Unbranded MAXELL DVD-R's

[leisuredoc]

Anyone have good/bad experiences with unbranded MAXELL DVD-R's?

cdrdvdrmedia is offering these for under US$2 each, as is supermediastore (aren't they the same entity?).

After running K's Probe on a lot of my past recordings, I'm running scared about the quality of my media input and want to secure a really good "keeper" for those precious back-ups.

Thanks for any wisdom!

leisuredoc

[jbalakri]

Beware! Please stay away from these Unbranded MAXELL's!

I was in the market for Ritek G03's. But the Ritek's where sold out every where. At Meritline, which I think is the same as supermediastore, had these unbranded MAXELL's at 30% off, which comes to $1.30 each. I jumped on it because I had success with branded Maxell's purchased at staples and I ordered a 125 pack. Big mistake.

Firstly, the disks where badly made with sharp edges and felt flimsy. Burn was unsuccesfull because Gear DVD could not finalize the disk. But I still was still able to play it on my sony DVD player(s360). It played with a lot of pixilation and stutter.

I am sending them back. I also read at vcdhelp that these are fakes and Maxell don't manufacture these unbranded disks. Also there are a lot of negetive comments on these disks.

[leisuredoc]

@jbalakri,

Many thanks for your story, and my sympathy goes to you. I decided to spend more and ordered Taiyo Yuden's from rima.com instead.

Best regards and better luck in the future!

lesiuredoc :scared:

[alexnoe]

I know that there are some discs around which contain a MAXELL ID, but which are not made by Maxell. So, it's basicly same thing as with TDK, made by Princo.

How shall one know who made a disc if they all fake the IDs? :scared:

[leisuredoc]

@alexnoe,

I don't know but maybe there should be an international law that optical media manufacturer's I.D.'s are registered with the manufacturer or sub-contractor so they can be responsible for the quality of what they sell (ISO-9000 capable) and violators would be as liable as pirate copy shops.

Otherwise, we all lose trying to get a good deal on media only to find that it is drecke. And, believe me, I have a story to tell about bad media.

leisuredoc

[alexnoe]

Currently, I rely on that discs of which the juwel case says "Maxell" are really made by Maxell...

[Son Gokou]

I was in the market for Ritek G03's. But the Ritek's where sold out every where. At Meritline, which I think is the same as supermediastore, had these unbranded MAXELL's at 30% off, which comes to $1.30 each. I jumped on it because I had success with branded Maxell's purchased at staples and I ordered a 125 pack. Big mistake.

Firstly, the disks where badly made with sharp edges and felt flimsy. Burn was unsuccesfull because Gear DVD could not finalize the disk. But I still was still able to play it on my sony DVD player(s360). It played with a lot of pixilation and stutter.

Same exact thing here, I ordered a 100 pack of unlabeled Maxell's from supermediastore, all coasters. It was a total rip off, they shake and rattle in my burner, sounds like a bulldozer. They lock up and start pixelating at random points throughout movies. Sometimes they start stuttering right at the beginning menu. A few of them froze up halfway through the burn. Regular Maxell's from bestbuy work flawlessly for me, the ones in regular Maxell jewelboxes. Bought like 20 of them, 20 flawless discs. As did a Princo rewritable, Riteks and Verbatims from rima.com. I hate to say it but it looks to me like Supermediastore is pulling a total scam with those so called unlabeled Maxells.

[gooki]

Thanks for the heads up guys - I was looking at buying 500 of them

And going by "jbalakri" description of them, it looks like princo is at it again.

[DirtyAbdul]

DANG IT! :angry:

and i just ordered 50 of them (luckily only 50) at "allmediaoutlet.com". i'll keep you guys posted how those are.

DA

[thxtof]

I received mine today from Insite Tech.

I just burnt one and everything seems ok. I played the movie in x8 and no freezing, even at the end.

The only inscription on the DVD is:

IFPI BD08

It's encarved into the plastic, in very small letters.

[Son Gokou]

Maybe those are different discs than mine, I'll check the number another time. I have another tale to tell about this media, I took a disc today figuring I'd give it a second (..more like tenth) try. Read the image perfectly using dvddecrypter, of course. Rebooted (I always do this to be safe) popped in the disc, loaded up the image and hit write. I figured I'd write at 1x speed this time, just to try and eliminate any possible reason for these discs failing. It freezes up 53% of the way through, error: check condition, or some such. I put in another disc, decided to try Nero this time. Both Nero and dvddecrypter have been very successful for me with all other types of media. Selected a video_ts directory I had saved, it was a 1 to 1 copy (fit on one disc) and I had been waiting to write it for a while. Hit burn, it freezes at writing lead-in. Tried ejecting the disc, no go, went into task manager and shut the damn program down. Disc still won't eject, reboot, goes halfway and freezes. Can't get out of the screen, I pulled the plug. On restart the disc was still in there, my comp won't boot up, black screen. I ejected the disc and like magic everything started as per usual.

Ok, you will call what I did next stupid, maybe you'd be right. I decided to try another disc in dvddecrypter, regular speed (I don't have time I wnat to waste, obviously 1X didn't help). Load up the image, well whaddya know, it goes all the way through. Loaded WinDVD, another no go, program froze up, my drive making numerous "I'm trying to read this piece of crap disc but failing" type of sounds. Tried to load in PowerDVD next, it gives me a bad media, possibly damaged error. I go to my other computer, which is a junky 5 year old emachine, but it has a DVD drive. With a very old version of DVDExpress. I tried to play the disc, success, however some of the icons/menu were a bit distorted. It also would not skip chapters, I have to go "play all episodes" instead of being able to select an individual chapter from the menu.

