I bought about 10 Maxell DVD-Ram discs over the last 2 years and everyone of them have failed. I bought them at BB and Walmart. Panasonic DVD-RAMS over the last 2 years have never failed. The Maxells recorded erratically at times and then just failed to record getting "incompatible disc" on the Panny DVD recorders. Never again will I buy a Maxell disc.

I never like Maxell floppies and cassettes. Haven't bought any modern media from that brand.

I have used only Panasonic DVD-Ram over the last 2 years. I had my first disc failure earlier this week. I think it was a fairly new disc, but can't be sure.

I have 5 Maxell RAMs, and have had no problems at all.

You must not be rubbing them on the bark of a tree for testing purposes.

Just Kidding HG!

I have 2 Maxell Rams that I have been using for about a year now & now they are just starting to give me trouble because sometimes they won't read until I eject them & sometimes that's over & over again that I have to eject them until they can be read.

And that makes them unreliable for "Timer Recordings" :(

I have never had any trouble at all with Panny RAM discs.

I bought about 10 Maxell DVD-Ram discs over the last 2 years and everyone of them have failed. I bought them at BB and Walmart. Panasonic DVD-RAMS over the last 2 years have never failed. The Maxells recorded erratically at times and then just failed to record getting "incompatible disc" on the Panny DVD recorders. Never again will I buy a Maxell disc.HG, you already know what I'm going to say. Have you tried washing the disks with liquid dish soap and a soft washcloth to see if that fixes them up. Works every time for errant Panasonic RAMs.

HG, you already know what I'm going to say. Have you tried washing the disks with liquid dish soap and a soft washcloth to see if that fixes them up. Works every time for errant Panasonic RAMs.

I will try that but I never had to do that with any Panny DVD-RAMs because I never had any errant ones. BTW my tree bark days are over.

I will try that but I never had to do that with any Panny DVD-RAMs because I never had any errant ones. BTW my tree bark days are over.

You guys are joking about this, right? I can't imagine how it could help a disc that looks perfectly clean like the one I tossed did.

yeah- I am about half way joking.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a software tool other than Nero CD speed (and other than Plextools, none of my drives are Plextor, no ram read with those guys) that can check for physical errors on RAM disc?
I have had more Panny rams fail than I care to count. (Failure based read errors then verifed by a surface check using Nero CD Speed on at least 2 different drives.) It is a relatively small portion of my inventory but the idea than RAM's can be an archival media was shot out the water in my mind. (Yes Kelson, I did try washing them.) I often have having trouble running Nero CD Speed to check the surface quality. I have to pop the disc and retry several times to get it to run when I have a suspect disc. I'm guessing I have driver or firmware issues with my drives.
Out of the 100 or so Panny ram discs I have about 10 with serious surface errors.

Like Kelson, I have had -RAM disks that look perfect, even when examined using a magnifying glass, but would not work properly in my EH50. After a quick cleaning with mild soap and water, and drying with a lint-free cloth, they have all come back. Ironically, I have Maxell and Panasonic DVD-RAM disks, but the Maxells are 5x while the Panasonic ones are all 3x, so the Maxells get used a lot. I have had more problems with the Panasonic then the Maxell disks. I had two five packs of Pansonics very bad, right out of the box, but worked flawlessly many times after an initial cleaning. I now wash all my -RAMs when they are new, before the initial use. Someone here said that there is a lubricant used on the disk presses, and if there was too much applied, or if it wasn't completely removed in the fabrication process, it can interfere with the laser. So... I wash 'em and they work.

Thanks Curch AV Guy. If I haven't emptied that particular wastebasket I might pull the disc out and give it a try....

I hesitate to say it here for fear of being ostracized, BUT, I have purchased a CD/DVD disk washer/cleaner. It consists of a motor driven spindle and two soft round sponge pads that are in fixed positions on either side of the disk, but they themselves spin on their own centers. this cleans the disk very thoroughly with little effort, except for a quick rinse and the drying. A drop or two of dish soap, and some water on each sponge and just close the lid and press the button. It turns itself off when done. Why the fear? It's made by Memorex. I won't use their media, but this washer works quite well for me.

