First, I have a BenQ External 162I burner, and did a back up on their recommended media of Maxell R+. The BenQ Tech Support in Irvine CA recommended that I always use R+ and either Maxell, TDK, Sony or their BenQ media as those are the ones that they have tested and work well with the burner. ( I have burned over 60 dvd's on Maxell and no problems at all) My firmware is uptodate. The nature of my query is this. I burned a backup of my cousins dvd which was an R- and sent it to my sister and she watched the dvd on her player when I sent it to her as it was a homemade dvd backup of a family get to gether that my cousin had transferred from his video camera onto dvd. She just went to watch it again (a second time) and can't get any Audio from it. Her dvd player is a Regent from Walmart. All my other backups that I have sent her that are non family backup dvd's where i have had to use Any Dvd are working fine in her dvd player and all are Maxell R+. She has been watching them but wants to watch the family one that I sent and gets video fine but no audio?? I should say I have had no coasters with my Maxells. I bought them in jewel cases from Staples here in Canada as it was a very good price and they perform well. I should also say that I burn using BenQ's "exe." command for burning everything in DVD ROM. (so my dvd backups have played in the entire family's players, no problems as they are all in DVD ROM (via BenQ's Book Management Utility exe.) This was recommended by their Tech Support and he instructed me last September on how to do this. I find my sister's problem strange as it is the first occurrence of anything like this. But it is the only homemade dvd backup from my brother's DVD that I have ever done. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be. I would appreciate all responses, thankyou. Cheers
If she watched it when she first received it and it had audio, it still does. Have her push the Audio key on the DVD player remote and see what happens.
I will give her a call as she said she pushed all the buttons and unplugged her cables and did a reset up. Pushed the audio, but still no sound and only on that one dvd, all of my other ones i have sent to her are fine??? She is in the East so I will call and get her to try the Audio button again and see what happens. Thx for the reply. i will post back. Cheers.
Hi, I contacted my sister and she tried the same dvd in my niece's play station and it worked fine. She put it back into her dvd player and pressed the audio button as suggested and again only video and no audio. I told her to try unplugging the dvd player for a few minutes and then replug it in and play the dvd. Sometimes i do know that some electronics need resetting, i know my vcr did when there was a glitch, but i don't know about dvd players. Also she was going to look at changing cables, however I doubt if that is the issue as why would all my back up dvd's work that I used Any Dvd work for her and just this particular copy of a copy of a family dvd not work audio wise??? Do you think her dvd player is starting to take a dive??? slowly with this quirk?? She went and rented some dvd's tonight and they all worked?? I would appreciate all comments, thankyou. My sister is a single mom and I don't want to send her out to buy another dvd player if there could be a glitch in my dvd??? But it does work in her daughters playstation?? As I mentioned I use BenQ's Book Management DVD ROM exe. per the instructions of their Tech Support whom I find excellent and this is the first problem I have encountered and only for Audio. Since all my dvd's created are in ROM, we have 8 different brands of players in our family and my backups work in all of them. ...Now except for this glitch?? Thx again, and look forward to comments. Cheers.
I guess you could try to make another copy for her and maybe that copy would work for her. What's a mystery is that it played back fine the first time she watched it and seems to still playback fine in other players. Since commercially pressed disks seem to playback OK in that same player and the since other DVDs that you burned for her are OK upon playback, it must be something a little quirky with that one disk and that one player. Can you make her another copy to try? You might try changing the brand of disk as well. Other than that, I don't know what else to try. I assume you're not burning at max speed. Maxell disks are not necessarly of the highest quality. They are not crap media, but not the best either. Some of the TDK disks are good and some are utter crap, depending on the actual manufacturer. Sony is very good. The highest quality media are Verbatim, Taiyo Tuden, and Made in Japan labeled Fuji and Sony disks.
