Be aware: MERITLINE = CDRDVDRMEDIA = SUPERMEDIASTORE !!!!

[thxtof]

These 3 stores are operated by the same company:

99% of the products are the same, pictures of the product are the same, they are all three "yahoo stores" with "top service" -- give me a break... and their address are almost the same. They all of them send you a "weekly sale" on Monday. What do you need more :devil: ??

CDRDVDRMEDIA.com :angry:
16666 East Johnson Drive, Suite A
Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

MERITLINE.com :angry:
16666 East Johnson Dr.
City of Industry, CA 91745

SUPERMEDIASTORE (4 miles away) :confused:
222 S 5th Ave.
La Puente, CA 91746

Even the links are the almost the same !!!
Check it out
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/meritline/kilwateldet.html
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/supermediastore/kilwateldet1.html
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/cdrdvdrmedia/kilwateldet.html

And last but not least their web is maintained by the same company http://www.designing2web.com/comptreecn/index_web4.htm

Not convinced yet ? :sly:

[thxtof]

OK I pushed the investigation a 'bit further... With the help of my wife who translated the following chinese page:

http://www.designing2web.com/comptreecn/

www.supermediastore.com, www.meritline.com, www.cdrdvdrmedia.com, www.ihealthtree.com are all operated by COMPTREECN.

Comptreencn (www.comptree.net) is trying to dominate the market for DVD-R and other electronic goods in North America, Asia and Europe. They have branches all over the world.

In China they own a company (in Nanjing) responsible to maintain the B2B platform used by their other branches: supermediastore, meritline, cdrdvdrmedia and ihealthtree.
This company is also in charge of designing/maintaining the different websites.

As I said several times all 3 companies are owned by the same and powerful international enterprise: COMPTREECN (headquarters are in LA)

That's all folks, end of the mystery :cool:

@atreides, may be you should make this thread sticky, to warn existing and futur buyers !!!

Really scary :scared:

[atreides93]

Excellent work!!!

Now I know which stores to avoid.

[Nogami]

Meritline deals in media from a lot of different manufacturers - they don't just sell their own stuff.

I havn't had any problems with the company itself - all of my orders have arrived intact and on-time.

The initial order of purple DVD-Pro blanks (1x) I got about a year ago had pretty dodgy quality control. The silver-topped ones (1x) I purchased 6 months later were somewhat better, but still dropouts near the outer edge.

I just received their "sampler" pack of 12 blanks - 2 each of 6 different brands. I'm going to run some tests and see what happens.

N.

[vw671]

I've made 3 orders so far from CDRDVDRMEDIA and I am 100% happy with them. All of my orders shipped the next day or the SAME day! On the last order I called to cancel my order so I could change the quanity of the order so I could get a better price. The person was very friendly and helpful, and even called me back to give me an update. I can't speak for the other stores but I will order from CDRDVDRMEDIA again.

[coby]

Interesting. But so far I have to say I'm 100% happy with orders from both CDRDVDRMEdia and Supermediastore. Although they may be the same company, its apparent from their web pages that their price structures differ slightly, at least in terms of what size/price/shipping combinations they advertise.

[DirtyAbdul]

hahaha, nice work thxtof -- and muchas gracias to your wife! :D

i ordered a pack of 25 accus from meritline to test their dvd-r's. their accus arrived two days ago and were ritek g03s. ADVDInfo shows:

00 42 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 50 00 02 79 0E 0B .B...@....P..Y..
FE FF 80 00 03 52 49 54 45 4B 47 00 04 30 33 00 .....RITEKG..03.

BUT -- and that's a BIG but: i have the impression that those accus were b-grade material. why? well, take a look at the attached picture:

1. black arrows: that is NOT paint, it's actually some drop of resin on the surface of the dvd that is ELEVATED!

2. blue arrows: those are entrapped AIR BUBBLES! the HUMUNGOUS cross-hatched area only depicts an air bubble that was on a different dvd-r that i already tossed away!

