Not all Memorex suck / Questions for you / etc

You can also buy Maxell and Verbatim from WalMart ... both are very acceptable

 

The complaints in this string appear to be little more than amateur slander. No one has listed a single quality criterion (dye comet, radial tilt, sputter contamination, etc.) that would make CMC discs any worse than any others. "They don't work; so they're no good." In fact, all the symptoms described indicate the problem is firmware incompatibility. Japanese media work best with Japanese drives because the drives are tuned for "local" discs. Only later do many of those drives include Taiwanese produced discs. (Many of the Japanese brands are actually produced in Taiwan by CMC and others because their equipment is newer and production costs are lower.) Some drive manufacturers are painfully slow to offer updates. Toshiba, Plextor, and Sony are among the slowest. Others such as NEC and earlier Pioneer models, were much faster. Lite-On and BenQ, of course, are often much better in their support of their own "local" producers. If almost every disc in a spindle fails to work, the cause is most likely incompatibility. It has nothing to do with the quality of the drive or the medium--they simply do not understand each other until instructions are written in the firmware table that describe laser power and pulse patterns. Ragging on Imation or Memorex quality is ignorance of the basic operating parameters of optical recording. A famous example of limited compatibility was Wal-Mart's selling of an Emerson VHS/DVD recorder made by Funai that could only record on DVD-R discs rated at 4X or slower despite the fact that Wal-Mart had not carried 4X DVD-R discs for the previous four months. Everything was 8X. The Emerson (and the identical "Sharp" model at Best Buy) was obsolete for the 8 months they were being sold. The Japanese response: "Tell the customers to buy our new models" (restricted to 8X while discs were switching to 16X!). That doesn't sound like a disc quality problem to me.

 

Its so refreshing to see an educated reply to a media question. I am so sick of reading about how Memorex sucks (and not just on this site). Its almost as if people have been brainwashed -by each other no less- to use taiyo yuden/verbatim.

I have used Memorex in the past with a 100% burn rate. No coasters out of 100 discs. A year later the discs that I burned are still working. I didnt incur errors until I changed brands/media likely due to, as you stated, incompatibility.

Its fine to have a certain media that you like (in most cases taiyo yuden) I just wish people would stop preaching it like its the gospel.

 

Hi there,

I always treat media like hookers. [ Makes me laugh everytime ]

Company "A" has 100% clean girls.

Company "B" has 75% changes of getting aids.

Which company would you pick ?

Maybe you got lucky, and burned slow.

My 2 cents on the matter...

 

Quality burners like all 3 of my benqs will burn everything you slap in them. Cmags/aml/and moser bauer are among the lowest quality media that I have fed them. Not a single coaster and they played perfect on all 3 of my pcs and my new el cheapo stand alone. But when those backups are played on older stand alones and some very picky ps2 consoles with wear and tear on them,that is where the quality of my media really shows up.

My scans also show how those little errors are magnefied on my lower quality backups. I do show a lot more errors for those lower quality brands than my Hitachi maxells/tys/and Verbatim. If may not be enough to show up on playback,but if you need to re-rip those lower quality backups in the future-good luck on not getting any crc errors. Also try to re-rip them on the fly!

I can't name a dvd burner that is made in japan. China makes just about all of them. Stand alones,I know korea and china makes a ton of them. I don't think I'd buy any media made in either china or korea.

cougar_ii: I'll take "A"


What really gets my goat with memosux:
The price of them. All the ads throughout local stores,they run about 30 cents each.Their sales usually 50 packs for $15 or 25 pack spindles for $8

I got Mitsubishi verbatims last week for $15 for 50 pack spindles.
I got Sony Yuden000-T02 at staples before that for $12 a 50 pack.
I got Fuji Yuden000-T02 at staples for $8.94 a 30 pack.
I got Office Depot ritek-r03 for 20 cents each in another sale.

I can't recall the last time I paid over 30 cents each for regular/non printable single layer dvd media.

You peeps can keep your memosux,I'll stick with the better stuff for a cheaper price! I have less to worry about,later on down the road.

My 2 cents!

BTW: I've got a wal-mart cyberhome +4x tv recorder and she loves verbatim +8x MCC-003 media. The specs says 4x only blank plus format media which is a bunch of crap.This drive definetely hates the memosux cmags. I noticed media quality differences way before I started burning dvds on the pc.

 

The problem with your little scenario is that Company "A" doesnt exsist. I will go out on a limb here and say your "company a" was supposed to be taiyo yuden, well if you read enough boards you will see that people have gotten bad batches of these as well. So like I said, company a doesnt exsist. And I hate when people have a good report on memorex and people will find someway to discredit it.

