50 1x GQ DVD-R for $10 at fry's

[doodogg]

topic says it all

 

[KenSr]

:| I wish I had a near by Fry's, this would sure be good to use with the $9 DVD-R that I just bought.

 

[dc]

anyone know who's the manufacturer of these discs? wonder if they're better than the cheap sonic's at shop4tech

 

[CrackRabbit]

Great Qualtity are pretty much the exact opposite of thier name. Good if you need dirt cheap media, just dont expect longevity.

 

[pxc]

Great Quality doesn't manufacture anything. The discs are various brands. The blank DVDs in particular are usually CMC, Lead Data or Optodisc. I have a ton of 52x Sony "GQ" CD-Rs.

If those are 1x Lead Data, that's an awesome deal. I don't like CMC DVD-Rs.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Regardless of the brand, $10 for a 50-pack of DVD media is still pretty hot.

 

[htne]

Not if they don't work. I have a 50 pack of these from Fry's, and they mostly burn okay, but cannot be read back above the 2 gig mark. If you need a DVD to only store 2 gigs, and don't care if it gets a few errors, then by all means, go ahead and buy some of these.....

 

[dc]

cmc. eww. lol. guess i'll stick to the cheapy sonic's

 

[pxc]

I picked up 2 spindles, each one looks different (1 has blank tops, the other has light yellow tops and is printed 1x-2x). My stupid NEC ND-2510A (not hacked, a real ND-2510A with current firmware) shows this for both types:

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Drive doesn't support media code
Format Capacity 4.26GB(4.57GB)
Book Type DVD-R
Media Type DVD-R
Manufacturer Rated Speed Unknown
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.1x 5645KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 3.1x 4234KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.0x 2822KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 1.5x 2117KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 1.0x 1411KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 0.5x 706KBps
Available Write Descriptor CAV 6.6x 9173KBps
Available Write Descriptor CAV 6.1x 8467KBps
Available Write Descriptor CAV 5.1x 7056KBps
Write Strategy Speed Not Defined
Data area starting sector 30000h
Data area end sector 220B9Fh
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1

And yeah, I blame the NEC because it has the worst media compatibility of any DVD burner I've owned since I briefly had a BTC 4x burner.

I'm pretty sure both are rated at 1x-2x since they seem to be identical media, despite the differences in tops. I'll try it with the $9 mad dog toshiba burner later. I'm going to try burning one at 4x to see how the quality is and update this post after.

 

[pxc]

The discs only burn at 2x in Nero on my NEC burner. I didn't try playing with other burning speeds on the Toshiba yet, so I also burned at 2x.

I burned one disc in each the ND-2510A and Toshiba SD-R5112 ($9 mad dog 4x burner), and the C1/C2 quality test was much, much better on the Toshiba than on the NEC. Not surprising since ND-2510A media compatibility is horrible in general.

Once I burned the DVD-Rs, I was able to read the media id: SONY!!! Not too surprising since many of the recent GQ CD-Rs are also Sony discs.

My recommendation: if you have an NEC drive, skip this. If you have virtually any other decent burner (Plextor, Lite-On, Toshiba, Sony), go for it.

$9.90 for 50 Sony 2x DVD-Rs is an excellent deal. I'm going to pick up a couple more spindles before they're gone.


media ID on Toshiba 5112:

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID SONY
Format Capacity Not Formatted
Free Blocks 411107328
Free Capacity 4.38GB(4.71GB)
Book Type DVD-R
Media Type DVD-R
Manufacturer Rated Speed 2.0x 2770KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.0x 2770KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 1.0x 1350KBps
Data area starting sector 30000h
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1

 

[VirtualLarry]

That just seems really strange to me, that "Sony", a well-respected brand-name of all possible names, would be mfg'ing 1X-2X rated DVD media, in this day and age of 4x, 8x, and now 16x DVD burners? It doesn't make that much sense, you would think that they would be basically placing themselves out of the market.

I'm almost willing to bet that those are "fake Sony" instead. Does the inner hub ring have any sort of imprint or printing or marking whatsoever? What are they?

