Inexpensive BD-R Media

[Chefkoch_ico]

Hi.

To stick with topic, I buy most BD-Rs on ebay.com.

Always imports from Japan. At first Sony BD-R 4x printable.

Later then I switched to TDK BD-R 4x printable (20 pcs in a cakebox). Price is about 4 Dollars including shipping (approx 3 EUR per disc).

For me, living in Europe, a good price.

-----------

My NAS with 3 TB capacity I only use temporary. If I have no discs atm, I can play the ISO images over network in my HTPC (Mediaportal+PowerDVD). But later on I burn the files to BD-R.

Bye

[mariush]

When I say I copy from drive to drive internally -- I mean from an SATA HDD to a SATA HDD. It copies at the same rate as from a USB-2 External to a SATA HDD. The resulting "true throughput rate" of 16MB per second is significantly below the highest possible throughput rate of either of the standards -- it comes out to about 168Mbs, and USB-2 should be able to handle (theoretically) up to around 400Mbs. I'm guessing it's limited by seek times, Microsoft overhead, latency, whatever -- but it's a lot less than either of the standards should accomodate.

To clarify this subject, the theoretic transfer speed of USB2 is 480bmps which is 60MB/s. But transfers are half-duplex, meaning you get up to half of that in each direction so that's a maximum of 30MB/s. Additionally, Windows reserves about 10% of bandwidth for other devices if I remember correctly.

You may be able to increase the speed of transfers by raising the polling rate of the usb connectors but not by much.

So 16MB/s is little, but not that much lower than the maximum possible. If you see speeds higher than that with USB sticks or small devices it's just Windows caching reads and writes.

[DVD Maniac]

To clarify this subject, the theoretic transfer speed of USB2 is 480bmps which is 60MB/s. But transfers are half-duplex, meaning you get up to half of that in each direction so that's a maximum of 30MB/s. Additionally, Windows reserves about 10% of bandwidth for other devices if I remember correctly.

You may be able to increase the speed of transfers by raising the polling rate of the usb connectors but not by much.

So 16MB/s is little, but not that much lower than the maximum possible. If you see speeds higher than that with USB sticks or small devices it's just Windows caching reads and writes.

I have never experienced any issues with SATA / USB 2 docking stations playing back any current HD sources so I can only assume USB 2 has sufficient bandwidth to work in this way with my partucular setup. Had this not worked I always have a spare Internal SATA connector and power lead available patched into the front panel of my MPC but with the obvious downside of Power Down / Up cycles to swap out the HDD. My new MB has an AHCI BIOS which (allegedly) allows for Internal SATA hot swapping but to be honest i've never trusted it enough to try it!

[jdobbs]

To clarify this subject, the theoretic transfer speed of USB2 is 480bmps which is 60MB/s. But transfers are half-duplex, meaning you get up to half of that in each direction so that's a maximum of 30MB/s. Additionally, Windows reserves about 10% of bandwidth for other devices if I remember correctly.

You may be able to increase the speed of transfers by raising the polling rate of the usb connectors but not by much.

So 16MB/s is little, but not that much lower than the maximum possible. If you see speeds higher than that with USB sticks or small devices it's just Windows caching reads and writes. Ok... I have to correct my self here. When I was looking at transfers previously I was measuring from my BD drive to either the USB-2 or SATA. Just to satisfy myself I did a couple of BD copies from SATA to SATA HDDs... No comparison. The SATA drives were well above 45MB/sec (almost 3 times faster than what I'm seeing on the USB-2s). So this time I have to raise the B.S. flag on myself this time. :)


Additional note:
Is that how they measure half-duplex on USB-2? I pretty sure it isn't. Most of the time half-duplex means you can go full speed but only in one direction at a time, not half-speed in two directions. From what I've read, the maximum transfer rate (reality) is about 40MB/sec for a dedicated USB-2 interface on a HDD. 60MB/sec is the maximum theoretical rate, but it can never actually be reached.

[Sophocles]

I went to a debate on this very subject of USB-2 in comparison to SATA II.Speed claims for any format or drive rarely rise to its makers claims.

http://www.rt.db.erau.edu/655s08/655webUSBSAT/index.htm

[Capsbackup]

Back to BD-R media: Memorex 4x BD-R, which has the same mfg ID as the RiData, just Blue in color (Ritek) $29.99 for a 15 pack spindle at Fry's.