3. the red arrows show the edge of the dvd-r: it's a smooth, but irregular wave-like pattern created obviously by excessive polymerized resin. the red line next to the edge should demonstrate what i mean.

4. not shown: most of the dvd-r's have very light regular scratches on the RECORDING surface like after you would try to clean a surface with a cloth. obviously, my scanner couldn't catch those details.

sorry for the dust and the quality of my scan (although an epson perfection 1200U photo), but even my digital camera (and it's a SLR canon d30!) couldn't capture more details than already presented. all accus showed one or more flaws like the one i described.

i also found out that those accus didn't like 2x burning (1 successful burn out of 8!), although burning at 1x was fine. the ritek g03's that i received from hypermicro.com were of EXCELLENT quality: no dust, no scratches, no air bubbles, and better 2x compatiblity. ADVDInfo was slightly different:

00 42 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 50 00 02 37 0E 0B .B...@....P..7..
FE FF 80 00 03 52 49 54 45 4B 47 00 04 30 33 00 .....RITEKG..03.

i think because of the uneven distribution of resin on the accus, 2x seems to cause jittering of the disc (just my opinion).

anyway, the bottom line is simple: I WILL NEVER AGAIN BUY FROM MERITLINE.COM OR CDRDVDRMEDIA.COM OR SUPERMEDIASTORE!!! they might be a few bucks cheaper, but i will gladly support vendors who are committed to good customer service!!!

meritline only confirms their reputation (also see thread "Meritline.com account suspended" http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36023), and i would like to warn all newbies and potential customers to save themselves some severe headaches with bad companies!!! pooh, now you have been warned :sly:

any input is gladly appreciated!

DA

edit: i tried to upload the scan, but somehow it doesn't seem to work... will try again :(

edit2: ok, now this is ridiculous! if you want to see the scan, please follow this link: http://www.geocities.com/dirtyabdul/Accu_DVD-Rs.html

[thxtof]

Your Ritek G3 is very different from the other Riteks G3... It reminds me the TDKG02 story.

The "real" Ritek G3 has a very dark purple dye, and C1-XXXXXXXX written on the disk.

The one you got really looks like B-grade crap DVD :(
How can they sell crap like that :angry: ??

[thxtof]

For the "fun" I sent the following email to:
1)sales@meritline.com
2)sales@cdrdvdrmedia.com
3)sales@supermediastore.com

Hello,
I noticed that 2 other websites are very similar to yours,
and I was wondering if these 2 websites were somehow
related ?

cdrdvdrmedia.com
meritline.com

Thanks,
-Chris

... And I got 2 answers:

1) Supermediastore: a very short answer in a perfect English :D

these two webside are not belong to us
-- complete lie

2) Cdrdvdrmedia:

Dear Chris:
Thanks for your letter. Meritline.com is related to our store, but
supermediastore.com is not.
Regards
cdrdvdrmedia.com

-- half a lie, well with the exact same address for Meritline and cdrdvdrmedia difficult to lie on this one.

3) Meritline: no answer ... They are probably still mad at me to have reported their fraud to ebay :devil:

Personnaly I would not buy from a company that tells lies after lies, charge a credit card and never ship anything, sell crap stuff, never answer your emails when you return deffective merchandise, etc etc.

Of course sometimes everything goes fine, and there are some people happy. But the reality is that more & more of us are not satisfied with their bad customer service ... next time you could be the victim :sly:

[DirtyAbdul]

Originally posted by thxtof
Your Ritek G3 is very different from the other Riteks G3... It reminds me the TDKG02 story.

The "real" Ritek G3 has a very dark purple dye, and C1-XXXXXXXX written on the disk.

The one you got really looks like B-grade crap DVD :(
How can they sell crap like that :angry: ??

thxtof:

1. i have "both" riteks and they both have the SAME color. the color discrepancy in the dye is due to the scanning light ;). sorry!

