did i get ripped off?

[FeX-]

dont know if this is the right section to post this in and if not then maybe a mod could move it to the right section. Ok here's my story. I have tons of shows occupying space on my hardrive so today I went to the nearest mall and they only had a few blanks discs left. So i bought Memorex DVD-R 16x 4.7GB 100 Pack Spindle Printable Pack for $45 CDN. Thinking that its memorex and memorex are supposed to be like top brand thats why I bought it. Then when I went home and put a blank disc in and opened it up with dvdinfo it gave me the media id as CMCMAGAM3

according to digitalFAQ.com "these type of discs are pretty much only suited for preventing drink cup rings from forming on a table. Most of the time, these are ready-made coasters. If you can actually get a burner to acknowledge the disc, do not expect much. And if the burn actually succeeds, do not be surprised if a DVD-ROM or player chokes on the disc (read/play errors). Cheap prices, cheap junk quality."

I don't know what to do. I just burned a show and it burned perfectly with no errors, now Im going to watch it on my tv. But should i take caution? should i return the discs back or keep them? ive used memorex before but not this pack.

thanks

[direwolf-pgh]

Sony 100 spindle dvd +/- R for $24 at Staples - works for me

[saltman]

It has been my experience that Memorex are crap discs. That review sounds about right to me. I burn Taiyo Yuden discs exclusively. They cost 28 bucks shipped for a hundred pack. US dollars.

[KoolKat]

1 Official TY Made In Japan
2 Verbatim AZO with TY dye Made In Japan
Or
3 Panasonic with TY dye Made In Japan
All you'll get from me......all act the same but #1 is a little more expensive.Well a lot more actually :lol:

Tell ya what though & i found this out by accident after a trade.
Memorex DVD+ plays in DVD- only standalones ....go figure :hmm:

K_K

[FeX-]

my dvd player is the philips one which can play all formats. im not really bothered about that i just wanted to know whether i should return the discs back or not after what i read on digitalfaq.com

[Sid]

TAKE CAUTION....Memorex cdrs+dvdrs BLOW !

I learned the hard way :mad:

Taiyo Yuden & Verbatim are all I'll use for archiving.

To burn & play does not matter because you can always get your archived file set and burn a new disc ;)

[spiritinaphoto]

my dvd player is the philips one which can play all formats. im not really bothered about that i just wanted to know whether i should return the discs back or not after what i read on digitalfaq.com
Yeah, I'd say definitely return them and look for some blank DVDs with "Made in Japan" on the label. Depending on your location, they can be very hard to find on the shelves of the stores in your area.

As for ordering real Taiyo Yudens, since you're in Canada you can't use Supermediastore (unless you want to use a mail forwarding service), but the following site has fairly decent prices (I order my Tyvek sleeves from them) and takes Canadian orders: http://www.rima.com

[FeX-]

thanks ill check it out : ) during boxing week i bought 75 Song DVD-R for 19 bucks and all of them burned fine and played fine, no errors no skips and none of them were defective. ive never had problems with sony, ive use ri-tek before and had a few problems but still good. im going for verbatim now

[spiritinaphoto]

thanks ill check it out : ) during boxing week i bought 75 Song DVD-R for 19 bucks and all of them burned fine and played fine, no errors no skips and none of them were defective. ive never had problems with sony, ive use ri-tek before and had a few problems but still good. im going for verbatim now
Well, if your Sony's were Japanese-made, definitely stick with those--that's a nice price for blanks.

[LeifH12345]

It's not just Memorex discs that suck. Every product they've ever come out with sucks. Cassettes, VHS, CDR's, walkmans, discmans, etc. Don'y buy Memorex ever.

[LEDZEPZOSO]

Thinking that its memorex and memorex are supposed to be like top brand thats why I bought it.
thanks
When has Memorex ever been a top brand? Going back to '98 they always was cheap crap.

Here is a suggestion, don't ever let yourself run out of blanks. I wait until I see a good sale and then buy in large quantities. Last year a store had a sale and a mistake in their system so I bought 500-600 blanks in one day. These will last me a couple of years but at $2.50 for 50 TY blanks I could not let them go.

[direwolf-pgh]

It's not just Memorex discs that suck. Every product they've ever come out with sucks. Cassettes, VHS, CDR's, walkmans, discmans, etc. Don'y buy Memorex ever.
they had cool commercials in the 1970's :D about the last time i bought one of thier tapes.

their DL DVD discs have worked fine for me at times.

[N8Slyce]

Dang guys. Now you have me all worried. I've burnt a lot of memorex dvds (at least a 50 pack) without any problems. :headbang2

I've been thinking about getting an external harddrive to do some archiving though. Any brand suggestions? (nothing crazy expensive, please)

[trustthex]

maxtor, western digital, seagate, ibm, hitachi, lacie, iomega... any of those would do nicely... don't flame me for listing any of those, i've had drives of all of the types listed, and seen all of them fail, but not near as quick as some of the housebrand/noname oem drives ive seen. ive got a 8 yr old 13 gb maxtor still spinning, some 20 gb ibms and wds. there are bad batches, but no major manufacturer is bad.

as to the dvds, get some tys, copy to hd, verify the md5s and reburn.

[N8Slyce]

Would any of those come in a 1 TB size? I'm thinking go big or go home.

[Tubular]

www.newegg.com has great prices on Verbatim discs and computer stuff in general.