[jdobbs]

For you Ritek lovers. (http://www.meritline.com/ritek-ridata-4x-blu-ray-bd-r-white-inkjet-printable-bdr-254-iwcb25---p-34649.aspx). $2.95 ea.

[GaPony]

You gotta love seeing the prices dropping. Maybe BD-Rebuilder's popularity is effecting the market? :D

[SilverBlade]

Yikes, I'm jealous of you Americans..

in Canada, the cheapest BD-R media I've come across is $4 per disc (In Canadian dollars), and that's a brand known as 'Microboards': https://www.blankmedia.ca/prodsubcats.asp?id=171

Anything less the $3 per disc is a bargain for me..

[DVD Maniac]

Yikes, I'm jealous of you Americans..

in Canada, the cheapest BD-R media I've come across is $4 per disc (In Canadian dollars), and that's a brand known as 'Microboards': https://www.blankmedia.ca/prodsubcats.asp?id=171

Anything less the $3 per disc is a bargain for me..

@SilverBlade

Don't be jealous, just get smart, BD-R media is a mugs game. Find yourself a competitive HDD source and waive goodbye to endless coasters and tedious quality checks :). Europe is the same deal, inflated prices indicative of media suppliers manipulated by Holywood lawyers scared shitless of the source of the next gin palace yacht on the med. Use your options :cool:

[GaPony]

Yikes, I'm jealous of you Americans..

in Canada, the cheapest BD-R media I've come across is $4 per disc (In Canadian dollars), and that's a brand known as 'Microboards': https://www.blankmedia.ca/prodsubcats.asp?id=171

Anything less the $3 per disc is a bargain for me..

I wonder what the media code is on their BD-R media. Microboard uses Taiyo Yuden for its DVDs.

[Wolfe999]

@ Mediogre: Thank you very much for the Rakuten link. I was a little bit afraid and "only" bought 80 TDK's. Indeed it's cheap. Though I still haven't received the e-mail with the definitive shipping expenses, I think the end price for each BD-R will be around €2,60. Unimaginable prices to buy from Europe... at least to my knowledge. Cross my fingers they are good media (they are manufactured by Imation).


BEWARE European residents and (I suppose, though I'm not sure) North American residents too. I just received a call from the guy from DHL, the international courier through which the order was sent, from Spain's Customs and I'll have to pay around €90 of customs for the 80 BD-R I bought, so the end price will be around €4 each BD-R. Not too expensive but in no way cheap. I know this is kind of a lottery, because many times I passed customs withouth paying anything... So, you are warned.

Good luck :)

Of course, I won't be buying anymore from Japan. I'll try to find something cheap (difficult) from Europe or from the States, as my sister or I go frequently there and can bring it directly with no customs hassle.

Edit: somo typos

[Chefkoch_ico]

BEWARE European residents and (I suppose, though I'm not sure) North American residents too. I just received a call from the guy from DHL, the international courier through which the order was sent, from Spain's Customs and I'll have to pay around €90 of customs for the 80 BD-R I bought, so the end price will be around €4 each BD-R. Not too expensive but in no way cheap. I know this is kind of a lottery, because many times I passed customs withouth paying anything... So, you are warned.

Good luck :)

Of course, I won't be buying anymore from Japan. I'll try to find something cheap (difficult) from Europe or from the States, as my sister or I go frequently there and can bring it directly with no customs hassle.

Edit: somo typos

Just be careful taht you stay under 150 EUR, below that you dont have to pay customs.

What you need to pay is the tax, but if you get lucky, you dont even have to pay this.

Bye

[hoju3508]

Last day at Fry's (in-store) for Memorex's BD-25 15 pack for $29.99 (~$2 a piece).

[DVD Maniac]

[QUOTE

Of course, I won't be buying anymore from Japan. I'll try to find something cheap (difficult) from Europe or from the States, as my sister or I go frequently there and can bring it directly with no customs hassle.

Edit: somo typos[/QUOTE]

Or you could avoid ALL this hassle, cost, waste of time, being ripped off etc etc by switching to HDD! :)

[Ghitulescu]

Or you could avoid ALL this hassle, cost, waste of time, being ripped off etc etc by switching to HDD! :)

So you can easier loose the whole collection should the HDD fail - and it will as the drives of today are worse built than their predecesors ...