2. my "real" riteks (although i think both are real) from hypermicro.com DOES have C1-xxxxxxx written on the inner side of the ring :confused: . but that's why i presented two different ADVDInfo IDs.

i agree with you: it's CRAP -- MUCHAS CRAPPOLO! but i won't ask for a refund or whatever b/c it's just a pain in the butt for me to do all the work (and i am in a position where i can tolerate such loss :rolleyes: ).

did somebody else make similar experiences like me???

FELLOW READERS! BE WARNED!

DA

ps: your emails to those three stores are indeed provocative. i like that :D

[rufusrex]

I so far have been happy with CDRDVDRmedia. I previously ordered accus twice from them and received LEAD D..ATA. Both were 25 packs and I had not a single bad disk in both packs. My last order was 200 accus, and I like Dirty Abdul, received RITEK G03 (dark purple). They were packed in individual spindles of 25. I didn't notice any flaws like Dirty Abdul had but I only opened one pack. So far I'm 3 for 3 burning these. I'll look at them more closely when I get home tonight.

Dirty Abdul - Did all the blanks have defects like the one in the scan? I'm only burning at 1X so maybe that's why I've had better "luck"? Sorry for your bad experience, I know in a previous post I mentioned my good luck with Accu so I feel a little responsible.

[atreides93]

By the way, just so you guys know. I had previously ordered dvd-r's from meritline for about 3 months in a row without any problems. I ordered about 5 times....its only the last two orders that have been totally screwed. its like they got rid of someone who knows what they were doing and now they got fools handling shipping.

[DirtyAbdul]

Originally posted by rufusrex
I so far have been happy with CDRDVDRmedia. I previously ordered accus twice from them and received LEAD D..ATA. Both were 25 packs and I had not a single bad disk in both packs. My last order was 200 accus, and I like Dirty Abdul, received RITEK G03 (dark purple). They were packed in individual spindles of 25. I didn't notice any flaws like Dirty Abdul had but I only opened one pack. So far I'm 3 for 3 burning these. I'll look at them more closely when I get home tonight.

Dirty Abdul - Did all the blanks have defects like the one in the scan? I'm only burning at 1X so maybe that's why I've had better "luck"? Sorry for your bad experience, I know in a previous post I mentioned my good luck with Accu so I feel a little responsible.

rufusrex:

the "resin drops" (which btw are on the NON-recording surface) are on a few of them, but the fine scratches and wave-like edges are nearly on all of them. also, usually you would expect that a spindle that comes brand new and shrink-wrapped shouldn't have dust... well, the ones that i ordered from hypermicro are SINGLE and in INDIVIDUAL sleeves and have LESS dust than those accus!

but please, don't feel responsible for a good intention! i absolutely appreciate your input! it's not your mistake and i don't hold any grudge against you. we're having a discussion here to explore the range of quality that a company offers. and obviously, the range is from "excellent" to "down-earth sh*tty." so, there will be winners and losers (and i was on the wrong side :( ). but that's what you get when you gamble...

anyway, i received my P..Y RITEKG..03 from shop4tech today (primedisc 100-pack on spindle), and upon visual inspection, they certainly excel the accus by far, although the edges also exhibit some wave-like (and smooth) patterns. the inner ring has C1-xxxxxxxx imprinted (compared to accus with E5-xxxxxxx). so far, my unbranded tdk (burns at 2x -- bought from supermediastore a while ago) still have the best quality with absolutely no flaws (oh yes, one flaw: expensive :sly: )!

DA

[Antimon]

I don't know fi readign thsi has helped me or further confused me :-)

The range fo ustomer service is likly to vary amoung any store, but it sounds liek the bad is relaly bad ....

all i want is cheap, reliable media :-) Circut city and bust buy etc are over rpiced and never offer packs fo mor ethen 5 ...i was goign to check out supermediastore.....and likly still will, but what are the alternatives? maybe we should compile a new sticky thread, all media website stores found and have peopel rate them on cust service, price and media quality with web address to help inform people?

