Verbatim DVD-R's

[2ZOD.COM]

Is it really worth the extra money to get Verbatims?

I just bought a spindel of 50, and am now questioning why, because I could have gotten 3 times as many disks if I had gotten riteks.

It's a project where I'm transfering VHS to DVD and they need to be good quality and last a while, so I think I made the right move.

Any insight here would be good, thanks.

[gooki]

Well you can get Taiyo Yudens discs for just under twice the price of riteks, so you might have spent a little more $$$ than you had to, but I'd still be happy with what you purchased, especially if the content on the discs has a lot of value to you.

[atreides93]

I tend to use name brand discs like verbatim or TDK for projects where I've converted VHS to DVD. Its just not worth taking the risk and losing the video I just converted. For lame movie backups i just use Ritek's since it won't mean the end of the world if I lose those.

[David Hwang]

The video is priceless. I won't use cheap discs because of few bucks.

[Toona]

I bought some of these last week ( http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=11168018&m=488&cat=516&scat=2845 ) burned 10 of them so far perfect and all play on my samsung standalone and my PS2. $2 bucks a piece for verbatim 2X isn't bad I think

[cypher_soundz]

brought some verbatim datalife plus dvd+R play fine on ps2 but refuse to play on apex1100wb :( around £2.30 GBP per disk.

[Toona]

Verbatim Datalife's DVD + and - R's are on sale at Office Depot. buy one 15Pk spindle and get one free so it comes out to be about 32.77 for 30 which is about $1.09 USD per disk pretty nice!! if you have one near by

[macrosii]

Hi

Just wondering what colour dye Verbatim 2x DVD-R usually have.
I bought a spindle of 25 and they have the light colour dye same as the Bulpaq disks. I have had one fail on me, the rest play fine but testing them with Kprobe they look poor, PI/PO max 222/221 avg 138/51.
This is similar to what I get wtih the bulkpaq disks (which were 75% costers).

So couple of questions;

Are these real Verbatims or do I have a poor burner (A04). (Pioneer disk gave PI/PO max 97/10 avg 3/0.6 , Traxdata disk gave 63/10 and 14/0.6)

How good a measure of disk quality is Kprobe? My verbatim disks gave very similar Kprobe errors to the Bulpaq but do play fine.

Thanks
Macrosii

[macrosii]

Hi again


I just looked at the Verbatims with DVD decryper and it reports the manufacturer ID as CMC MAG. Are these Verbatims or have I been ripped off?






Thanks

Macrosii

[alexnoe]

CMC MAG (CMC magnetics) is "Cheaply Made Crap"!

Real Verbatim discs are MCC (Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation)

Scans of Mitsubishi discs (http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~noe/CDF/KProbe_Scans/DVD_Brennquali/Mitsubishi/)

[macrosii]

Thanks for the info. Are these then Fake? should i be trying to get my money back? They have the verbatim logo & box.

Thanks

[alexnoe]

I'd try to get my money back. There's no point in paying a Verbatim price for CMC crap

[macrosii]

Thanks

I rang Verbatim head office in Europe. They told me they use both CMC and MCC to manufature there disks and they would not say one was better than the other. So if I buy verbatim I gamble on a good or a bad disk? Do TDK or Maxell suffer from multiple suppliers?


Thanks

Macrossii

[alexnoe]

Verbatim has only recently started to sell CMC crap...

TDK usually does only sell their own media, but others sell media with faked TDK codes.

There are faked Maxells around as well, but the juwel-cases maxells which I use (http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~noe/CDF/KProbe_Scans/DVD_Brennquali/Maxell/Maxell_2x.gif) are real Maxell discs

[smiller667]

Thanks for extracting that information from Verbatim. I emailed them and never got an answer.
About TDK: I only have a few, but they were mfg'd by Mitsubishi :).

[atreides93]

This is really bad news. Here I might be paying more for verbatim but actually getting no better than my Riteks!!
What I've been doing is buying TDK and Verbatim jewel case disks for my important home videos that I want to last forever. I think I'll stick to TDK jewel case now that Verbatim admits using CMC. For everything else I use Ritek. I think these Riteks are pretty damn good. I haven't had any fade on me or stop working. Of course the oldest I have is only 15 months....so only time will tell if these Riteks will truly hold out.

I'm a little wary of the bulk name brand sets....

[macrosii]

I think that Verbatims manufacured in Sinapore are definatly MCC, mine were manufactured in Taiwan.

I will see if I can get some graphics up at the weekend to show you just how crap they are.

[thxtof]

Are yours with the logo on it ? In jewel case ? Or in bulk EOM ?

[macrosii]

They have the proper verbatim logo, 25 cake box also with Verbatim logo on.

I have sent the remainder of the disks I had left back to Verbatim Europe with plots of Kprobe to se what response I get.

[Ollie W. Holmes]

I have 2 spindles (50 pk) of the CMC verbatims. Maybe up to 10% of the discs have surface flaws (like excess glue or scuffs) near the rim. This sucks. I reserve this for burns entailing 3.7 GB or less. I wish there were a way to tell from the outside packaging where the discs were really made.

