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Media deals this week - Page 48

post #1411 of 2875
8/13/07 at 11:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JMas View Post

I thought the best Verbatims were MCC.

jmscott42 seemes to be the resident Verbatim expert here on AVS so perhaps he could clarify a few things.

The 2 Verbatim 50 count spindles I bought about 10 months ago at Best Buy ( had them match Office Max's sale of $7.99? each) had the MAP6 code and I had no problem with them. Unfortunately it seems as tho my Toshiba/Samsung burner in my HP computer will not allow me to use DVDINFOPRO to do quality scans of discs.. However, I checked the disc on DVDIDENTIFIER and it was made by Mitsubishi (MCC 03RG20).. But I recall Verbatim also had CMC make some discs for them and let them use the MCC media code. If this is correct how can one tell if they were really made by Mitsubishi or CMC?

About a month ago a couple people in Italy and German sent me some Verbatim discs. A -R and a +R and I could tell by the distinctive ring on the disc that they were made by Taiyo Yuden.. I confirmed this by checking them on DVDIDENTIFIER..Looks like people in Europe are luckier than us here in the States when it comes to Verbatim, tho they probably don't get them as cheap as us, at least when they're on sale.

I also recently got a Panasonic disc from someone in the UK and it too was made by TY..
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post #1412 of 2875
8/13/07 at 4:53pm
Verbs from Taiwan are either CMC or Prodisc, CMC has serifs on the letters on the top cover, Prodisc doesn't.
I noticed the Verbs from BB I picked up today were back to being "advanced azo", for a while there was no mention at all on the packaging as to what the dye was.
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post #1413 of 2875
8/13/07 at 5:42pm
My 16X MIT Verbatim DVD-R are MCC.
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post #1414 of 2875
8/13/07 at 6:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Lococco View Post

Verbs from Taiwan are either CMC or Prodisc, CMC has serifs on the letters on the top cover, Prodisc doesn't.
I noticed the Verbs from BB I picked up today were back to being "advanced azo", for a while there was no mention at all on the packaging as to what the dye was.

So were the Verbs you just bought at Best Buy CMC or Prodisc?
Aren't CMC Verbatims suppose to be a little better than the Prodisc Verbatims?

I too just bought a 50 count spindle at Best Buy and the font on the name Verbatim was serif and on the printed wrap around it too had " advanced azo".
However, being the suspicious type I must say it is curious that also on the wrap around it had... @ Verbatim Corporation, 2005. Hopefully this just means they found some old extra wrap arounds and decided to use them as opposed to these have been sitting around somewhere for 2 years. The Verbatims I bought 10 months ago even had the 2006 date on the wrap around.
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post #1415 of 2875
8/13/07 at 6:21pm
mine are Prodisc, I also had the exact same suspicions about that 2005 wraparound, great minds think alike.
and yes, a few years ago, the Prodisc ones were considered superior, but now supposedly the CMC ones are better.
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post #1416 of 2875
8/14/07 at 5:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Lococco View Post

mine are Prodisc, I also had the exact same suspicions about that 2005 wraparound, great minds think alike.
and yes, a few years ago, the Prodisc ones were considered superior, but now supposedly the CMC ones are better.

CMC DVD discs are considered 3rd/4th class media.

Click here.
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post #1417 of 2875
8/14/07 at 6:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rgazzara View Post

CMC DVD discs are considered 3rd/4th class media.

Click here.

That's what I have heard. My understanding is that MCC Verbatims and TY are the top-of-the-line.
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post #1418 of 2875
8/14/07 at 7:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rgazzara View Post

CMC DVD discs are considered 3rd/4th class media.

Click here.

I'd agree with that, except for the Verbs, they're made with Mitsubishi's stampers, proprietary dye, etc.
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post #1419 of 2875
8/14/07 at 7:36am
Here's a good discussion of CMC and Prodisc Verbatims...it was hard to type those words together... nothing sacred anymore!

A summary:

MAH, PAH, PAP followed by 16 digits=CMC
+ and - in the middle=Prodisc
AND CMC IS BETTER!
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post #1420 of 2875
8/14/07 at 8:14am
Yeah, CMC manufacturing codes=horrible media, still, I hate to say. But the stuff they make for Verbatim (Which does use the MCC media ID) is excellent, and I personally really liked the stuff they made for TDK (again, using TDK's media codes, NOT TDK that was just repackaged CMC).