[Antimon]

Damn they *supermediastore* sure do chareg an arm and a leg for shipping, sheesh

Well just ordered a 25 pack of ritek discs, lets see what *and when* i get

[Chain]

Personally I have ordered from both CDRDVDRMedia and SuperMediaStore and have recieved excellent service and product quality from both stores. And although I haven't ordered from Meritline.com, I ordered their ink cartdridges and labels, and their products are excellent quality. The DVD-R's that I ordered were the generic 1x on a spindle, and I tell you they all look perfect, and I've burnt almost all 50 I got. No dust, stratches, blobs, or any bullshit like that. I don't really care if all 3 stores are the same... as long as they keep delivering quality products at cheap prices I'll keep buying from them.

[Antimon]

how quickly was the trn aroudn time?

no debit of my a acount, no shipment, no order confirmation......it';s been over 2 weeks, did they just lose it or are they sittign on it and if i order again i'll get 2? damn, not a good first impresion, but the media is just too damn expensive from "legitimit" retailers

[rufusrex]

I've ordered twice from Supermedia and had them both shipped UPS ground. Both orders took around 10 days from when I ordered to delivery but I live in Maine. Both ordered were excellent and have no problems. Within 24 hours of the ordered they sent an email so if you ordered 2 weeks ago I would email them or call them.

[fasttimes]

They list this as their contact address:

15810 E. Gale Ave., Hacienda Heights, CA 91745
Toll Free: 877-934-7146
Voice: 626-964-4648
Fax: 626-964-4687

They are in the same zipcode as one of the others!

[Tr0LL]

I just ordered a 100 Pack of Ritek from Shop4Tech. They differ from my order I placed with Hypermedia a while back. The Hypermedia Riteks had the C1 serial and these Shop4Tech Riteks have the E5 serial. I haven't burned any yet so I have no idea if they are any good. But I'm just letting others know what I got from Shop4Tech.

[ArdenDag]

I would like to know if allmediaoutlet.com is reliable for DVDR media!

I have heard decent stories about their media, and it is AFFORDABLY priced

[padre]

Tr0LL, I've received the same in the past, and I just think the E5 or C1 refers to a batch number. They look identical to each other and have worked perfectly for me.

[TRILIGHT]

No offense but who really cares? I've placed a 4 orders through Supermediastore over the past few months. Out of those, 3 included Ritek's totalling about 150 discs. I've had no problem with their service or the discs. Both are great!

[brett]

I've used over 100 Ritek's from Supermediastore, and they're the best cheap discs I've found, but I certainly wouldn't call them "great."

All the ones I've gotten are "C1" numbers, but does that really matter? It is a little suspicious the way there are tiny globs of resin along the edges and bubbles in the hub on many of them.

They work fine in most players I've used them in, although for rips with menus, older DVD players sometimes can't find certain areas of the disc with the Riteks.

On 90% of the Riteks I've seen, the dye fades towards the outside of the disc -- that is, the color is much more transparent along the outer edge. I have noticed that if you burn a full 4.7G image, the credits skip on many players. When I have burned 4.7G images on Riteks, 25% of the time the disc will burn OK but then fail the disc verification. Even when the discs do verify successfully, over 50% of them will read very slowly (under 1X extraction) towards the end.

I don't see this as being a problem with Supermediastore. It's just the way Riteks are -- they're cheap media. There's nothing wrong with using cheap media. Even with expensive media, some older players just don't like DVD-R's, so the important thing is just that it plays in your player. It is also important that your DVD-ROM should be able to re-rip the image so you can copy it.

So, if you're going to use Riteks, burn at 1X and don't burn images larger than 4,000,000,000 bytes. I've followed those guidelines for my last 90 rips, and only had one bad disc.

If you want to use media that costs under $1, I think Ritek is the way to go, but you're going to have to accept the limitations of using cheap media. Sure, it's a little shady that Supermediastore does business under several names, but you can't blame them for the quality of Ritek's media. Ritek is manufacturing it, and Ritek is the one to blame if you don't like a few little bubbles in the hub of the disc. Maybe Hypermicro got a better batch of Riteks than Supermediastore did, but if you look, Hypermicro doesn't even sell Riteks anymore. Maybe that's because Hypermicro doesn't approve of the quality. Supermediastore, however, sells cheap media. They sell DVD-ON, Ritek, Optodisc and DVD Pro media. If you're going there, you're looking for cheap stuff. If it wasn't obvious to you, it should be clear once you notice that they sell "test packs" so you can see if cheap media works with your players. Don't blame them if you think cheap media sucks. Their service is fine.

