Lifespan of BD-RE Dual Layer media? Are they really this fragile?

[Lyris]

I've been through about 3-4 BD-RE 50gb discs now and all of them have died in some way or another.

The Sony branded discs (which I believe were identified as MEI) have both stopped working fully, they can be burned maybe 30% full before the burn fails.

Another Panasonic branded disc (which is actually from Philips, IIRC) seemed to do better but now it refuses to play in set-top players, too. Also, during its life, the number of usable sectors shrunk to the point that I wasn't able to burn my authoring project onto it.

Does anyone else have experiences? Are they really this fragile? I haven't been abusing the discs or anything, although naturally it just isn't possible to keep them entirely spotless.

[rik1138]

Yeah, dual layer (and even single layer really) have a limited lifespan, and if you re-burn them a lot, it's surprisingly short. I've gone through hundreds of them since the invention of the format, and I can tell you that the MEI ones suck (our MEIs were Panasonic branded). I've had them fail after a 3rd or 4th full burn (many times, mind you, going through spindles of these things). (Granted, I do have one or two that have lasted several years and over 15 burns...)

But, regardless of the brand, their death rate is still kind of high with repeated re-burning. Usually, for me, when they die it seems to be at the layer break. I can use them as 25GB BD-REs for quite a while after that before they fail completely...

From personal experience, TDK seem to be the most robust...

[LowDead]

I have no such problem at all with Verbatim.. Have reburnt them many many times.. The only RE disc I have had problem with is a LG branded disc (that came with my first burner). That stopped working after just a couple of burns. Since then I have only used Verbatim and everyone still works.

[burfadel]

Have you updated the firmware of your burner? This can often help a lot with burning issues!