I figured the true test is if it will work in my player. I inserted the disc, now reading message, pauses, nothing happens. Disc won't eject, hit stop, nothing, panicked. Hit eject, tray goes out 1 inch and stops. Total panic, hit stop, eject, finally I got the damn thing out. Lot of stress from these *cough* Maxell *wink* *wink* discs. Wish I could get something for them, anyone wanna buy some coaste...err discs, heh?:D Joking. Rima.com has been my savior throughout this ordeal.

Edit:

http://store.yahoo.com/supermediastore/shopperquotes.html

Gee look at their self proclaimed reviews, must be 200 perfect reviews there.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1639.html

These reviews seem to tell a different story.

[DirtyAbdul]

Originally posted by thxtof
I received mine today from Insite Tech.

I just burnt one and everything seems ok. I played the movie in x8 and no freezing, even at the end.

The only inscription on the DVD is:

IFPI BD08

It's encarved into the plastic, in very small letters.

hmm, i finally received my batch and burned 2 of them so far with 1x and 2x. both read fine in my dvd-rom and dvd-player, but i haven't tested the whole surface yet.

like thxtof's disc, there are actually 2 inscriptions, one for each side of the disc at the inner ring. it says "IFPI BD05"

dvd decrypter displays the following manufacture id: "MXL RG01"

"kprobe" indicates that the PI/PO are average. unfortunately, i can't attach any pics here (dunno how that works) and secondly, kprobe gives me different readings everytime i take out the same disc and have it re-read again! either it's indicative of a poor construction of the drive (which is only 2 days old ;)) or it might imply that the disc is unbalanced... hmm, any other ideas? for more infos about "kprobe" check this thread that is already a sticky: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=50485

i'll try to post my results there when i find some more time.


DA

[Son Gokou]

MXL RG01

Aye same here in Nero check, it is the same ID as the Maxell's from Best Buy. I can't explain it :(

Edit: Two, done with dvd2one (made into image with imgtool and burned with dvddecrypter) actually played, Mrs. Doubtfire and one other, unfortunately got pixelated (sp?) midway through which degenerated until it froze. This one didn't play at all, not sure what the difference is. Hopefully that won't happen to yours, though it would give me some closure on these discs. I would love to get them up and working.

Edit again: Writing on the plastic middle ring reads as IFPI GZ02.

[DirtyAbdul]

Originally posted by Son Gokou
Aye same here in Nero check, it is the same ID as the Maxell's from Best Buy. I can't explain it :(

Edit: Two, done with dvd2one (made into image with imgtool and burned with dvddecrypter) actually played, Mrs. Doubtfire and one other, unfortunately got pixelated (sp?) midway through which degenerated until it froze. This one didn't play at all, not sure what the difference is. Hopefully that won't happen to yours, though it would give me some closure on these discs. I would love to get them up and working.

Edit again: Writing on the plastic middle ring reads as IFPI GZ02.

what's your burner and firmware? as you can see from my footnote, i'm using a pioneer dvr-105 w/ fw 1.30 rpc-1... may there be compatibility problems??? :confused: reading my maxell discs with dvd decrypter seems to be fine. i will scan through the movies regarding pixelation or freezing as soon as i find some time.

DA

[Son Gokou]

SonyDRU500, I believe the firmware is 2.0e. I wish it was just incompatibility because that would mean I could get something for the discs. It just seems like they're unreliable, I try a DVD image with one disc, it gives me a bad media error half way through the burn. I try the same image with another disc and it burns successfully. I'm reluctant to upgrade the firmware because every other disc brand does works, and I don't want to risk messing up a good thing just for this batch.

[smiller667]

A friend of mine sent me this information from the latest issue of c't magazine:

"Maxell" DVD-R media were sold by a local etailer in Germany under the "WYSIWYG" (sic!) brand ... manufacturer ID MXL RG01. The printing on the discs said "IFPI BD06" and "IFPI BD08" which, according to c't, hinits to a factory located in Hongkong. Maxell, on the other hand, says they only manufacture in Mitsukaido, Japan, that these media can't be B- or C-grade Maxell media and that they are thinking about legal steps to stop the abuse of their mfg ID.

Interestingly, the DVD-Rs did not have a dvd-r logo printed on them "to prevent lengthy checks by customs agencies". The etailer claims that initial quality checks of a small batch were OK and only their later shipments had inferior quality. They offered replacement media.

Sound like this might be a case of illegal use of the MXL ID by other manufacturers (as happened with so-called TDK media which were from Princo).

[gooki]

Thanks for the update smiller667.

Much appreciated.

[geffroman]

I applied for an RMA for all 75 of the Maxells I bought from Meritline. They responded today with a full refund RMA. I am returning 55 unused and 20 burned disks to them.

I did a return to them just a couple weeks ago for the same kind of problem with their Meritline branded 2x Media and they processed my refund in full to my account within days.

If you use Meritline.com or CDRDVDRMEDIA.com you should have no trouble returning those Maxells...

Regards