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by brett
So, if you're going to use Riteks, burn at 1X and don't burn images larger than 4,000,000,000 bytes. I've followed those guidelines for my last 90 rips, and only had one bad disc.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I've heard a few others mention such anomalies but I've not seen it on any of the discs I've done. I've even gone back just to see if I can image Ritek's I used 6 months ago. They're still fine. As for the "outer edge" thing, perhaps it was a bad batch I missed entirely or it has something to do with people's burners/software/process. My last project was even slightly over 4,700,000,000 bytes. I burned it at 2x on a Ritek. It has played fine from beginning to end on a Sony and a Panasonic standalone as well as my laptop (which is always very picky). I just tried to make an image of the disc and that worked fine too.

[thxtof]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
Sorry, but I have to disagree. I've heard a few others mention such anomalies but I've not seen it on any of the discs I've done.

Well looks like it's the same problem the Supermediastore and Co's debat.
Sometimes everything goes smoothly and you think that their customer service is OK, sometimes everything goes wrong, you lose time and money and you think their customer service is the worst on earth.

But don't forget the ebay story, when Meritline started to sell on ebay, but got quickly suspended for fraud. I discovered the fraud and reported it to ebay, and I can insure you that I never exchange emails with a person as dishonest as the Meritline one.

About the Riteks, well most of the time they worked fine for me. And I have to admit that I was crazy about these DVD-R.

But now when I try to rip some of my copy on my HD I have extactly the same problem: on some DVD-R usually larger than 4GB I get read errors.

This has been also mentioned in the following thread:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39575

When writing Ritek/CMC at 2x (with or without hacked firmware), error rate increased by 5x - 25x.

The PI sum 8 error rate of 2x certified DVD-R media was at 30-80 (Verbatim, TDK, Pioneer, Matsushita about 30, Mitsui 80) while 280 are allowed

They had one Ritek G03 disc and wrote it at 1x. The PI sum 8 error rate increased in the outer regions and went up to 128 (which is OK). Although 128 is OK, the error rate should not increase towards the outer portion...

I decided that it was not worth-it to take the risk anymore, and I'd rather pay one more buck and don't have to worry about my backup. This is my personal opinion.

[atreides93]

I don't know what supermediastore is sending you but I'm wondering if they really are Riteks or not. I've been using Riteks from Rima.com and I've never seen that dye problem towards the outer tracks. As for it skipping at the end of the movie, not with Riteks!!! I used to have that problem with the cheap DVDPRO disks from Meritline(same as supermediastore). My sony set top player couldn't play anything past 4 gigs without skipping or messing up. I switched to Riteks and this problem went away. One great test is Spiderman. It barely fits on a single dvd-r, it goes up to 4,500,000 bytes which is almost the max. I checked out the credits and it worked just fine...I loaned it to a friend and he played it on his Toshiba player and it played the credits just fine.

I would suggest you get Ritek's from Rima.com, they're better...Ritek is a huge company they make a shitload of disks, its possible you got some rejects from them that supermediastore picked up.

[TRILIGHT]

Wow! I love all that wonderful DETAIL of the testing method LEFT OUT of that thread. Why is it that people read things and then automatically accept it as fact without even so much as an attempt to do their own testing? I read the link hoping to reproduce the tests on my own media but there is absolutely no link to any testing software or detailed information on what tests were run. As far as I'm concerned, it's completely crap until someone tells me exacty how the tests were done and how I can recreate those tests using my own media. Start thinking for yourselves, people.

[thxtof]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
Wow! I love all that wonderful DETAIL of the testing method LEFT OUT of that thread. Why is it that people read things and then automatically accept it as fact without even so much as an attempt to do their own testing?