 

To each their own opinion, God bless free speech, but in my humble opinion after burning about 100 Memosux, over 500 Ritek, 300 TY, and 25 Verbatim, I'll stick with the Ritek, TY and Verbatim, All of my Memosux have deteriorated after 6 months to a year, will not play on any of 7 standalone DVD players I have access to, and most have been recopied onto better media. If you have good luck with CMC MAG and Longten 001 disks and RICOH JPN, yours did better than mine, quality scores of zero and single digits respectively.
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/262544

These have been recorded on Sony, Lite-on, and BenQ burners, so this gives a pretty good cross sampling of what is out there.
But each is entitled to his/her own opinion of what works best, so be it.

[bold] Friends don't let friends burn CMC[/bold]

 

Hell again,

If you like Memorex, please do, buy them all, to make sure I never buy any

Like someone said above, to each his own.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, this is mine

 

brainwashing, it can do wonders.

 

Ahh, the things I wish I could wash outta my memory...
(Matrix, Longten, CMC Mags....)

 

Hi there,

Shhhhuuuuuushhhhhh, my wife will hear it

 

Just curious, but are you speaking from the receiving end experience?

 

NEC, Toshiba, and Plextor drives are chiefly Japanese products. Sony is built by either BenQ or Lite-On, depending on whether or not the system is a separate drive or a VAIO computer. LG/Hitachi is designed in Japan, built in Korea. The firmware for each and every one of these drives comes from Japan. Now that NEC, Sony, and Lite-On are cooperating on designing and building drives, compatibility will increase for non-Japanese media.

As for humble opinions, that may be the best adjective. Unless one is using CD CATS or Expert equipment, one cannot judge the quality of a disc. A "scan" on a disc after it is recorded depends on the recording drive, its compatibility with the medium, the quality of the disc, the software used, the integrity of the data files, the quality of the reading drive, and the accuracy of the commands given by that reading drive. Relying on the results of such scans is as reliable as...reading humble opinions in these forum.

Quality is not a matter of opinion. There are nearly a hundred specifications for discs. If the media do not meet them consistently, then there is a quality issue either with comliance or with consistency. The fact that a disc does not record well or play back properly involves so many more variables than the medium that it is nearly impossible to condemn it unless one can actually define the cause by analyzing the specifications. That requires some knowledge and calibrated equipment.

As for CMC, it may surprise many to know that CMC makes a good many Verbatim, Maxell, and TDK discs on the same lines as they make their own. The difference is the stamper and the MID codes and sometimes the dye--nothing else. The complaints in this thread all seem to relate to issues of compatibility, not to any specified flaw such as radial runout or tangential tilt or reflectance. Those who have had good luck with CMC, Prodisc, or Memorex discs have drives that are compatible with them; those who have had problems have drives that are incompatible or not compatible enough. Taiyo Yuden makes excellent discs that are always included in firmware tables, and Verbatim (MCC = Mitsubishi Chemical Corp) is also in the same league. If Ritek, Prodisc, or CMC used those MID codes and tuned the dyes to their specifications (as CMC does for Verbatim), you could not tell the difference. There are some poor quality factories making discs, but Ritek, Prodisc, and CMC are not among them.

 

This may be true but they are producing them at verbatim's, and maxell's, specs and with their dye eg. advanced azo dye for verbatims. You could say cmc's tools and verbatims blueprints and materials.

If this is a true statement then why do my discs coded as cmc mag or prodisc play ok right after they are burned but after 6 months time will not play without freezing, pausing, or pixelating if they will play at all. All my verbatim's (MCC003) still play perfect a year or longer after they were burned.

 

@ JoeRyan

Fine reading words Joe, but you're merely backing up the anti Memorex faction....Consistency of manufacture, requires extensive testing, allied with tight quality control...(We all agree with that.) Memorex outsource their product.........Still sell it as Memorex,, and the poor customer become a punter! .ie. They take their chance's on what they get!

When I buy a product Ritek, Verbatim, TY ect ect; and put it in my (little known, made in Japan) burner.
I want to know what I'm paying for, simple as that!

Unfortunately the companies being slated; by this, and other forums,
they have been guilty of using cheap/shoddy supplies, whilst selling at high prices' under their own, once reputable labels.

The veracity of this, and other forums, (I'd like to believe) has affected their sales.
And the major Taiwan disc producers are even now forming an alliance, in order to reduce production costs'??? (They say)

I think it more likely an attempt to snatch back some tattered reputations.

So in keeping with this threads title; I agree, Not all Memorex suck.