Thx for the reply, i appreciate your comments. i am thinking that perhaps her player is dying on her. At least maybe the remote control, starting off with the audio button as it is not responding with this dvd. She tried this DVD this AM as I called her for monther's day and it worked on the neighbours player and of course her daughters playstation. I told her to look for her receipt and be prepared for it to pack it in if the warranty has gone by the boards. The only reason that i continue to use Maxell is b/c I have a large storage of them and also b/c that R+ is the one the BenQ tech's have advised were consistently good on their performance testing and as well was Sony. I appreciate indeed your comments on TDK. It was somewhat of a surprise as I burned 2 large packs with my BenQ External 162I and again had no problems at all. They sit in my backup library here and I watch them fine. Since I bought the new version of the 162I BenQ burner 2 weeks ago and will be setting it up with my new toshiba m50-mx5 i will talk to BenQ about your comments on TDK, though I have none in supply. Since it is bad, I will not purchase anymore. They are hard to find anyway, you have to go into the high end audeio/video entertainment stores which I don't frequent. Staples, Future Shop, Circuit City, Office Depot don't carry them. Also BenQ told me to stay away from Kodak, Memorex which I know why and also Verbatim. None of them did well in their testing. The Taiyo Yuden, I discussed with their Tech Support and they have dropped even mentioning that brand to owners of their burners as so many are made from other countries and a lot of people don't look at where they are manufactured and BenQ has had several customers phone and complain about ones that they have bought off the internet and so BenQ being tired of hearing these complaints has been told by their testing division to only recommend the R+ and using the DVD ROM exe. from BenQ's book management program and the brands already mentioned. And so that is what I follow and I have had not one Coaster and actually I was looking and it is well over 100 now that i have done. The amount I mentioned earlier was in 2005. When I phone BenQ about the install of my new External burner as I always want to insure no mistakes I am going to inquire about the TDK and see what comments I get. I appreciate you taking the time to comment, thankyou. Cheers
I doubt there's anything wrong with her player if it plays back all the other disks. These things just happen sometimes for no apparent reason. Usually if a player is going bad, these things happen to more than a single disk and occur frequently. videohelp.com keeps a database of the actual manufacturers of branded media. For Maxell: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.p...rder=Name&hits=25&search=Search+or+List+Media As you can see some is made by Maxell, TDK, Ritek, Ricoh, Taiyo Yuden, Philips, OptoDisc, Verbatim (MCC), and CMC Mag. Philips, Optodisc, and CMC Mag are not good media. Just looking at their newer 16X media, it's made by Philips, Maxell, Ritek, Prodisc, and CMC Mag. How do you know what you'll get when you buy a 16X bundle? The Ritek and Maxell made stuff is acceptable. For TDK: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.p...rder=Name&hits=25&search=Search+or+List+Media It's a similar story to Maxell. Their newest 16X media is made by CMC Mag, an absolutely low cost manufacturer of junk. It'll burn but will the disk be readable in a year or two is the big question. Again you don't know whose disks you'll actually get until you get them. That's why the many use Verbatim branded disks because unless they come marked Made in India, they'll be from MCC, Verbatim's own company. Taiyo Yuden makes all their own. The Made in Japan labeled Fuji and Sony are almost always made by Taiyo Yuden. I use Verbatim because it's easily available for me and I know what I'm getting in the store. As for dual layer media, nothing comes close to Verbatim. I don't know why the tech people are down on Taiyo Yuden. It's the gold standard. If people are buying counterfeit TY media over the net, that's their problem. You are free to use whatever you want. However we see tons of people using all kinds of media so we have a pretty good idea of what's good and what's not. Search for quality of DVD media in the forums and you'll see lots of posts. There's also a complete forum devoted to DVD Media. If you're interested you can download DVDIdentifier from the link in my signature and ID your Maxell disks' actual manufacturer.
Hi there, thx for your time. I used dvd identifier and go the following info: Manufacturer: Ricoh Co. Ltd Man Id Richo Jpn Type ID R01 Prod Revision 002 Blank Disk Capacity 2295,104=4.70 gb (4.38 gb) Rec speeds 1X, 2.4X, 4X Manufacturers data base May1/06 I purchased a package of 20 in jewel cases for 5.99 at Staples last fall and immediately stored them in a dark cool cupboard. I bought them all out 20 packs for a total of 400 and have never had a problem. I have known the store manager for many years and he said they were blowing them out as everyone was now buying R-. And BenQ, the manager knew as well that BenQ do not support R- Media. I tried to take a look at the Link that you provided and b/c of my lack of experience i was not sure what to do. 1, I put in Search Maxell 2,(Did not know what Search Media Code was and so I left it out) 3,Media type, I filled in type DVD + R 4. For Burn Speed 2.4 5. And in the drop down menu used "compatability" But after doing all of this I did not understand what the results all meant and if they were incomplete b/c I did not fill in the above item 2. Your comments on the results from DVD Identifier and your Link provided would be appreciated. Thankyou for your time and comments. Cheers!!!
The media code for your 4X media is RICOHJPNR01. It just helps narrow down to the particular media since there are more than one 4X Maxell media. You're lucky in that you have Ricoh media and not CMCMag. Ricoh and Ritek are acceptable for the most part but not the best. Since Verbatims can be purchased for the same price on sale as the others, I'd buy those after you exhaust your current supply. I wouldn't worry about it until then. The Ricoh-made will be OK.