I hesitate to say it here for fear of being ostracized, BUT, I have purchased a CD/DVD disk washer/cleaner. It consists of a motor driven spindle and two soft round sponge pads that are in fixed positions on either side of the disk, but they themselves spin on their own centers. this cleans the disk very thoroughly with little effort, except for a quick rinse and the drying. A drop or two of dish soap, and some water on each sponge and just close the lid and press the button. It turns itself off when done. Why the fear? It's made by Memorex. I won't use their media, but this washer works quite well for me.I love it, Church. Did you buy the companion disk rewinder?

Well, all I can say is thank you guys, I grabbed the disc out of the trash bin, washed it good with soap and water and it seems good as new. When I looked at it under bright light it had a kind of greasy looking film over it, and as I thought about it the disc was right out of the wrapping, never used before. Fingerprints (not mine) and all. I washed it and recorded on it tonight and it is flawless. Thanks guys! :D

Quick question: Is it better to record shows to watch (but not necessarily to save) onto DVD-RAM instead of the HDD? So far, the only shows I've put on my HDD (EH75VS) are ones I plan to copy to DVD, but eventually, I might need it for shows I just want to time-shift. Thank you!

Well, all I can say is thank you guys, I grabbed the disc out of the trash bin, washed it good with soap and water and it seems good as new. When I looked at it under bright light it had a kind of greasy looking film over it, and as I thought about it the disc was right out of the wrapping, never used before. Fingerprints (not mine) and all. I washed it and recorded on it tonight and it is flawless. Thanks guys! :DAnother satisfied customer. Yes, I was not kidding. This RAM washing thing is well documented by a small and growing handful of us -- you are now part of the crew. I have around 60 Panasonic RAMs and in 2 years of use I have never had a RAM fail, permanently. I've had some that gave me trouble after a while but then after washing they were good as new. So I simply started washing them when I opened a new pack before first use and have never had a problem with a P-RAM since. Others, like Church had a couple RAMs go bad which were also "fixed" by washing them. So now whenever anyone reports a problem with a RAM, the first thing one of us says it to try washing it then reformat and go.

Thanks Kelson. :) I love this forum!

Quick question: Is it better to record shows to watch (but not necessarily to save) onto DVD-RAM instead of the HDD? So far, the only shows I've put on my HDD (EH75VS) are ones I plan to copy to DVD, but eventually, I might need it for shows I just want to time-shift. Thank you!
I advise using the HDD.

Thanks, bobkart!

Absolute serious- Kelson and others, Panny DVD-RAMs are the best as far as reliability- Maxell sucks. You cannot convince me otherwise. We agree to disagree.

The main problem I've had with the Maxell discs is that the center hub develops cracks because of the dvd case spindle. Otherwise, the discs themselves have been reliable from a data retention standpoint (even with the hub cracks). BTW - I use Maxell DVD-RW's (Yellow tops) which are $12 for a 15-disc spindle from Wally World with great success (transfer VR mode recordings from more expensive DVD-RAM to DVD-RW - I like to archive to VR mode now because of the playback features and metadata information about the recording that can be stored on the disc.).

I love it, Church. Did you buy the companion disk rewinder?
Like I said: I would be made fun of just because I use a Memorex product. I would use the disk rewinder IF it actually reversed the effects of centrifugal force when it spun the disk backward! :eek: Alas, it doesn't. :D "Rotational physics: it's not just a good idea, it's the law."

Thanks for the washing tip--gonna start washing my Rams as well, and recover alot of them that don't work lol, then i'll have tons to use. Gonna search thru them tomorrow in fact

Concerning the general subject of potentially bad DVD storage media, has anyone noticed a problem with TY03 DVD-R discs. After using up 50 DVD-Rs, half of the 100 DVD-Rs that were part of a Supermediastore valuepak (16X shipped, although I ordered 8X), my new 20X Lite-On burner cannot burn these discs at faster than 6X. I think the problem is the burner, a Phillips Lite-On (LH20A1P186), but I am not sure. Using an LG burner, one of these TY discs burned at an average speed of 15.6X but another also showed an inability to go above 6X.