Dear Trilight, it's not because you're are not having any problems with your riteks that nobody else has no problem either. You are not the only one using those Riteks :sly: So you can't generalize based on your own experience.

The fact is that I and other had problems, in my case I would say 3/4% of my Riteks failed the "test" re-read the DVD-R using DVDDecriptor. And other test I would say more "professional" tend to prove the same thing.

A friendly advise, please accept that other people can have different results/opinions than yours :)

[TRILIGHT]

That still does not change the fact that there is no software or testing method shared in that post. As such, it's completely worthless. I could just as easily say I ran my own tests and my own media I cooked up in the kitchen is the best around because my "flux capacitor" test said so! Geeze! There is nothing scientific about the testing method (um...wait...there isn't one) or the results provided in that thread.

As for me not having problems, I guess I'm just the luckiest person on the planet that all the discs I've bought seperated by months at a time, have all been good for me. Perhaps I have a good drive and create my backups with a reliable method and don't use old DVD players? I just don't get how I could be so lucky. Besides, you aren't going to hear from all the people that don't have problems. They just continue on with no problems. It's the (very few IMHO) people that do have problems that post they think it's all crap.

[thxtof]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
As for me not having problems, I guess I'm just the luckiest person on the planet that all the discs I've bought seperated by months at a time, have all been good for me.

:p What you don't seem to realize is that most of people don't take the time to "re-rip" the backup on their HD... If it plays in their player they consider that it is enough.

Try to copy your entire collection of Riteks on your HD and you may have some surprises ;)

Meantime waiting for your more complete tests (in another thread please) let's stay focused on the fact that Meritline and Co are some thiefs with no ethic and completly dishonest. That's why I created this thread originaly.

Thanks and Happy Holidays to All ! :cool:

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by thxtof
Try to copy your entire collection of Riteks on your HD and you may have some surprises ;)
I did exactly this when I first heard of the so-called problems. Just did it again with 2 of them I have sitting here and there are no problems with them either. Now the same definitely CANNOT be said of some old CDRECORDABLE discs I have from a long time ago. They still play but wil NOT create an image at all.
Meantime waiting for your more complete tests (in another thread please)
Waiting on me? I'm still waiting for you to tell me the testing methodology used so that I can perform my own tests. If they turn out to be crap, I'd GLADLY share the info! Afterall, I have no ties to the discs or the companies that sell them other than that I've bought a ton of them, have always had them delivered in a timely manner, and they worked great.
let's stay focused on the fact that Meritline and Co are some thiefs with no ethic and completly dishonest. That's why I created this thread originaly.
um...it's clearly not a "fact" at all. I've not done business with Meritline directly but, if they run Supermedia.com, I've had GREAT results with the service and the product. That would hardly qualify your opinionated statement as "fact".

[thxtof]

Man ! I can't beleive that a moderator is writing that...

Trilight how often do you read this forum :D

We had a good thread with Klona to discuss what is the best method to test a DVD-R. This is what I use:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36085

To come back to Meritline & Co, either you haven't read at all this thread or you just want to be right no matter what, which is not very fair coming from a Moderator :sly:

Please take a deep breath, read this thread and you'll find some facts:

Meritline has been suspended for one month from ebay for FRAUD.
Many people are complaining about their customer service, including myself..........

Take Care :)

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by brett
Maybe Hypermicro got a better batch of Riteks than Supermediastore did, but if you look, Hypermicro doesn't even sell Riteks anymore. Maybe that's because Hypermicro doesn't approve of the quality.

First, I had to comment on this. Hypermicro still sells Ritek discs. In fact, they never stopped selling them so I have no idea where this incorrect information came from.

@THXTOF: I'm simply trying to keep people thinking for themselves instead of following incorrect information like sheep. I like to think independently also and would like to perform my own testing. The thread that you first mentioned made reference to some obscure testing method that was not shared. That is what I was asking about because I wanted to follow the same testing method and share my results.