I, and some others, have had some amount of issues with "MAP6/PAP6" Verbatims. They aren't particularly liked by any of my burners-- they produce an acceptable burn except there are huge numbers of errors either at the very beginning or the very end (They either start great and shoot way up by the end, or vice versa-- the max errors are far higher than I find acceptable on any brand of media). Some people say they're fine, so it must be a burner issue.

TY-made Panasonic is some of the best media I have ever used, unfortunately I am very, very low on it... but I got a single spindle very cheaply from a buy.com sale about 2 years ago and was amazed at how well it burned. Awesome media, really a shame I don't think I can find this exact kind anymore. (There's still Panasonic media but this had a nice white coating and such) I also have some very old TY-made Verbatim which again, was excellent but I don't think has been seen in North America in at least 3-4 years.

(Verbatim's had a wild ride-- they started selling their own made-in-house stuff which was great, then switched to TY which was great, (1-2X days), then switched to some of the worst CMC I have ever used [like, discs refusing to even complete the burn process]-- their 2x-4x stuff was utter crap, then they started getting better with 8x and now we're at 16x and they're back to top tier, in general)

Just look for made in Taiwan Verbatim that has a serif font for "Open-Close". CMC makes it and it's excellent. It just proves CMC can make a good disk when they put their mind to it (And are given the dye, stampers, etc, to do so. ) As long as the disc itself has an MCC media id, and NOT a CMC ID, it's good.
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post #1421 of 2875
8/14/07 at 11:05am
jmscott42, thanks for your brief history of Verbatim, it answered a lot of questions.

What is your take on the spindle I just bought at Best Buy that has the 2005 date on the wraparound label? Should I be concerned?

There is a serif font on "Open-Lock" on the top of the spindle and a MAP6 printed on the hub and I just checked one on DVDIdentifier and it has the MCC media code so aside from that 2005 date things are looking good that they are some high quality CMC discs.

thanks
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post #1422 of 2875
8/14/07 at 11:23am
Now I understand the issue. I was confused by the "CMC not MCC" discussion, but if CMC is manufacturing Verbatim disc using a MCC ID, then that explains it.
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post #1423 of 2875
8/14/07 at 2:17pm
The date doesn't mean too much in my experience, Verbatim 16X is pretty consistent. It sounds like you have CMC stuff, although MAP6 concerns me. Do you have any way of doing DVD quality scans? Like I said, the burners I have do not like MAP6 very much (LG H22 in my Toshiba XS32, LG H10, Plextor 760). Others say they burn fine.
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post #1424 of 2875
8/14/07 at 2:56pm
Unfortunately it seems as tho my Toshiba/Samsung burner TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H652L in my HP computer will not allow me to use DVDINFOPRO to do quality scans of discs.. I haven't tried Nero.
So even tho it's an MCC CMC Verbatim some burners don't do well with them if they are MAP6?
I guess that's fairly typical of all media, isn't it? Even TY discs, tho they seem to be more compatible than most
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post #1425 of 2875
8/14/07 at 4:04pm
went back to look at the Verbs at BB, (NYC, Queens) they're all "2005" Prodisc wraparounds with that Big Fish sticker inside) except for 2 popcorn Intelliflix CMC spindles. I was thinking about exchanging my Prodiscs for those, but the popcorn ones are a year old, I think I'll stick with the Prodiscs.
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post #1426 of 2875
8/14/07 at 4:36pm
I didn't check too many of the spindles yesterday at the Best Buy in Hollywood Ca. but the one I bought is CMC and has the 2005 date and the Big Fish games sticker taped to the outside of the shrink wrap. So have these discs really been sitting around in some wherehouse for over 2 1/2 years?
The 2 spindles I bought at Best Buy about 10 months ago which were also CMC had 2006 and the popcorn intelliflix wraparound.
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post #1427 of 2875
8/14/07 at 5:14pm
I didn't open mine yet, are there any dates in that Big Fish sticker that would lead you to believe these discs were packaged 2+ years ago?
if they are indeed older stock, maybe I will exchange them for the CMCs, they'd be newer and of better quality.
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post #1428 of 2875
8/14/07 at 5:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmscott42 View Post

Yeah, CMC manufacturing codes=horrible media, still, I hate to say. But the stuff they make for Verbatim (Which does use the MCC media ID) is excellent, and I personally really liked the stuff they made for TDK (again, using TDK's media codes, NOT TDK that was just repackaged CMC).