More Information: Somehow, the Lite-On burner HyperTuning function got turned off. I corrected the problem using the Lite-On SmartBurn utility, v3.1.16. With the downloaded 596Kb Lite-On utility from the link below, which I saw described in a CDRLabs.com review of this writer, my Lite-On now can burn at up to 15X and also works with much less noise and rumble. The application application reenabled HyperTuning. I did not have this problem until I started using TY G03 16X DVD-Rs, so maybe trying to burn at high speeds consistently had something to do with the initial problem.

http://www.liteonit.eu/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=179

SMART-BURN Media Check Program for Optical Storage Products v3.1.16

HyperTuning/OverSpeed

I only buy 8X speed TY DVD-R from super media- no problems yet on Pio or Panny units.

I only buy 8X speed TY DVD-R from super media- no problems yet on Pio or Panny units.

Did you get any in the June - September time frame. And if you did were they OK? I've heard reports that some were bad. Other reports that they were fine.

Quick question: Is it better to record shows to watch (but not necessarily to save) onto DVD-RAM instead of the HDD? So far, the only shows I've put on my HDD (EH75VS) are ones I plan to copy to DVD, but eventually, I might need it for shows I just want to time-shift. Thank you!

(semi-ironically I actually have scheduled a timer recording tonight to happen on my DVD-RAM for the first time in a very long time, mostly because I didn't have enough space on the hard drive to get the stuff recorded that I wanted to record when I was gone...)

But I'd recommend essentially always using the hard drive, esp for timer recordings. Because if there are bad disc errors, you'll lose your recording (and possibly the rest of the contents of the disc). Yet it's far _less_ likely that the hard drive is going to fail to record an individual program.
(Though just last night, I dubbed a Cash Cab from my Tivo to my XS32 so I could watch it at 1.5x with sound.. and there's one little 'skip'. I checked the orig Tivo recording and it wasn't there.. so I'm kind of wondering if there's now a bad spot on my XS32 hard drive.)

I only buy 8X speed TY DVD-R from super media- no problems yet on Pio or Panny units.

I had ordered 8X TY DVD-R from Supermediastore, they shipped 16X shrinkwrapped TY03 media. With HyperTuning on, one of my DVD-R recordings using DVDDecrypter on my computer failed just before completing the burn. I have a feeling other postings are correct, TY media may be showing some flaws. Still the best, but TY03 apparently is not as reliable as TY02.

I have a feeling other postings are correct, TY media may be showing some flaws. Still the best, but TY03 apparently is not as reliable as TY02.We should bear in mind that every burner / firmware / media combination is different. The fault may not be specifically the media, but rather the combination of the three.

I had ordered 8X TY DVD-R from Supermediastore, they shipped 16X shrinkwrapped TY03 media. With HyperTuning on, one of my DVD-R recordings using DVDDecrypter on my computer failed just before completing the burn. I have a feeling other postings are correct, TY media may be showing some flaws. Still the best, but TY03 apparently is not as reliable as TY02.Also bear in mind, that T-Y value line are "seconds" that don't meet the specs of their premium media. Add to that, 16X media has always been more problematic than 8X; it is more demanding of manufacturing. Put the 2 together and I would think buying seconds of 16X media is asking for trouble, so to speak. I would recommend you burn the remainder of your disks at 8X (but not 4X). Then the next time you purchase a new spindle, buy the 8X Premium disks and stay away from both value-line and 16X media.

I only buy 8X speed TY DVD-R from super media- no problems yet on Pio or Panny units.
Did you get any in the June - September time frame. And if you did were they OK? I've heard reports that some were bad. Other reports that they were fine.

I bought six hundred of these 8x -R TYs during this timeframe, from RIMA. Because of all the posts talking about unreliability, I opened and burned the two top disks from each 100 disk cake box. There were no noticeable differences, as in none that were obviously thinner than older disks, and they all copied and finalized without a glitch. They are 8x premium. I was using my newest EH55 DVD recorder for these tests.

No Maxell's here, but I have a few Memorex 9.4GB cartridge-type that have never let me down (but I almost never use them, so that's not remarkable).

My current RAM workhorse is Verbatim. Just about all the trouble I've ever had with RAMs (aside from a broken door on an ancient 5.2GB cartridge, which still does read and write, though), be they Verbatim, Panny, or Fuji, has been caused by Pannasonic's DVD Video Album software, which messed up the formatting a few times.