The thread you just now mentioned (which is not the same one you mentioned earlier!) simply mentions burning it to the disc and then trying to create an image from it to check the errors. As we've already discussed, I have done this (just tonight in fact) on two discs and neither had any problem creating the image. Before making this post, I even randomly chose another Ritek I have from like 4 months ago and tried that one. Once again, no problem creating an image. So, from the second referenced thread's testing method, they are all just fine. As for the first referenced thread's testing method...I've already mentioned that there simply is none.

Let me reiterate, my intent is to fuel the fire of independent thought! Too many people think like sheep and just follow the masses without ever questioning things. You're attempting to convince everyone that the media and the companies selling them are crap. I'm sharing my experience (and that of others) showing that this is not FACT but simply your opinion given your own experiences.

[thxtof]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
@THXTOF... You're attempting to convince everyone that the media and the companies selling them are crap.... I'm sharing my experience (and that of others) showing that this is not FACT but simply your opinion given your own experiences.

What are you talking about :confused: I never tried to convince anyone :p As you said I am just giving my personal opinion based on some real life events/tests. I'm not saying that I am right and everybody else is not ;) I'm just trying to collect feedbacks, good or bad.

I respect your opinion. I'm not saying that you're stupid or that your're wrong....

So try to behave the same way, we are in a democratie and everyone is free to express his own opinion. Being a Moderator does not give you the right to "be right no matter what".

...oh thanks for being our Shepherd ;) I'm sure everyone appreciate that :)

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by thxtof
Being a Moderator does not give you the right to "be right no matter what"....oh thanks for being our Shepherd ;) I'm sure everyone appreciate that :)
I never said it did. I even said that I would share my results if I ran the detailed testing and found they were crap. Besides, did you skip over the sentence "my intent is to fuel the fire of independent thought!"?? By it's very nature, I am telling people NOT to necessarily believe as I do. Since when is telling people to think for themselves telling them what to think or to think as I do???

You're contradicting yourself now with things you say and your logic is flawed. You even try to change thread references when one does not fit your agenda any longer. Now that you are starting to realize your previous logic is flawed, you are trying to garner support by attacking me directly for being a moderator. I assure you that I would be saying the same things and encouraging independent thought regardless of whether I was a mod or not. It has nothing to do with it.

[thxtof]

Trilight, you could be a good "politician", seems like you enjoy to argue a lot and play with words :)

I'll keep my answer short,

Peace man

[TRILIGHT]

Peace to you as well, friend. :)

[wix]

I bought a spindle of 50 from cdrdvdmedia, it's absolute pure crap. 3/4 of the dvd's have ended up in my trash can.

It's absurd.

[thxtof]

Okay, let's reorganize this thread a 'bit... It turned up to be not as constructive as I originally hoped :( Let's stay focus on the original debate here.

Soooo if you had any bad OR Good experience with Meritline & Co that you would like to share, please post it here. Everyone should be aware of potential problems encountered by some of us.

If you want to discuss about the best testing methodologie to test DVD-Rs with regular burners, please post comments/suggestions on:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36085

And if you want to read an interesting article, and post comments or critics on this very serious and more "scientific" C'T test methodology please go to:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39575

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by wix
I bought a spindle of 50 from cdrdvdmedia
People reading this thread will probably want to know what brand of media you bought, wix. Try to include as much info as you can so that others understand what you're referring to.

However, as was previously mentioned by the person who started the thread, it should remain about the companies mentioned and not necessarily the media. There are many reputable companies who might sell generic media that will end up working like crap on some (or even most) setups. I think the poster's original intent was to discuss the companies and not necessarily the media. The thread sort of got skewed with DirtyAbdul's first post on page 1.

[brett]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
First, I had to comment on this. Hypermicro still sells Ritek discs. In fact, they never stopped selling them so I have no idea where this incorrect information came from.


My mistake. IE does not load the 2nd half of Hypermicro's media page, so I thought they stopped selling them. Mozilla loads the whole page fine, but still won't let you add things to your card. What the hell is wrong with Hypermicro's site? I've had to call them every time I've made an order, and the guy on the other end just says, "Yeah, a lot of people have trouble with the site." You'd think that'd be worth fixing.

