Newbies pls see this - cheapy media is BAD.....

i started this thread to illustrate how many problems cheapy media can cause and how much better results you will get with very good quality media (for not much cost difference at all).

First off - so-called Taiyo Yuden media by Bulkpaq - these are [bold]NOT[/bold] Taiyo Yuden and are [bold]fake[/bold]. The disc is 8x, burnt at 4x -


Second - reputable 8x media burnt at 4x -


Third - reputable 8x media burnt at 8x -


snippet from http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=80545 (Interpreting PI/PO error scans) -

I do not profess to be an expert in the ins and out of these results, suffice it to say that questionable cheapy media is just not worth the supposed small cost saving over quality brand-name media.

All three of the above discs were burnt 100% without error, play perfectly (at the moment, even the Bulkpaq), however already i am unable to copy the Bulkpaq disc due to it being crap quality. Even Brute Force option in DVD Decrypter won't do it, cleaning the disc won't work, copy/paste will not work, even using different DVD drives doesn't work.

More info can be found here - http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=80545
As i say i'm no expert in this stuff (yet), however a quick comparison of the graphs/graph ranges on the page says it all.

 

Hi, this is my first post (as in the first one i've started, not the firstpost i've made). Waddya think ?

(that disc is Kill Bill 1, thankfully it played back fine, not so long back)

 

@arniebear - looks like Plex utils are getting better, i haven't used their kit since the utterly brilliant (SCSI) PX-32TSi's (used a few of them for many years). If ever i use any of their burners i shall try out the utils..

 

Just posted a link to this post over on the CD Freaks site too, as the BulkPaq scan was like the Loch Ness monster of scans (well it is to me anyhow!)

 

@matt72 - Nu-tech burner - hmmm, that rings a bell. Was trying to help out someone with a similar drive last night, less me have a look...

yup - got it - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/193674

Hope yours isn't the same drive....

....i may have led myself a sorry song and dance on that thread as it seems the DVDRW IDE 1008 - 1008IM otherwise known as BTC 1008 has a following of how shall we say, erm, not happy customers

As for the Pango brand - haven't heard of those ; something tells me they're not gonna be that good tho... just don't sound very brand name to me

 

@matt72 - you may be right that the Pengo are new; i don't try out enough other brands as i can't afford to, but i try and keep my eyes and ears open nonetheless, as best as i can.

I'm just passing on stuff that i pickup along the way, some is my own knowledge, some is stuff i myself pick up along the way, a lot of it from around here from a lot of long-termers (and some not so long-termers too); there's one helluva lot of info in these forums.

 

Rotary, i'm honoured you popped by ! lol

 

@DogBomb, cheers, you reminded me of something i missed out of this post -

i started out in the DVD game using Bulkpaq 8x disks. I burnt a fair few at 8x as i had a brand new burner that was apparently capable, then i started having skipping/freezing films. At this point i should mention i had virtually no discs that Nero error'd out on during the burn. (if a disc error'd it went straight in the wood burner). Anyway, i then started researching, the old firmware route, slowed it down to 4x. Still had freezing; bought new go-faster pc etc, still going at 4x on the Bulkpaq's. Stupidly i didn't suspect them as a) i had loads of tubs to use up and b) they had media code TYG02 which i foolishly thought made them good. Finally the penny dropped and i switched media a few times. Tried few other things as well like different PCs, replaced burner under warranty with the Sony in my sig below etc etc.. Anyway i digress, many 100s of Verbatim's later i'm still doing 4x out of paranoia and because i have many 100s of potentially crap films on those bulkpaq's that i probably won't watch for a v long time. ARGH..

Anyway i think i touched on it but the burns all completed 100%, no matter what media used in my little tale.. So.. (in my case) i sometimes do a crc check on the odd disc for a laugh if it skips on playback, and no prizes for guessing, errors are seen on the crc scan (still talking about crappy media at this point). So frustratingly all my burns have burnt 100% as far as Nero was concerned but the crappy media sometimes in fact lets me down.
This reply is long winded and not coming out right so i'll edit it later, but.....
what i'm trying to say (in my humble experience) is that [bold]burning of movies with 100% completion status is NOT sufficient to trust the movie will playback correctly[/bold] on the dozen or so players that i have access to. Dropping the speed to 4x, but more importantly by using decent media (for me) has 100% success rate. ie [bold]burning many 100s of discs successfully is NOT sufficient to prove no coasters[/bold].

recent update -
i've now started gingerly burning at 8x on my trusty Verbatim's now that i've got an extra 512MB of RAM. Have crc-checked a few discs and checked the old PI/PIF errors via KProbe which someone recommended recently. Good results so far, and i was moved to start my own thread re crap media, a BulkPaq disc being the star actor with the most appalling media scan probably anyone has seen for a while.