But I ain't gonna buy, and wade through a few spindles of crappo; to find em..

gringle.

 

When more than 90% of all optical (royalty paid) discs come from Taiwanese production lines, more than one brand is outsourced. That includes the "trusted" names listed in previous threads. There are only about six different dyes available for DVD recordable discs. Fuji makes one of them--inexpensive but requires more laser power than the others in order to get jitter levels to specification. You'll find this dye in 8X discs but less often in 16X because power requirements are close to the limit for some laser diodes--and diodes lose power as they age. As for those who have discs that no longer work, have you ever thought of sending them back to the supplier to ask what is wrong and why they don't work? You might get some helpful information. All optical discs degrade over time. (This is a claim made for tape; but tape degrades over use, not time, if it is well made.) If the error rate is very low, it takes a long time for a stable dye to reach the point where error correction can no longer fix errors. The amount of time is estimated using Arhennius or Eyring equations--and a stable azo-cyanine (the standard for DVD-R) or cyanine will last 30 years to 70 years. If the initial error rate is very high due to poor quality or a bad burn on a good disc due to firmware incompatibility, then it takes far less time to reach the limit. If a disc fails within a year and the cause is not due to mechanical problems (putting a paper label on a disc, for example) such as tilt or scratches, then the fault is either a bad burn in the first place or an unstable disc. The supplier can tell you which it is by testing it. That would be more reliable information than reading web complaints.

 

The average person using a burner, for the first time, knows' little of the differing qualities in discs. They buy a know named product and assume, 'all is well'
The companies you seemed determined to sanctify, have sold them... Lets be polite, and say "media of varying standards". lol

You suggest: Take it back to the supplier, and if they're helpful, you
may get a technical answer to the problem.........Does the average newbie know the disc is at fault?

I suggest, and I think I can speak for many: (being polite)Don't buy media of erratic quality in the first place!


The web based complaints; your so dismissive of, represent only a tiny fraction of the underlying discontent.
And deriding customer opinion, is a foolish business strategy.

noteI've never complained about the companies, you are so determined to defend; mainly because I joined this site before my 'new PC' with its burners arrived, and found in the early days, I could make coasters, without the help of crap media.

regards

gringle.

 

luckEpenE

So thats going to be your standard reply to anyone who doesn't agree with you.. This is a kids game.. Ive seen it done before. Look, i am saying something you dont like: [bold]CMC and MEMOREX sux. big time[/bold]...I know this because CMCs have gone south on me in less than 6 months. I don't have to prove this to you.. You wouldn't believe me either as i must be brainwashed.. Where did i leave that brain soap??
Go ahead.. say something witty and insulting at the same time,, see, i know what you are up to. You want everyone to listen to you and you will dismiss/slam anyone who says something you dont want to hear. What good are you trying to do here? Help ppl? Sure doesn't sound like it to me. Sound more like someone trying to stir up trouble.. Start flame wars,, insult members.. Its ok to have a differing opinion from the majority, but not ok to insult and slam ppl just because their response didn't agree with you..

come on, im waiting for it.. You cant let someone say something contrary to your post and walk away without a slam..
CMC SUX.. and MEMOREX is a cheap HO..
Im not trying to change you to good media, i think you and CMC will make fine bedfellows.. Sleep tight, dont let the CMC bugs bite..

 

Gringle,

I have tried not to defend any company. I am trying to defend logic and science. No one who has criticized any medium has said anything more than, "So and so sucks" (except the case in which the user found the discs failed within 6 months, but that can still possibly be an incompatibility issue). In most cases the problem is firmware incompatibility, and that impugns the quality of neither the drive nor the disc. One cannot judge the quality of either one in such a case, and any claim that the disc is of poor quality is invalid unless there is some supporting evidence such as a mechanical flaw or damage. It's true the average user does not know why the disc may not work. Average users might resort to websites such as this where they can expect some answers from more experienced users; but if more experienced users do not suggest firmware updates as a possible fix, then this site is not helpful enough. Putting pressure on drive suppliers to include more MID codes in their writing strategy tables will help everyone, including those who know little about their drives, and members of this forum can put that kind of pressure on them. I just don't see how calling discs--or people--nasty names helps anyone.

 

you can always check the nero forum and see the countless threads of people's nero logs of errors.. once all the other problems are resolved.. it turns out that if you switch the media.. it works better.

i myself have an thread in there now for nero..i havent been able to get to that machine and cant fix it. i am using verbatim dvds, so i know that is not the issue.

and i'm sure doc, and others will chime in with something along those lines. you will get a nice long response from him explaning the reasons that certain media is the issue.