Media deals this week - Page 83

All right I went through all my discs (hundreds) and I did find FIVE Memorex CDRs.
They are the black surface discs. I know we're supposed to use the shiny ones so the laser can read them easily but I must of bought these on sale many years ago.

I just tried some playback on my JVC DVD/CD player and they seem to work fine. As you see from the pictures of the actual discs, nothing is peeling off of them and they look fine. The second picture illustrates the thin jewel boxes the discs are kept in.

I have some black CDs, Memorexes, too, though the labels are different from SuperEye's discs. There was some brief fad 5-6 years ago about black, rather than greenish/bluish-tinged silver discs, playing better. I don't remember the rational/theoretical science behind it, though I remember thinking it sounded pretty bogus. (Kind of like the green Sharpie marker around the outer edge of the CD before that.) But I tried a pack of the discs anyway.

As for the long-term viability of CD-Rs and DVD-Rs...... I have some "car tunes" CDs that go back to 2000, and they still play fine. Memorex media, too, though I think it was before the company switched to rock-bottom dollar production sources. Anyway, these discs have been in the car for all 11 years, frozen through Midwestern winters and baked in summers like the one we're having now. They're kept in a zippered wallet under the seat, so direct sunlight never hits the discs themselves or the case they're in. A couple (some Fujis, I think) have discolored a bit on top--turned from silver to gold--but still play fine. All of these discs were made in a standalone audio CD recorder (Pioneer or Sony) using the special "CD-R Music" required for those machines. And all were hand labelled wtih a CD/DVD marking pen with water-based ink. As with all my optical media, I'm careful to handle a disc only by the outer edge (and try not to grab it right after, say, picking up a piece of gooey coffee cake).

A few skip a bit during playback, due to "road rash" scratches and scuffs from 11 years of handling and sliding around on the seat or dashboard before I had time to put them back in the case. No surprise there.

All of this "torture testing" gives me a fair degree of confidence that optical media will last pretty well if stored with a little care AND if there aren't any fatal manufacturing flaws that accelerate deterioration.

P.S. How could I forget to make a compilation disc of music from "The Big Chill"? At least, I have Yanni, Air Supply, Chris DeBurgh, and Celine Dion to fill the gap......

I think the rational/theoretical science behind it supposedly was that black is less scratch resistant than the normal shiny disc's surface. I never really bought into it as no other manufacture said this to be true. From my point of view the laser has to work harder to penetrate through the black surface to get to the dye, although I could be off-base as I have no way of knowing this. Since I only have 5 of these discs I must of bought a sealed five pack at a thrift store for very cheap. I took one of the black Memorex CDRs for my commute today and the disc played flawless all the way through.

Come on everybody, we're gonna'
have a good time, yeah,
Gimmie' all the love that's
in ya', I'm gonna' give ya'
mine.
I wanna' hear some hand
clappin', I want you to get
in the groove,
We're gonna' play this
footstompin' music,
everybody get up and
groove, yeah.

Not sure how long this has been going on but at least from 8/1 and through 8/14..... Microcenter has the infamous Verbatim Life series DVDs for $12.99/100 and the even probably worse Windata R DVDs for $11.99/100.
Personally I'm holding out for a good deal IMO(<$20/100) for the real Verbatims(AZO) but I guess for not critical duplicator use, $12 or even $13 is a great deal for 100 DVDs.

Yesterday I visited Fry's Wilsonville Oregon store where I purchased two 16x Maxell DVD-R spindles for use in my CopyPal duplicator or computer. The ad, showing the old, familiar packaging, is seen in the first photo. The second photo shows the new packaging for the DVD-R DVDs. The third photo shows these Chinese Maxell DVD-R as RITEKF1 discs. (The spindle in the new packaging is slimmer, allowing the discs to rock back and forth.)

Today the Fry's ad has two other "deals" that might be of interest. The fourth photo shows a 50 pack of Maxell DVD+R DL discs for $19.99. The fifth photo shows 100 packs of Moser Baer DataRight DVDs for $10.99 each. (I purchased two of these DataRight 100 packs at an earlier sale where they were sold for $6.99 each. Since then I've burned around 80 of these MB discs in my CopyPal without complications.)