I, and some others, have had some amount of issues with "MAP6/PAP6" Verbatims. They aren't particularly liked by any of my burners-- they produce an acceptable burn except there are huge numbers of errors either at the very beginning or the very end (They either start great and shoot way up by the end, or vice versa-- the max errors are far higher than I find acceptable on any brand of media). Some people say they're fine, so it must be a burner issue.

TY-made Panasonic is some of the best media I have ever used, unfortunately I am very, very low on it... but I got a single spindle very cheaply from a buy.com sale about 2 years ago and was amazed at how well it burned. Awesome media, really a shame I don't think I can find this exact kind anymore. (There's still Panasonic media but this had a nice white coating and such) I also have some very old TY-made Verbatim which again, was excellent but I don't think has been seen in North America in at least 3-4 years.

(Verbatim's had a wild ride-- they started selling their own made-in-house stuff which was great, then switched to TY which was great, (1-2X days), then switched to some of the worst CMC I have ever used [like, discs refusing to even complete the burn process]-- their 2x-4x stuff was utter crap, then they started getting better with 8x and now we're at 16x and they're back to top tier, in general)

Just look for made in Taiwan Verbatim that has a serif font for "Open-Close". CMC makes it and it's excellent. It just proves CMC can make a good disk when they put their mind to it (And are given the dye, stampers, etc, to do so. ) As long as the disc itself has an MCC media id, and NOT a CMC ID, it's good.

I am confused now. I have a lot of old Verbatim 4x DataLifePlus Inkjet Printables with an MCC media id. Is this good stuff or "utter crap"?
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post #1429 of 2875
8/14/07 at 5:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Lococco View Post

I didn't open mine yet, are there any dates in that Big Fish sticker that would lead you to believe these discs were packaged 2+ years ago?
if they are indeed older stock, maybe I will exchange them for the CMCs, they'd be newer and of better quality.

The stickers were taped to the outside of the shrink wrap so no doubt only added on recently. On the inside of the Big Fish sticker the redeem date is by Dec. 31, 2008.
So I figure that these were old stock and they added the current day sticker.
Or, (hopefully) they found boxes of these old 2005 wraparounds and rather than print up new ones they figured they could still use them and just add that Big Fish games promo sticker to them
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post #1430 of 2875
8/14/07 at 5:44pm
thanks, I'm leaning towards exchanging them now, I'm guessing they might be older stock and that's why they're on sale.
JMas, the 4x Inkjet ones you have are good:
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia/ve...c-01rg20-4/185
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post #1431 of 2875
8/14/07 at 6:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Lococco View Post

thanks, I'm leaning towards exchanging them now, I'm guessing they might be older stock and that's why they're on sale.

You could return them and keep their sale circular and see if another place that carries Verbatim will match that price. But I think read on here recently that the current batches of Verbatims at Office Max or Office Depot were not that great.
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post #1432 of 2875
8/14/07 at 6:45pm
I'll exchange them for the popcorn +Rs that I saw way deep in the back of the shelf, no one's going to reach all the way in there for them (except me).
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post #1433 of 2875
8/14/07 at 6:46pm
Pretty much anything with the MCC media code is good. When I mentioned the 2x-4x era being bad I was thinking of when they were basically selling horrible CMC media (which had CMC media codes). I think it was right as they were starting to outsource to CMC and realised they were getting very bad quality discs from the deal. (when MCC was still made "in house" in their Singapore plants)

I've never been able to figure out a pattern between the dates on the spindles and "good" or "bad". I thought I had it figured out but have found enough counterexamples that I would put ZERO faith in the dates meaning anything in particular. It's quite possible as suggested here they have older stock of the sleeves and just push it out occasionally. (or CMC has warehouses full of it and find the 2005 stuff).