[dazmac]

been using picasso silver inkjet 25gb bd discs all worked flawless £20 for 10

daz

[therat]

I can't believe how cheap Blu-ray 25G media is overseas. Here in Oz it's still too expensive to even bother about thinking a Blu-ray burner. A pack of 5 Verbatim costs $AUD 79.00 :(

No wonder dealers are only selling Blu-ray/DVD combo drives.

cheers

[pbeumer2001]

Here in Holland/Germany the prices are dropping each month. 10 Varion 25 GB now cost 17,50 euro. That`s 25 USD.

[DVD Maniac]

So you can easier loose the whole collection should the HDD fail - and it will as the drives of today are worse built than their predecesors ...

I never once had a (Full) catastrophic HDD failure and ive been through a few as drive capacities have increased and £ per GB has dropped sharply. Sure, the odd partition failure or a bad sector appearing which are all repairable easily. The likelihood of the entire drive failing without warning is for me so unlikely that the benefits out weigh the significant downsides of the optical burning lottery. :rolleyes: Carefully sourced kit with error prediction support and you are sorted. :)

Have you tried playing one of your old discs in your library which you haven't watched for ages, one which played just fine the last time? I've got lots of those - half don't play at all and most have errors on them which seem to get worse over time. Have you counted how many coasters you have burned over time (and all the time wasted in testing and reburning the damn things!) :devil:

Optical storage (at least on consumer blanks) sucks period :p

[jdobbs]

I never once had a (Full) catastrophic HDD failure and ive been through a few as drive capacities have increased and £ per GB has dropped sharply. Sure, the odd partition failure or a bad sector appearing which are all repairable easily. The likelihood of the entire drive failing without warning is for me so unlikely that the benefits out weigh the significant downsides of the optical burning lottery. :rolleyes: Carefully sourced kit with error prediction support and you are sorted. :)

Have you tried playing one of your old discs in your library which you haven't watched for ages, one which played just fine the last time? I've got lots of those - half don't play at all and most have errors on them which seem to get worse over time. Have you counted how many coasters you have burned over time (and all the time wasted in testing and reburning the damn things!) :devil:

Optical storage (at least on consumer blanks) sucks period :p Well for me, at least, the answer is pretty much none and none. If a disc fails to play back typically its caused by a bad drive either during the write or during the read. So I just buy a good quality burner instead of one of the cheap ones (Sony right now).

Optical discs are very, very reliable -- and so are hard drives. So the argument becomes a matter of preference-- and nobody can win an argument over preference.

[Taurus]

I never once had a (Full) catastrophic HDD failure and ive been through a few as drive capacities have increased and £ per GB has dropped sharply. Sure, the odd partition failure or a bad sector appearing which are all repairable easily. The likelihood of the entire drive failing without warning is for me so unlikely that the benefits out weigh the significant downsides of the optical burning lottery. :rolleyes: Carefully sourced kit with error prediction support and you are sorted. :)

Have you tried playing one of your old discs in your library which you haven't watched for ages, one which played just fine the last time? I've got lots of those - half don't play at all and most have errors on them which seem to get worse over time. Have you counted how many coasters you have burned over time (and all the time wasted in testing and reburning the damn things!) :devil:

Optical storage (at least on consumer blanks) sucks period :p

I dont have my camera here at hands,
A picture might give you an impression how durable and longlasting HDDs are :p
Almost one feet high broken HDDs.
And yes, i have some running since 1998 and others died in a 2 years lifespan.
What does this tell you? Nothing is secure. Not your life, nor computers.
It all depends on your backup strategy.
And yes, I'm using DVDs too.
And no, no LAN Partys, no carrying around, bouncing, rocking, etc...

[GaPony]

I use both good burners and good media. The few pennies spent on buying good quality stuff saves time and money in the long run. Except for the first few DVDs I copied as a rookie, when I used cheap media, I haven't had an issue on any DVD copies I've made over the past 5 or 6 years.

I've had hard drives fail, very seldom, but it happens. Backup, backup, and backup. Maintain your system, keep it clean and keep things cool, you won't have many things break prematurely. Using consumer drives in RAID is just asking for trouble. A foot high stack of broken drives tells me you're either doing something wrong, or can't bring yourself to throw anything away. :)

Died in a 2 year lifespan? Sounds like a warranty claim to me.

