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View Full Version : DVD-R Became Unplayable After USPS Shipped to Client


BassPig
16th July 2010, 01:59
I had a rather embarassing situation happen, which has never happened before in the 9+ years that I've been authoring and burning DVD videos:

I burned an evaluation copy of a training video that I produced for client in NYC, using my most reliable media, which for many years has been TDK. As usual before sending, I play the disc on a Pioneer DV-343 player, and also check it on a Panasonic player, checking the menus with both 4:3 and 16:9 televisions and skipping to various parts of the disc to look for any playback issues.

This disc was clean when I mailed it. Client received it, tried to play it on his Mac and it would play the opening credits and then dump to the menu. I had him try another player. So he tried a set top player. There, it played about 3/4 of the way through (90 minute program) and then froze into macro blocks.

I recall that the day I mailed it, we were experiencing 100° + temperatures in the northeast. I can only presume that the disc was sitting in an overheated postal truck and the dye melted or became modified in the heat. I have never had problems with discs not playing at clients before this.

Has anyone information on environmental testing of DVD-R media and what the safe temperatures are before the disc is damaged to unreadability?

Later on, I am going to need to send one of these discs to a replicator in NJ, so I need to make sure that the disc is completely 100% readable when it gets there. This little incident really worries me.

setarip_old
16th July 2010, 02:55
Hi!

The first thing to do is have the client return the problematic DVD to you - so you can check it out yourself...

7ekno
16th July 2010, 06:42
Um, TDK pimp their DVD production out to places in Taiwan, India and China ... so "quality" is never consistent ...

The most reliable media on the market is Taiyo Yuden followed closely by Verbatim Datalife Plus (must get the "Plus" version) ...

I going to say it was probably dodgy media ...

7ek

BassPig
16th July 2010, 22:51
Yeah, I'm suspecting the media wasn't up to the quality levels of prior batches of TDK media. Since it became hard to buy TDK white inkjet printable media, I've had to buy from sources I never bought from before.

I had one disc in eight produce a burn error, which also has never happened with TDK media before. The only time I saw a burn error was with Phillips DVD-R DL media when burned on a Pioneer drive (okay on a LG burner).

I guess it's time to switch brands. TDK has become unreliable since it became hard to find on the market. 4 years ago I used to buy them at Costco and they were flawless. Then Costco stopped carrying them and since then I've had trouble buying them anywhere else.

I'm going to ask the client to return the defective disc for analysis.

7ekno
17th July 2010, 08:25
Um, Costco probably isn't the best "source" for purchasing "production" quality DVD media ... they often have fake media stocked (probably due to their policy of sourcing cheap chinese stock) ...

At least Amazon stock genuine Taiyo Yuden (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=Taiyo+Yuden&x=0&y=0) media ... they aren't cheap, but ARE the most reliable media on the market!!

For best reliability use these (http://www.amazon.com/JVC-Taiyo-Archival-25-Disc-Spindle/dp/B00319DJ6Y/ref=sr_1_30?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1279351952&sr=1-30) (I have 2 year old discs of these that scan at a "quality" of 97% still!!) ... for cheaper but best consistency use these (http://www.amazon.com/Taiyo-Yuden-Inkjet-Printable-DVD/dp/B000UE6HW6/ref=sr_1_18?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1279351819&sr=1-18) (consistently over 97% quality post burn with 2 year quality consistently over 90%)!! ...

7ek

BassPig
18th July 2010, 06:04
Thanks for those links.. although my projects require white printable discs, which only your "second best" link contains. Any inkjet printable version for the 'best' choice discs?

It seems easy to find branded media, but the industry hasn't figured out that we want inkjet printable media for projects where we're selling to the client or to the public.

I'm wondering what happened to the 100-200 year life expectency of DVD-R media that was touted way back when it was the latest new technology?

7ekno
18th July 2010, 06:31
I'm wondering what happened to the 100-200 year life expectency of DVD-R media that was touted way back when it was the latest new technology?

It was called advertising :)

DVD+R are far better at holding data (especially data written at higher rates due to the difference in the way wobble is controlled for +R vs -R) ... +R is also better for error recovery (the whole data sector is covered by error detection and correction, whereas with -R disc only the first 2048 bytes of a 2536 byte sector has any error detection and correction) ...

Get a cheap DVD-R disc, burn it at 16x and do a generic "quality" test on it (the test is essentially useless for "readability" of a disc, but it is useful for monitoring degradation over time) ... put it in a draw for 3 months and do another "quality" scan (chances are it has dropped to below a 25% quality score, even if it was over 90% straight after burning) ...

Anything Taiyo Yuden from Amazon will be genuine and decent quality, just select DVD+R in the speed and surface you are happy with :P

Tek