I'd love to stock up on some more Verbs but I don't know. I personally have had horrible luck with MAP6 which it seems like I get whenever the stuff's on sale. (which is really too bad as the MAPA DVD-R media is about the best I have ever used, including TY, in quality scans. My LG loves MAPA as much as it hates MAP6. I can't fathom how the same company making the same media can have such variance.)
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post #1434 of 2875
8/14/07 at 6:58pm
interesting videohelp post, he also included scans.

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia/ve...03rg20-16/2986

Comments posted by ixyk from United States, May 07, 2007:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These discs (made in 2005 anyway) are about as perfect as I've managed to achieve. However, make sure that you DO NOT buy the discs that are made in 2006 w/ the Intelliflix promotion packaging or they will not be nearly as good as the ones that are made in 2005 with the Advanced AZO marked packaging. I've attached the test results for comparison, and as you can see the older discs are nearly twice as good based on the numbers.
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post #1435 of 2875
8/15/07 at 10:27am
Interesting-- BOTH of those are what my MAP6 discs scan like-- tons of errors, tapering off. (or sometimes they're the other way around and the big ramp-up comes at the end)

Honestly, my guess is still that the dates don't particularly matter. I have a feeling he just got MAP6 discs on both. NEITHER of the scans he posted are particularly good for Verbatim in the slightest -- my average Verbatim scans average around 10 PIEs, with spikes no higher than 20, EVER, on ANY burner. (they look like the tail end of his scan, uniformly across the disc) While those scans are not unacceptable by the standard, they are MUCH worse than what I have come to expect from Verbatim. (seriously, that 2006 scan is coming very close to going over DVD specs for errors-- it can max at 280 and some peaks are hitting 200. I get nervous when ANY disc I burn from ANY maker hits over 50 PIEs!!)

As usual, you really can't make blanket statements based on one spindle. But I think he's indicating how bad "bad verbatim" can get, NOT that you should accept either one of those!! (seriously, you can get much better burns/scans from cheaper media than either one he shows)

Edited to add-- I just noticed that he's using a Pioneer 111 for quality scans. Pioneer drives, while *awesome* burners (and the 111 is about the best of the best), are horrible quality scanners. You can't trust them for much of anything. I would put very, very little weight on those quality scans, they may or may not be indicative of anything.
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post #1436 of 2875
8/15/07 at 1:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KHR View Post

What's the ID on the Office Depot brand DVD-R?? Anybody know that just bought them?

Ken


It might be bad form to quote and answer your own post, but since nobody else did - I will!!

I bought 4 of the 50 pack spindles today and opened one and the ID on them is still RitekF1.

Ken
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post #1437 of 2875
8/15/07 at 3:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KHR View Post

I bought 4 of the 50 pack spindles today and opened one and the ID on them is still RitekF1.

Ken

I am probably one of the few people in here who doesn't mind Ritek all that much. I know they aren't as good as MCC Verbatim's, or TYG01-03 Taiyo Yuden's, but I think Ritek are still pretty decent.

I have used several of them and not run into any problems.
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post #1438 of 2875
8/15/07 at 3:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by suplex View Post

I am probably one of the few people in here who doesn't mind Ritek all that much. I know they aren't as good as MCC Verbatim's, or TYG01-03 Taiyo Yuden's, but I think Ritek are still pretty decent.

I have used several of them and not run into any problems.

Ritek is passable (2nd class), though I picked up some DVD +R DL discs (Dynex) that read as RitekD01 (3rd class) that are clearly giving me a few issues. Too late to take them back, and they were only $1 per, so they're used as experimentals and for things I'm uncertain that I want to keep.
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post #1439 of 2875
8/16/07 at 1:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by KHR View Post

What's the ID on the Office Depot brand DVD-R?? Anybody know that just bought them?

Ken

Finally got around to checking.

DVD-R > Ritek F1
DVD-R (From combo DVD-R/CDR) > Ritek F1
DVD+RW > RITEK-004-48
DVD-RW (From previous purchase) RITEK-004-48

I did not buy any of the DVD+R or DVD+R DL
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post #1440 of 2875
8/21/07 at 12:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by KHR View Post

It might be bad form to quote and answer your own post, but since nobody else did - I will!!

I bought 4 of the 50 pack spindles today and opened one and the ID on them is still RitekF1.

Ken

Memorex RitekF1 is the absolute worst of very bad media. Horrible stuff. Memorex and Ritek should both be ashamed. It is doggie poop.
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