I keep all my movies on HDD, DVD and Blu-Ray alike. I also put them all on disc. I'm not sure which is backing up which, but I'm confident I can play any movie I have, whenever I want. ;)

[DVD Maniac]

Well for me, at least, the answer is pretty much none and none. If a disc fails to play back typically its caused by a bad drive either during the write or during the read. So I just buy a good quality burner instead of one of the cheap ones (Sony right now).

Optical discs are very, very reliable -- and so are hard drives. So the argument becomes a matter of preference-- and nobody can win an argument over preference.

jdobbs forever the polite mediator! :) Maybe I have just been unlucky, but ive played the high quality / compatible burner + blank + player combo game to death and lost every time. :rolleyes:

Oh look! That disc that played just fine last time on my old DVD set-top refuses to play now. Put the disc back in the same drive that quality checked it last time and oh! what a surprise - full of errors now and a quality control graph looking like a 2-D cross section of the frickin Rocky Mountains! :devil:....Another coaster to add to the pile....:rolleyes:

But like you say, its down to preference....now, where's that pile of coasters I need to shred....:)

[GaPony]

Can you send me some of those coasters? I'm having a party and want my tables to stay tidy. :D

[DVD Maniac]

Can you send me some of those coasters? I'm having a party and want my tables to stay tidy. :D

Sure, hope you gotta lot of BIG tables to cover cos my coaster pile has ice on the top of it and mountain climbers looking for their next big challenge. Have to shake the buggers off it every time I need to move it. :D

[Ghitulescu]

Have you tried playing one of your old discs in your library which you haven't watched for ages, one which played just fine the last time? I've got lots of those - half don't play at all and most have errors on them which seem to get worse over time. Have you counted how many coasters you have burned over time (and all the time wasted in testing and reburning the damn things!) :devil:

1. I did recently a test on my first DVDRs from 2005. Still way below the error margins (PIEs were at the time some 30-60, now 60-90, same PIFs, about the same total errors). Probably another 5 years of carefree storage (PIE<=280, but most devices can endure up to 400 even 600) ...

2. Maybe you should have burned'em at 4x max. I don't care if people say they got good burns at 16x, I burned always at 4x (except for the first ones which were 1x or 2x) and this never failed me. The same goes for CDRs, 1x for audio (sometimes 4x with cheap CDRs, you know, car copies, which usually got scratched much before the dye rots). And try not to pick the best buy brand, keep up with the quality manufacturers ...

3. Coasters I have only occasionally and always at the beginning of the burn which can be traced down to incompatibilities between the drive and the disk. Since I'm collecting them in a spindle I can tell you that I have about 10 in 5 years - I keep them for recovery purposes (data disks).

4. But I have seen the fragility of HDDs several times in my life, including one of mine which hold at the time some 250GB of rare documentaries I've collected from SAT and (luckily) safe copies of DVDs I own. Was a sad loss.

5. Should no manufacturer in 5 years produce DVDRs (and CDRs), maybe I'll move to HDDs (if they will be produced, the tendence is towards flash-media), however no MediaPlayer/MediaTank/etc. I've seen has a comparable image quality to my Pioneer. Which explains why most people convert the DVDs to xvids since they don't see the difference anyway ;)

[DVD Maniac]

1. I did recently a test on my first DVDRs from 2005. Still way below the error margins (PIEs were at the time some 30-60, now 60-90, same PIFs, about the same total errors). Probably another 5 years of carefree storage (PIE<=280, but most devices can endure up to 400 even 600) ...

2. Maybe you should have burned'em at 4x max. I don't care if people say they got good burns at 16x, I burned always at 4x (except for the first ones which were 1x or 2x) and this never failed me. The same goes for CDRs, 1x for audio (sometimes 4x with cheap CDRs, you know, car copies, which usually got scratched much before the dye rots). And try not to pick the best buy brand, keep up with the quality manufacturers ...

3. Coasters I have only occasionally and always at the beginning of the burn which can be traced down to incompatibilities between the drive and the disk. Since I'm collecting them in a spindle I can tell you that I have about 10 in 5 years - I keep them for recovery purposes (data disks).

