BD-R Discs with a 3-week Lifespan?

[BassPig]

I bought some Blaze brand inkjet printable BD-R single layer discs 4 weeks ago and started burning some demo material to them. Initially, they played well and across various players tested.

Two weeks ago, however, I began having difficulty playing the demo reel BD-R. The problem started as intermittent "cannot play this disc" errors when selecting some chapters. It progressed to player not doing anything at all after inserting the disc, to player eventually refusing to play the first 3 features and jumping to the fourth feature when the first was selected via menu.

I burned a new copy on a Sony brand BD-R and that plays fine (from the same image file).

So despite favorable reviews, the Blaze discs have a lifespan of 3 weeks, if you play the disc daily. I probably played it 30-40 times. The first 15-18 plays were no problem, but after that, it got progressively less reliable, then finally unplayable. At the present time, that disc will not play at all when inserted in the player.
I guess $3.59 a disc is not really a bargain after all. Buyer beware.

[Blue_MiSfit]

:(

BD-R is a big fail so far IMO..

Sorry to hear about your negative experiences...

[BassPig]

I definately think that statement is true with regard to the fact that a significant number of players refuse to play non-AACS discs, but what about the main or premium brands of discs? Are TDK, Sony and Panasonic discs as prone to degradation over the course of several plays, or am I better off forgetting the 'bargain' discs like Blaze media that I tried?

BD-R is not the only medium that has deteriorated on me. 3 months ago, I had a concert DVD that I'd authored and a copy of it kicking around here that I used to demo to clients visiting my screening room, and left it in the player over a weekend with the menu looping. On Monday, I attempted to play that disc, noting the menu had 'frozen', so I ejected and reloaded the disc and was greeted with "cannot play this disc", when for several months it had been playing reliably. That was Samsung BeAll media.

I guess what it boils down to is that you can't leave discs in the player except to watch them, as the laser slowly changes the dye over many plays. Reminds me of LP records.. play them many times, they wear out. CDs were supposed to correct that. But dye in recordable optical media apparently is a lot less robust than I had assumed.

[Ghitulescu]

Never heard of Blaze media.

Anyway, there are no affordable testing machines (there are 2 but they cost from 20000 upwards IMHO. If a BDR can be read back, it's good - seems to be the motto of these PC magazines. I've seen even articles that stated some BDRs cannot be read in the same drive that wrote them. That's all that can be said about the favourable recensions.

So, unless a testing method is available to use by us, the stupid consumers (we are stupid because we accept any shitty technology they throw at us), I think that no BDR should be trusted. Or burn it and test it, like you did, in a normal "ageing" test.

Coming back to DVDs where I have a good experience - Samsungs are not really good. I think I had one in hand and if my memory is still ok, it was a Ritek (since Samsung does not produce optical media). For the DVDs I use a Plextor to read out PIE/POE/PIF/POF/TA/jitter of the burned DVDR. If the values are close to the minimum, the disc is good, if they are in the middle the disc is still ok. If there are values close to the limts or depassing them, that's a bad burn, despite it may work. When I had time I also remeasured the values again, after 1 or 2 years - in the case of good burns no substantial "improvements" should be noticed.

Once more, we don't have this kind of measurements available, yet. Chances are that we might not get this ever, because the technology is still in its infancy and not yet "vaccinated against all the diseases", and no manufacturer wants that we are able to know how bad are the media they sell to us.

[setarip_old]

@Bass Pig

Hi!

A few weeks ago, you were also having problems with re-writable BDs:

1) Are you sure your two problems are unrelated?

2) Did you solve/resolve anything by playing the discs on your friend's player?

[BassPig]

That's interesting to note that the Samsung discs are Ritek manufactured. Meritline, which toutes the Samsung BeAll as having a 100-year lifespan and certified for government and medical use seems to be making a dangerous claim. I could imagine if the government stored our medical records on these discs and then a year later they were unreadable, the claimant could be in serious legal trouble.

I'm pretty sure the problem with BD-RE and BD-R longevity is related. But I would be reluctant to conclude that my Sony BDP-S301's laser is so overpowered that it's literally burning up my discs. I think it's bad dye quality, or unstable dye.

Let's consider what I observed: The BD-R disc played beautifully for the first few dozen plays, then it degraded rapidly until the player would not recognize it.

The RE disc burned and played beautifully for the first 11 cycles. After that, subsequent burns produced progressively worse freeze-frame/stoppage of playback. It appears that the dye on the RE disc lost its ability to phase change fully and provide a fully modulated pit.

I also had one DVD-R go bad on me--that was the Samsung--left in the player over a weekend, powered on, looping menu.

I'd say the dyes are simply not stable.

I've burned a Sony BD-R (expensive!!) and will play that from now on and see if, in a month, it too goes bad. Will report my findings.

This is very disturbing, as it turns upside-down my trust in optical media. Time to buy a DLT tape drive for backup of data!

[Ghitulescu]

I do not live in the USA so I have no knowledge of what is happening there.

In Germany the markets are separated, you won't see a doctor buying DVDs (for medical uses) in ALDI or LIDL, but in special market/distributors. Even if they claim so. What I think is that the distributors/manufacturers know that and the label of 100years (you'll be dead by then) is simply a marketing tool. Like the "professional" or "pro" label on every shitty handworkers' tool you buy in supermarkets or discounters.

About the life span: they could always argue that it was a bad burning due to the burner (read the disclaimer on the package) and that it was kept in improper conditions. The test for 100years is done in specific conditions and you can't have these conditions at home (conditioned atmosphere). So they are safe.

As a simple example: Kodak produced (relabelled ;)) a series of CDRs called Kodak Gold. It was one of the few CDR that were extremely close to the physical aspects of a real pressed CD (good for copied games ;)). It was claimed for 100years, later on for 300 years. How was it burned? With a Philips CDD500, a CD-writer so old (it was the first ever CDrecorder) that not even the flea market has one. You don't have one of these Philips, and you burned it higher than 1x, you're out of the claims.

[zappppp]

Samsung Beall is made by korean company BeAll Developers, Inc. not Ritek.

[Ghitulescu]

Samsung Beall is made by korean company BeAll Developers, Inc. not Ritek.

You may be right, as I said I do not own Samsungs, I burned one once for a friend, and I recall it be a Ritek. That info came from ImgBurn, which red the code of the DVD. But it was done long time ago, and my memory is not so good, I don't have the test exemplar, all is in your favour ;)

Nevertheless, the other info (that Samsung does not manufacture optical media) is still valid.

Just found this link: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia?dvdmediasearch=samsung&dvdmediadvdridsearch=&type=1&size=All&dvdburnspeed=All&order=Name&hits=50&search=Search+or+List+Media

Yet another one: -> http://www.cdrlabs.com/forums/test-results-bluray-dvd-burners-and-media-t21949.html