[TRILIGHT]

IE? Are you on like 4.0 or something? hehe Nearly all users these days (I think it's like 85-90%? Maybe more?) Use IE5 or IE6. Neither have a problem with the site. You might want to reload your browser or even your OS. Sounds like you have something corrupted to me.

[atreides93]

This thread was about the lame ass company/store known as Meritline etc. Not about cheap media.

[gooki]

Just thought I'd post a warning. Meritline are now trying to sell optodiscs of as ritek, so buyer beware.

[Fenix]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
Sorry, but I have to disagree. I've heard a few others mention such anomalies but I've not seen it on any of the discs I've done. I've even gone back just to see if I can image Ritek's I used 6 months ago. They're still fine. As for the "outer edge" thing, perhaps it was a bad batch I missed entirely or it has something to do with people's burners/software/process. My last project was even slightly over 4,700,000,000 bytes. I burned it at 2x on a Ritek. It has played fine from beginning to end on a Sony and a Panasonic standalone as well as my laptop (which is always very picky). I just tried to make an image of the disc and that worked fine too.
I Don't agree, because I have been burning ( more than 300 ) Traxdata ( ritek c03 with the C1 numbers ) from several sources ( SPV / BigPockets / etc ) and 10 to 20 % of the burns ( using 2x speed ) have problems when passing 3.5G barrier, others only after 4.0G . And others work just fine all the way :) ( thanks god that most "80 to 90%" of them work just fine using all the capacity ) !

A final note , if it was a recorder/computer/software problem, why is it working 100% of the time when using other certified brands Like ( Apple / Pioneer / etc )?

Regards,

Fenix

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by Fenix
I Don't agree, because I have been burning ( more than 300 ) Traxdata
So you're saying you burned 300 Ritek's all at 2x to get a large sample? Or this is the total? Exactly how many have you burned at 2x? What drive are you using and what firmware do you have loaded on it?
A final note , if it was a recorder/computer/software problem, why is it working 100% of the time when using other certified brands Like ( Apple / Pioneer / etc )?
Because your recorder/computer/software is obviously not as effective at burning to Ritek media as others are, that's why. I'm sorry it doesn't work for you when it does for others. No one said Apple and Pioneer media was crap. I'm sure they sell for four times as much for more than just a "name". Did you burn 300 of each of these as well? You must be an expert because you do more burning than any of us. When are you going to help us write some guides? :) Anyway, my point is that Ritek's are the cheapest reliable media you will find and many of us do not have the issue you do.

[padre]

Good points, Trilight. I've burned just over 600 DVD-R's (95% of them PrimeDisc/Riteks), and 200 of them are Ritek's burned at 2x speed. I have not experienced any problems, including those over 3.5gb and 4.0gb. The Ritek G3's seem to work for me. I'm using a Pioneer A03 with the v2.00 2x4all firmware.

Oh, and to make matters worse, I put a very thin label on the discs. I would have expected if they are bad discs, the label would make it worse... again, no problems to date.

[atreides93]

Hey Trilight, did you know you're quoted on supermediastore's web site????
here's the url
http://www.supermediastore.com/dvd-media-news.html
here is what they quoted:

Doom9's Forum - Customers Review on DVD-R Media
rufusrex - 22 Nov 2002
I've ordered twice from Supermedia and had them both shipped UPS ground. Both orders took around 10 days from when I ordered to delivery but I live in Maine. Both ordered were excellent and have no problems. Within 24 hours of the ordered they sent an email so if you ordered 2 weeks ago I would email them or call them.

TRILIGHT - 8 Dec 2002
No offense but who really cares? I've placed a 4 orders through Supermediastore over the past few months. Out of those, 3 included Ritek's totalling about 150 discs. I've had no problem with their service or the discs. Both are great!

[TRILIGHT]

LMAO! That's funny as hell. Bastards should give me a discount or something. hehehe :D

DOH! Just lost the discount for calling them a bad name. LOL! ;)