4. But I have seen the fragility of HDDs several times in my life, including one of mine which hold at the time some 250GB of rare documentaries I've collected from SAT and (luckily) safe copies of DVDs I own. Was a sad loss.

5. Should no manufacturer in 5 years produce DVDRs (and CDRs), maybe I'll move to HDDs (if they will be produced, the tendence is towards flash-media), however no MediaPlayer/MediaTank/etc. I've seen has a comparable image quality to my Pioneer. Which explains why most people convert the DVDs to xvids since they don't see the difference anyway ;)

Well on Point 1 you have kinda backed up what i'm saying - 5 years is not a long time. Besides, read the various threads on the subject and lifespans seem to vary wildly and more annoyingly, player dependent. My old (forgiving) Pioneer player died on me the new one simply refised to play half my collection :mad:

On point 2, ive played that game and tryed all the various combo's of media, burn speed etc which MIGHT work if the manufacturers maintained consistent quality across batches and new brands - they don't. So you may find your winning combination of blank brand, burn speed, buring program, burner, player etc, for a while....... then you are back to the compatibility game again when a a parameter out of your contraol changes...

On point 3 - you deserve a prize! :)

On point 4, use the 3 b's, Brand Choice, Backup (media that is irreplaceable), BLOODY big cooling systems. Iv'e not had an HDD failure in nearly 20 years of building my own PC's :)

On point 5. A mate brought round his brand spanking new Pioneer Blu ay set-top and we ran a blind test of my combo of a backed up AVHCD movie on hard disc / softplayer vs the original Blu Ray on his set top (same monitor). He fianlly admitted he could not tell the difference i in either picture or sound quality. :)

But as jjobbs said its all personal preference...

[jdobbs]

We're getting more-and-more OT here. No more posts on the benefits of hard drives or the weakness/strengths of optical media. This thread is meant as a place where folks can post about deals they've found -- not to argue about media types.

[Capsbackup]

Fry's has 15 pack spindle of Memorex(Ritek) 4x BD-R spindle for $24.99 each.

[vamsiklak]

the day befroe yesterday i got 10pack for 15.00
thats 1.49 apiece its optimum i burnt two discs it works good sofar

[VistaVick]

Those are some improved prices, but I am too used to printing on the labels with my canon.......need some deals on printables.

[Willobee]

the day befroe yesterday i got 10pack for 15.00
thats 1.49 apiece its optimum i burnt two discs it works good sofar

Where did you buy them? What brand?

[JJB]

vamsiklal bought the same ones I did at Fry's. They are branded Optimum but are made by cmc according to the ID code. I have used 6 that were verified by imgburn and all have played back from start to finish with no problems. Fry's also carry's Memorex with a Ritek ID at everyday price of $24.99 for 15@ a disc price of $1.67. I have had no problems with verify or playback with those either.

[Willobee]

@jjb

Thanks for the info. I was buying the Memorex BD-R 25's at Newegg for alot more $. These Memorex BD-R's work great. I burn them at 8x on my Pioneer BDR203. No coasters so far.

[vamsiklak]

Nice
ineed some of those
Now i can burn my 38gb-45gb files from my Hd on 2 bd-r25gb since these are getting lower
I hope i can get these puppies for dollar on black friday

[PhilippeB]

I had used only 2 brands so far, one Verbatim for BD-RE, and Optical Quantum (rated 4x but burns @ 8x on my LG BH08).
It is quite a fun to watch a disc burn at 36.xxx Mb/sec = )

The Verbatim BD-RE detected only at 1x on my burner (what a pain) even if it is sold as 2x. So far, Verbatim sucks.

Absolutly no problem with the discs so far. They are available at cheap price. Check NewEgg (got mine 74$ CAD for printable surface, but you can get the same discs LOGO for 64$ / 25 qty).

Also, they have a printable to hub version, my favarite, but also the most expansive so far. Check them out they sold pretty everywhere.

[jdobbs]

I had used only 2 brands so far, one Verbatim for BD-RE, and Optical Quantum (rated 4x but burns @ 8x on my LG BH08).
It is quite a fun to watch a disc burn at 36.xxx Mb/sec = )

The Verbatim BD-RE detected only at 1x on my burner (what a pain) even if it is sold as 2x. So far, Verbatim sucks.