[coloartist]

I hate Memeorex discs

[AustinSoul]

I use printable CD discs and DVD discs ordered from Emediadepot. They also ship nonprintable discs. They have different brands. I get the Taiyo Yuden (sp?). Emediadepot has been prompt in shipping, too.

http://www.emediadepot.com/

[musik_maniak]

I've learned (the hard way) not to use cheap discs. Even if they're ok after you burn them, when you come back to them later (a year or two) it seems that they don't work so well. They don't always load, or you can't access all of the data on the disc.
I've been using Verbatim DVD-Rs and they seem to be compatable with all of my equipment. Staples regularly puts them on sale for half price (about $18 for 50) and that's when I stock up. However, even though they're rated for 16x, I have to burn them slower than 8x (usually 4x) in order to make sure that the video is glitch-free.
I've also used Maxell media quite a bit, and I've had good results with it.

[Tubular]

Thought I'd post this here as well:

Just found one of the five best DVD discs ever made according to digitalfaq, Japanese Made Taiyo Yudens (YUDEN00T02) for sale here $40 for a 100 pack cake box.

http://www.supermediastore.com/taiy...us-r-media.html

[LeifH12345]

Maxell has been a very reliable brand for me over the years. Their cassettes were always top-notch, I've never had a problem with Maxell CDR's and the few times I've used Maxell VHS tapes, they've turned out great and still work fine.

Memorex, on the other hand, is definately a no-no :nono: . The reason they're still in buisiness is because they sell their stuff for so cheap. Well, you get what you pay for.

[Tubular]

The link isn't working. Look for these on www.supermediastore.com

Taiyo Yuden Shiny Silver Thermal 8X DVD+R Media in Cake Box Spindle - Free Ground Shipping

One of the 5 best evah!

[Homebrew101]

If you're using DVD-R you should switch to DVD+R if your player handles those. While DVD-R is actually an "Official" format and +R isn't, DVD+R has superior error handling abilities and in fact, that is the reason it came into being because DVD-R was inferior in that regard.

[musik_maniak]

as to the dvds, get some tys, copy to hd, verify the md5s and reburn.
That's something that I'd like to know more about.
I have some DVDs which I've burned to discs, and they are no longer on my hard drive. I haven't watched all of them closely yet, but I suspect that there are glitches on them, because I probably burned them too fast.
Will copying them to the hard drive and re-burning them at a slower rate "fix" them?
If I don't have the original file, is this just as good, or does it still produce an inferior DVD, compared to burning it properly in the first place?
I've tried it once or twice, and it does seem to work. I'm thinking that maybe my DVD player cannot read the "glitched" disc properly, but the computer can, and that's why it works. Does that make sense?
I'd appreciate it if someone who knows could give me some technical advice on this.

[spiritinaphoto]

That's something that I'd like to know more about.
I have some DVDs which I've burned to discs, and they are no longer on my hard drive. I haven't watched all of them closely yet, but I suspect that there are glitches on them, because I probably burned them too fast.
Will copying them to the hard drive and re-burning them at a slower rate "fix" them?
If I don't have the original file, is this just as good, or does it still produce an inferior DVD, compared to burning it properly in the first place?
I've tried it once or twice, and it does seem to work. I'm thinking that maybe my DVD player cannot read the "glitched" disc properly, but the computer can, and that's why it works. Does that make sense?
I'd appreciate it if someone who knows could give me some technical advice on this.
I think it's entirely possible, but it's difficult to say for certain, because some players have more error correction than others. I do imagine that in many cases the computer would have more robust error correction than the standalone.

Do you have md5 files on these glitched discs? If you do, and the files all check out okay, I'd say it proves your theory.

[musik_maniak]

I think it's entirely possible, but it's difficult to say for certain, because some players have more error correction than others. I do imagine that in many cases the computer would have more robust error correction than the standalone.

Do you have md5 files on these glitched discs? If you do, and the files all check out okay, I'd say it proves your theory.
Thanks for your suggestion, spiritinaphoto.
I haven't yet worked with md5 files, but I'll check that out when I get a chance.
In the meantime, I can tell anyone who's interested, that it does seem to work.
If they "glitch" in the player, and it's the only disc you have, copy it to the pc and re-burn it at a low speed.
But use a good quality disc, as well.

[splumer]

I've actually had good luck with Memorex discs, but I've noticed that any brand made by CMC Magnetics seems to have static when played in certain players of mine. Unfortunately, a thorough scouring of their web site doesn't reveal who all they make discs for, so now I use Maxell exclusively, which are made by Ritek. American Digital is a good source for media and storage. Their site is: www.am-dig.com

[Tubular]

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

Ritek is 2nd or 3rd class media, according to the above website. Maxells made in Japan (manufactured by Hitachi Maxell) are 1st class, but Maxells made in Taiwan are Ritek. Same thing with Fujis. Fujis made in Japan are Taiyo Yuden (1st class), but Fujis made in Taiwan are made by Prodisc (2nd class). It says that Fujis aren't made by Taiyo Yuden anymore though.

The brand of disc isn't what is important, it is the manufacturer that is important. At the bottom of the webpage is a list of brands and their corresponding manufacturers. Japanese made Taiyo Yudens are the best, but I'd stay away from TYG03 (16X) DVD media. Among the five best according to the site are YUDEN000T02 (Taiyo Yuden, Japanese) and MXLRG02 (Hitachi Maxell, Japanese).

[Salva Veritate]

OP is correct, I currently have 24 blank Memorex DVDs right next to me. The 25th I flung across the room in frustration and it broke.

I've been using Best Buy's generic brand Dynex and they've never given me a problem or complaints from other traders. The Best Buy nearest to me only sells Dynex and Memorex a lot of the time, and the Sonys they sell from time to time are $10 more expensive. Memorex is out of the question now, so all that's left is Dynex.