I guess what I will do is purchase a small pack, I need to get some Rw+ as I am having a devil of a time setting up my Start Medu so it does not look so Mickey Mouse. I have a post in here inquiring about Movie Factory 4 which I use with my Hauppauge wintv pvr usb2 which i really like, however I can't seem to find anyone even in the Ulead Movie Factory 4 Peer to Peer to help me get rid of the square blocks at the beginning of the dvd i create. It has a motion menu that I like and it has falling autumn leaves and it looks great and however before the family sees the leaves falling they see 2 cats curled up in a basket and the date of the capturing. ( I think it must be a default setting) but I can't find where to get at it to change it) So maybe I will try the Verbatim RW+ to practice on even though BenQ does not recommend them as Media. I am not going to waste my BenQ media simply trying to get the Menu correct. I would rather practice on eraseable dvd's. You would think that Ulead would have someone that could advise on how to deal with menus and get rid of these boxes and cats that i don't want present. But so life goes I keep googling and hoping someone will be able to tell me how to keep my motion menu of autumn leaves which is great quality and get rid of the square boxes and cats. Getting back to the topic, I don't know why Verbatim is not recommended by BenQ, the media up here is made in Taiwan ??? Could that be the reason? As BenQ don't recommend Taiwan made media. Thanks again for your time and cheers!
Some of the Taiwanese media is AOK like Verbatim. I don't pay much attention to recommended media. It's usually just whatever media that the company has a tie-in to. There are some recommending Memorex media and some of that is craptastic media made by CMC Mag. It's not the brand that matters, but the actual manufacturer. The Verbatim is made in Taiwan by Mitsubishi Chemical Corp (MCC) and is excellent media.
I don't know about you guys, but the only Maxells (DVD+R) I trust is/are "Made In Japan" by Hitachi Corp., otherwise, I'm with Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim "Advanced Azo".
I'm with you Alcohol. I've tried some Maxells that were Riteks and they were passable but still didn't deliver the same quality burn as Verbatims. I only burn Verbatims now, both SL and DL. TYs are too hard to find around here. None of the Fuji or Sony are MIJ, just MIT, and I don't trust getting the TYs from the net. There's just too many counterfeits around.
So is Ricoh Japan, not a good manufacturer for the Maxell that I have purchased a massive amount of??? I talked to BenQ this AM and they indicated that what they do in testing their units is have a tech go to small but mostly big box stores and talk to the managers and purchase from them what they normally always have in stock. Thus they tried Sony, TDK, Maxell, Memorex, Kodak and some house brands and had coasters with Memorex, Kodak and the house brands. Only one store had the Taiyo Yuden and said that the demand is there but they as big box stores never know who the manufacturer is and so they stay away from ordering them. I should qualify that and say that one big box store placed a small order for these and they ended up being problematic and so they quit and stuck to simple household names b/c the last thing that they want is an angry customer who wants his money back and makes a big issue in the store about the store selling inferior products. The store did get a couple of customers like this and ended up just giving the customer a free pack of Sony and they left and now they come back to buy Sony. Verbatim was tested and had too many coasters out of the test batch and so that is why it is not on the list. I find that BenQ bends over backwards when it comes to customer service, as for example when the DVD ROM exe. Book Management tool was not on their website they emailed it to me and called me back and explained how to use it so that I was burning everything in DVD ROM. How many companies will do that? I don't genuinely believe that BenQ pushes the media buyer to some co. that they maybe affiliated with, they were even reluctant to suggest to me to use their own brand and encouraged using these other media. (just my 2 cents worth) My brother got rid of his LG and now has the Current BenQ External burner which I have to and am going to set up to my new toshiba notebook as I have an extensive library of videos most of which will not be put onto dvd, me being a baby boomer I have inquired at the specialty stores for older concerts and movies and they get negative replies. Just thought that I would post this, and would appreciate a response on Ricoh as the manufacturer of Maxell. Best Regards
@Appa I'm as stumped as laddyboy. Did you ask her if the original disc you sent was damaged maybe after she viewed it. Heated? Send her a new copy. It's got to be the disc, since burned and pressed DVDs still play. Something has happened to the 1st disc. Just my 2 cents? The maxell media is good if made in Japan but not the best. But you are not having any trouble with them so use them.
The Ricoh Maxell media is OK as I stated before. It's just not the highest quality media available. There is media that is totally unacceptable like CMC Mag, Princo. There is media that is OK like Ricoh, Ritek. There is media that is excellent like Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim. I don't know if your burner is supported but programs like Nero Info Tool and DVDInfoPro will test your burned disks for errors and give a quality score. Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim are the media that give most of us the highest quality scores and why it is recommended. That isn't to say that your burner won't give an excellent quality score for your media. BenQ makes excellent burners.
@laddyboy, will you pls tell me when you say verbatim, what is the safest for successful burn (8x or the new 16x, MCC002 or MCC03 since I heard MCC004 has a little problem sometimes) And should I be getting Advanced Azo, Metal Azo or Datalife Plus for long storage? Thks n btw, where r u from - since u mentioned u find it hard to get TY (just curious)
central US. I've used all the Verbatims. The ones you mentioned are all very good as long as they are MCC. I usually buy what comes on sale when I need to resupply. I'm using the Verbatim MCC004 right now and it seems to be working OK for me and giving decent burning quality. As for speed it depends entirely on the burner I'm using. It's usually either 4X or 8X. I have 4X, 8X, and 16X burners and some are external and some are internal. Some are used on a desktop, some on a laptop. The only time I burn at 8X is with an internal 16X NEC burner.