[nash]

I bought a 15 pack spindle of Verbatims. When I look in DVD Decrypter ISO -> Write mode, I don't see any info regarding Manufacturer ID. It's supposed to be between the "Disc Information" and the "Physical Format Information" right? I can't find the info on my generic disks either. The field name doesn't even show up. Could this be a limitation of my drive? TIA

DVD Decrypter version 3.1.6.0
Drive: Matshita LF-D310

[AudioVideoMaster]

I bought two spindles of the Verbatim 15 DVD-R's that were on sale at Office Depot a week ago that someone above gave a heads up about. I went ahead and bought them just to see if I could get lucky that they weren't CMC's and that I could get a quanity of DVD-R's for cheap.

Ha! No such luck! I did a manufacture test first thing on one of them and sure enough... CMC's. After the fact, I went looking and I didn't see the Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation logo anywhere on the packaging. Heck the disk weren't even smooth along the edges like they had too much glue or something and some had scratches near the edges.

Anyway, took those dreaded Verbatim CMC's back the next day get my $34 refunded and took it to Best Buy to get a 10 pack of jewel cased Fujifilm 2X DVD-R's for $25. They have been very reliable for me.
:) The Fujifilm's are Tayio Yudens BTW! :)

I'd rather have quality than quanity I decided.

[Matthew]

This sucks, hopefully Verbatim will snap out of this seeming greediness.

Having a firewire/USB burner I can't use ADVDInfo unless I remove the burner from the box and place it in the machine, which I don't want to do =(

But I get only verbatim discs (2x) in full jewel cases, not spindles, has anybody received CMC discs in this form?

[cypher_soundz]

everytime i use dvdinfo , i get a aspi error saying: "ASPI command returned: senseKey 05h; ASC 24h; ASCQ 00h" is this the manufacture id? or just an error :(

[markrb]

This sucks, hopefully Verbatim will snap out of this seeming greediness. Don't be too quick to judge. There are many reasons a company adds another manufacturer to the fold. Maybe the other guys couldn't keep up with demand or the maker became too greedy. We don't know what happened. Although I agree that using a less then reliable company does suck.

I work for an electronics company and deals get changed from both ends all the time and sometimes we can't keep up with demand so they will add another company or sometimes we are that other company thats added on when demand overwhelms the original maker.

Mark

[Matthew]

markrb, I know there could be another reason, hence "seeming" was included as a hedge :)

[smiller667]

True, one shouldn't be jumping to conclusions ... but the funny thing here is that Verbatim is actually owned by Mitsubishi Chemicals ("Verbatim - a Mitsubishi Chemicals Company").

Thus this might indicate that they either can't keep up with demand or have decided they can't produce their media at a competititve price ...

[valnar]

In the absence of a reliable Verbatim choice now (which is all I've ever used), can anyone tell me how the quality of Taiyo or Mitsui DVD-R media ranks?

Any other good name brand choices?

-Robert

[thxtof]

Give a try to TDK. $189 for the 100 spindle.

That's my first choice for branded DVD-Rs ! And don't be fooled, buy the REAL one, with the TDK logo on them ( bestbuy.com carry them ).

[AudioVideoMaster]

Originally posted by valnar
In the absence of a reliable Verbatim choice now (which is all I've ever used), can anyone tell me how the quality of Taiyo or Mitsui DVD-R media ranks?

Any other good name brand choices?

-Robert

Taiyo and Mitsu DVD-R's are the best you can buy. Many times Taiyo's are sold under other name brands. I know this for sure that I've got Fujifilm DVD-R's that are jewel cased from Best Buy that are Taiyo's. Can't say the same for the spindle ones b/c I haven't used/checked them yet. I haven't found any Mitsu's out in retail but you can buy them online but they are expensive.

[valnar]

Taiyo is the best CDR, but do they make their own DVD-R's? It appears that Verbatim may be leaving the DVD writable business, so I need another top brand to buy. I have a couple Mitsui's, but they were indeed expensive.

Either Taiyo or TDK. Which do you recommend?


Robert

[LB]

So I *WAS* a big mitsui fan, until recently. Their older Gold Branded 2x DVD-Rs were great. Hard as heck to scratch, and always burnt A+. But I recently ordered 100pack of gold unbranded 2x mitsu's and somethings changed. The bottom layer is easy as heck to scratch; as easily as a freaking Ritek. ;( That really pisses me off. So I dunno. Maybe I'll check out their Silver DVD-Rs, but if they aren't any better, then it will be time to find another manufacturer.

[alexnoe]

What Verbatim is doing with DVD-R is inacceptable.

They have shown with CD-R that there is a proper way to sell different products:
Verbatim DLP - Mitsubishi
Verbatim DL - CMC, Moser Baer, MMMM

I'd appreciate if they also sold their CMC crap as "DataLife", so that anyone who wishes to get MCC can do so without any risk or gambling.

[JustinH]

I bought two 15 pack spindles of Verbatim when office Depot had the sale, and sure enough they turned out to be CSS discs. I'm pretty ticked off, because on the wrapper it says Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation.

Anyway, all is not lost, my sony drive seems to like them, I blew through the first 15 pack in a couple weeks and not one coaster.

Thats probably the last time I buy media offline, without knowing what it really is.

JH

[JustinH]

Just wanted to add something to my previous post.

I got into the second cakebox of verbatim's today, and DVD Decryptor is reporting them as Ritek GO3's. So far in my last four cakeboxes of verbatim, i've gotten three different brands 1.) CMC 2.) mitsu 3.) Ritek G03

The first G03 was a coaster due to a wavy dye pattern, the next couple burned ok, but then the next three in a row were totally defective. Bad flaws in the die, and they failed right after leadin, or at leadin.

I am using a Sony 510a.

Avoid this junk media.
JH