Wow! 40 cents for cheap DL discs, some uninformed pay $20 for for 50(40 cents each) regular R Memorex discs at Target
$6.99 for a hundred of those DataRight discs if only they had a Frys in my neck of the woods
With my dubbing project I'm getting desperately low on decent grade Rs and am getting tempted by Microcenters deal on the lesser Live series Verbatims for $12.99/100. Those or 8/18-9/11 Costco will be running their Sony white top R discs for $12 off/100(no limit or coupon required) which should be $17.95 in my area. I've never had a failure with those Sonys and I like the flat white top which is easy to write on. I haven't seen a good deal(<$20 shipped) on the good grade Verbatims in a awfully long time

Super Media Store is selling Verbatim DataLifePlus White inkjet hub printable 8x dvd-R 50pk. for $13.99(.28cents per disc) and qualifies for free shipping w/orders over $50.00.I bought 3 pks.and a 520 disc wallet.Cost $65 bucks and some change.Not a bad deal for high quality Verbs. Offer expires 8/14 G.

I'd steer clear of Moser Baers at ANY COSTS simply because I have had bad experiences with them (about 5% success rates); beginning with CDRs and later on DVD-Rs!

For Canadian folks London Drugs has Verbatim 16X AZO dye 50 packs for $12.99
This includes Internet sales as well as walk-in price.

-R 16x Verbatim AZO dye

+R 16x Verbatim AZO dye

Deal good till Aug 17th 2011 but they have this special a few times every year. As I have a LD half a block away, I'm on my way to get 50 more AZOs.

Same here, and that Verbatim AZO is the only DVD-R I have found that works well in my 2003 and prior Panasonic recorders. The JVC/TY DVDs no longer work.

Amazon has them for $21.50 per 100.

Luckily just about anything burns in my '05 and newer Panasonics but I do worry about the longevity of some of the cheaper media.....$21.50 isn't too much over my $20 PP, I should probably just go that route, I do like Amazon.
Have you ever tried Sony DVDs on your older Pannys? I've read they are supposed to be pretty good and if you had a Costco membership you might want to try some after Aug 17. I'd be curious to see how they recorded in your machines.

Sony blanks never used to be reliable in my pre-2005 pannys ... I had multiple failures (back then -- haven't recorded on the old panny (E55 was 2004, I think) (ES10 maybe 2005?) in a few years, they are both unplugged and in storage) so, it's possible the recorders were just at the point that they needed cleaning and the sony failures were coincidental. That said, I also had two batches of Sony blank CDs that developed 'rot' -- a blooming pattern over the surface of the media -- so ever since then, I've steered clear of Sony brand media altogether. My old pannys used to like maxell (in the old days, before it got crappy) and fuji media ... I've since switched to TY but haven't had a chance to try them in the older hardware. Most of the vintage 2000 - 2007 discs seems to still be ok.

My first choice would be TY also. The TY batch numbers GG0002xx and GG0003xx work fine in the pre-2004 Panasonics, but since early 2011 all I have been able to get from SuperMediaStore are TY batches GG007xxx, which chokes on the earlier Panasonics.

I use 8x TY media for all my archival and/or master recording:

I'm using recent production JVC/TY 8x Premium Line GG007xxx DVDs in my daily use 2005-2009 Panasonic recorders and daily use 2006-2010 Funai manufactured Magnavox, Philips, Toshiba, and PYE recorders. These JVC/TY DVDs continue to work well in all these recorders. Whenever my current use JVC/TY stock drops to around 800 DVDs I reorder more.

I also have a good sized stash of the original TY 8x Premium Line DVDs that I'm holding back in the event that current production JVC/TY DVDs stop performing up to my expectations. I also have on hand a few 8x Maxell and Verbatim AZO DVDs of 2005/2006 manufacture.

For specialized uses, including high grade duplication and computer backups, I keep a good supply of decent quality 16X media on hand, TY, Verbatim "genuine Mitsibishi" AZO Series (MCC), Maxell (Ritek) and Sony.

For non-critical duplication and other uses I keep a good supply of mediocre 16x media on hand. Currently, this includes DataRight (Moser Baer) and "landfill grade" DVDs produced by China Magnetics Corporation (CMC). This currently includes Verbatim "Life Series" and Magnavox. I watch for local sales and purchase enough to keep a stock of around 1,000 of these DVDs on hand. If TDK, HP, Philips or Imation (all CMC) were to be offered at a very low price I would probably purchase some--but I can not stoop low enough to purchase Memorex branded media, even though it's the very same "quality" (LOL!) as other "landfill grade" CMC media.

So far, so good with Moser Baer DataRight 16x for some special projects and occasional duplication. Back in June I had a 16x Magnavox (CMC) failure during duplication, reported here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post20524155

Beginning in 2008 I've used 8x media, not 16x media, in my stand-alone daily use recorders.

