDFab, DVD Shrink, and ImgBurn. I played a couple of my DVD's on my laptop and they play jittery. I burned them at 8x. Still using the Memorex DVD-R. Like I said, they play great in the Xbox. Cheers.
Well DO they play well in your DVD players? If you're getting pixilation and stoppage, it's like everyone said, it's the media; change to something better and slow your burn down to half the rated media speed.
Check here. http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/how_to_set_booktype_for_blank_dvd_r_w__media_page_2.cfm
I checked info on booktyping, its still hazy to me, I have burned hundreds using +r's only, I have 4 stand alone players, never had an issue with play back on either, however my nighbor who occasionally borrows a movie who has a samsung about a year old does have issues. I only burn with ty's and verb's but once bought maxells with a ggod deal, he especially has issues with them, but now all of a sudden he is even having trouble with some of my verb's. I'm wondering if not booktyping might be a cause, and I never use imageburn, just use clonedvd. And last, are there any drawbacks in booktyping?
I'm using the Sony D21 DVD+R 16x media, burning at 8x, and I changed the booktype to DVD-rom. They play great in the DVD player and xbox but they are still a little jittery in the computer. I'm gonna run nerospeed on them. Not sure what I'm looking for but Im gonna experiment.
The whole test should take 10-15 min. It also depends on what you have the speed set to in the test. Set it @ X8. Can you rip the copies in question-if you can then you got a good copy. You may have some issue with the program playing dvd in pc. You media and burn speed is fine as is booktype to DVD-Rom.