Absolutly no problem with the discs so far. They are available at cheap price. Check NewEgg (got mine 74$ CAD for printable surface, but you can get the same discs LOGO for 64$ / 25 qty).

Also, they have a printable to hub version, my favarite, but also the most expansive so far. Check them out they sold pretty everywhere.Interesting you'd mention the 1x problem. I had the same problem with my Sony BD-REs. I reformatted them (long format) and they then started working at 2X.

[Capsbackup]

Interesting you'd mention the 1x problem. I had the same problem with my Sony BD-REs. I reformatted them (long format) and they then started working at 2X.

Same here. After a full format, which takes a very long time for me ( almost 2 hours ), now they burn at 2X. :)

[PurpleMan]

Anybody knows where can I get inexpensive BD-R printable media from a website that ships internationally (outside the US) ?

[JJB]

http://lmgtfy.com/

[Capsbackup]

I recently had purchased a 10 pack spindle of Optimum brand 4x BD-R 25GB media for $14.99. It looked like a pretty good deal!
Disc ID: CMCMAG-BA3-00.
Well, only 8 out of 10 discs worked properly, and those 8 also verified correctly with IMGBurn.
Two of the discs would not even start to burn, throwing out an error message. If I ejected the discs and tried again, IMGBurn reported the discs as empty/recordable, but as soon as you clicked burn, it would error out again. They will not write.
I do not believe I will use this brand again, since I have never had a problem with the Memorex/Ritek brand after 45 plus burns. :cool:

[JJB]

What burner? I have used about 4 of the 10 packs from Frys. All have burnt and verified OK with Imgburn. I use a Pioneer BD-205.

[Warbucks81]

For any canucks in this thread, Newegg Canada has the 10 pack of Verbatims 4x for $34.99. I picked up a couple packs when they had a free shipping promo.

[jdobbs]

I bought some of these Ritek BD-Rs (http://www.meritline.com/ritek-ridata-4x-blu-ray-bd-r-white-inkjet-printable-bdr-254-iwcb25---p-34649.aspx) for $2.22 ea (box of 25) and have had good luck so far (I've burned about 20 of them).

[laserfan]

I recently had purchased a 10 pack... It looked like a pretty good deal!
Disc ID: CMCMAG-BA3-00.
Well, only 8 out of 10 discs worked properly, and those 8 also verified correctly with IMGBurn.

What burner?Yeah and have to checked to verify that your burner supports CMCMAG-BA3-00.

[Capsbackup]

Yeah and have to checked to verify that your burner supports CMCMAG-BA3-00.

My burner is a Matshista UJ-225S, which came with my Dell XPS M1530 Laptop.
I'm not sure how to tell if that burner supports what different media, but 8 out of 10 leads me to believe it does, and the media is suspect.

[laserfan]

I'm not sure how to tell if that burner supports what different media, but 8 out of 10 leads me to believe it does, and the media is suspect.You're probably right, but OTOH maybe that's why 2 have failed.

I dunno if MediaCodeSpeedEdit works with your drive, but it looks at firmware to see if specific disc types are supported:

http://ala42.cdfreaks.com/MCSE/MediaCodeSpeedEdit_ScreenShot.png

[laserfan]

I noticed these on Amazon for something like $38 bucks for qty 20, and wonder if anyone here has tried them. I found this document

http://www.verbatim.com/userfiles/file/BDR_LTHCompatibility_2.pdf

which suggests they should work with my LG BD burner, but it's not as clear whether they'll be read by my BD player (which is not on their list).

Anyone here try them? I dunno if the "organic AZO layer" is inferior in some way to the regular "inorganic" type heretofore available, but they are significantly cheaper (best deal I can find on Verb BD-Rs is $29 at newegg for 10).

[datman]

I noticed these on Amazon for something like $38 bucks for qty 20, and wonder if anyone here has tried them. I found this document

http://www.verbatim.com/userfiles/file/BDR_LTHCompatibility_2.pdf

which suggests they should work with my LG BD burner, but it's not as clear whether they'll be read by my BD player (which is not on their list).

Anyone here try them? I dunno if the "organic AZO layer" is inferior in some way to the regular "inorganic" type heretofore available, but they are significantly cheaper (best deal I can find on Verb BD-Rs is $29 at newegg for 10).

I just ordered 20 I'm betting you can't beat it.