This trend is concerning. Something must have changed in their manufacturing to have this happening. All I can say is, I hve had some failures with rcent batches, but by placing my Panasonic recordes into "silent mode" high speed copy, the issues have gone away. I don't know about earlier model recorders. My earliest machine is an EH50, and I haven't used it for quite a while. Earlier machines will likely not have the ability to do 8x or 16x. If they fail at 4x, then the T-Ys are no longer usable in these devices.

If people in this group, who know better, won't pay more then $20/100 disks, then it's no surprise that good quality disks are no longer available. Remember what VHS tapes used to cost?

I had a number of disks go bad on me, many were Sony and Ritek. I am glad I replaced them all with T-Ys quite a while ago. Didn't somewne here used to say, life it too short to use poor quality media?

That would be me. But I took it out of my sig when I stopped burning DVD-R in favor of networked NAS storage (what do I do with all these T-Y blanks). But now I'm into burning BluRays so maybe I'll put it back.

I would be most interested in purchasing them, if they are the older 4x or 8x TY DVD-Rs!

The trend toward declining media quality sure is "concerning" Church AV Guy.
After the merger of T-Y and JVC i watched people post their concern over whether the disc quality would remain the same.Then i watched people begin to post about 'issues' with certain batches of discs.That problem had never happened before AFAIK. After reading about possible problems with some of the TY-JVC disc batches i decided to use only Verbatim DataLifePlus series discs.At least there haven't been any reported problems with them yet.If the super-cheap bastards who won't give an honest buck for an honest product have things their way,then it won't be tooo much longer until the Verb.DLP series is discontinued or downgraded.If that happens then what will be left??? AFAIK the only MFR.of good discs will be MAM-A,and they really are expensive. G.

Cheap is no substitute for quality and reliability. Fewer and fewer people seem to hold that opinion these days. I have regretted buying cheap and need to replace what I got far more often than paying for quality.

Maybe thats why I have 2000 blank T-Y premium 8x blanks.

I did have another one improperly burn last weekend. My duplicator caught it when I did a test on the disk.

Sigh...

Do you have problems with Maxell and TDK, that is all I use. I never had any isues with them.

$50/200 Ty premium 8x shinny tops, shipped and no tax, doesn't get much better than that Personally I detest the shinny top(shows finger prints like crazy) and much prefer a matt finish like on most every other brand(Verbs come to mind) but other style Tys are MUCH higher priced
http://www.supermediastore.com/produ...rinters%20Sale
I'm off to pick up a couple 100 spindles of the Sony flat printable top 16x discs at Costco, should be $18/100 if I do my math correct.

Edit, $17.50 + tax for the Sonys which in my market =$18.73

That price of $50/shipped for 200 TY(JVC) 8X DVD-R silver top is good through Aug. 21. I've opened & used a few of my last hundred, & plan to order soon. I don't go through discs like many of the folks here, but old movies for Mom(she loves musicals!) & old TV series I like can put a strain on things. Viva Route 66!

Remember, Aug. 21 is the last day for this sale.

Already scored a modest order of 200 "shinny" tops (hate the finger prints, too, jjeff, but at that price.....). I like to keep a couple thousand on hand, just in case there's a temporary interruption in the supply chain.

25 cents per disc is hard to beat for TYs. I'd just picked up 200 of the good DataLifePlus Verbs from SMS for $56, but figure they'll all get used up eventually.

I tried to order 400, but it said that was more than they had in stock. So, I ordered 200, and that worked. Does anyone know - did I really get lucky, and get the last two 100s, or are they just letting people order 200, and no more?

I ordered 200 on Saturday. I made no attempt to order more.

Sony T-120 Videocassettes - 3/$5.00 with coupon in Sunday ad - Walgreens, thru Aug. 27.

Hi everyone, still looking for DL-DVD DVD-R-DL from TY. or anyone else??

Are these good enough for you? http://www.supermediastore.com/produ...ax=15&offset=0

I'm still looking too, but they seem to have been discontinued. MAYBE the T-Ys will be back eventually, if they were discontinued as a result of the earthquake, but it is also possible that they were permanently dropped.

The Riteks you listed are tempting, but I am not a big fan of the brand. I wish the Verbatims were not so costly ($5 per disk! ) or I would be buying them. For the cost, the Verb +R DLs are the best dual layer disks to use.

Funny thing about that page from Supermediastore, it lists the Panasonic DMR-EH66 as a new addition to the hardware that can use these disks. I did a quick search, and all I can see is that this was a model for Japanese use only, and it came out about six years ago or so.