 

[djdawn]

Those disks are wonderfully cheap, but I have problems burning anything above 3G and so. When I look at the bottom and around the edge, I see tiny bubbles and what looks like the laquer coming off. I'm no dvd disk expert or anything, but I have a hard time believing these to be really worth the money.
I suppose as long as you don't burn a lot on these, and the data isn't critical or anything, then I suppose these are a pretty great deal.

 

[pxc]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
That just seems really strange to me, that "Sony", a well-respected brand-name of all possible names, would be mfg'ing 1X-2X rated DVD media, in this day and age of 4x, 8x, and now 16x DVD burners? It doesn't make that much sense, you would think that they would be basically placing themselves out of the market.

That's the point, they don't make these anymore. These are most likely very old stock, dumped at a very cheap price. The hub on the discs has the same black printing and a similar part number to the Sony 2x DVD-R media I picked up at PC Club last year (not the orange top Ritek, the silver top ones 25/$19.99... some spindles were sony media).

I've burned 4 of the discs so far and while they're not as good as Ritek 2x/4x or even Lead Data 4x DVD-Rs, they work fine for both data and movies. Kprobe and Nero quality scans look acceptable and the one DVD video disc I burned played back with no glitches. I don't doubt that some DVD burners won't like such old discs. I already said the problems I had on my new NEC 2510A with current firmware. My $9AR Mad Dog/Toshiba burner recognizes the discs and burns at higher quality with these than my NEC drive does.

No one is forcing you to buy anything. This was an awesome deal for me and I'm very happy with the media. My local Fry's was OOS last night, so obviously other people weren't as hesitent as you.

 

[ReiAyanami]

i have GQ CD-Rs & CD-RWs that were bought 2-3 years ago from fry's. some are unreadable while a few even show physical degradation (the foil layer on the inside looks like it simply disinegrated)

i wouldn't store any important data on these

qreat guality!!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: pxc
No one is forcing you to buy anything. This was an awesome deal for me and I'm very happy with the media. My local Fry's was OOS last night, so obviously other people weren't as hesitent as you.

It's interesting info. I wasn't crapping on you nor the deal, but it is quite possible that they aren't real Sony media, there is a lot of lower-speed "fake" stuff floating around that gets imported from HK. The price sure beats the lowest deal that I've seen around here at retail, a 50-pack 2X (really 1X) Princos at CompUSA for $20 now and then. I don't have a local Fry's around here.

 

[htne]

You can see a Kprobe scan of one of these discs here:

Sony Kprobe scan

This disc was recorded at 2x on a Pioneer 106 drive, and will not read back properly on any of my settop players.

 

[EuGeNiLe]

i have to add my .02 about GQ.. ive been using their products since they first started showing up at Fry's.. this was what.. 8 years ago.. i bought tons of their CDRs.. they work flawlessly.. still to this day as i recently tested out my PS1 backups.. and still work great.. and the best part is they are the cheapest of the bunch.. if it works why not..

now for the DVDRs.. i recently purchased 2 25 pack of their 4x DVD-R for $9.75 i think.. these also work great.. ive gone through 25 already.. for backup purposes for XBOX and DVD movies.. they work great on my XBOX with samsung drive.. and on friends with thomson and philips drive.. and for movies they played good on our$30 no name brand dvd player..

i have purchased the 1x ones a long time ago.. no problem with them whatsoever except 1x burns are slow.. i rather spend a lil more for at least 4x.. the 1x however let me burn at 2x on my burner.. but still slow..

its too bad for those who have problems burning with them. id check ur hardware.. i know its not mine.. cause all mine are also cheap no name brands.. and if ur expensive brand name burners/players cant play/burn these.. i wouldnt be talkin down on GQ.. but instead checking whatsup with your players/burners..

my .02 good luck

 

[weizur]

Anyone know if this deal is going on in Austin, I was just at my frys and couldn't find them perhaps they only have them at certain frys?

 

[pxc]

Originally posted by: EuGeNiLe
i have to add my .02 about GQ.. ive been using their products since they first started showing up at Fry's.. this was what.. 8 years ago.. i bought tons of their CDRs.. they work flawlessly.. still to this day as i recently tested out my PS1 backups.. and still work great.. and the best part is they are the cheapest of the bunch.. if it works why not..

now for the DVDRs.. i recently purchased 2 25 pack of their 4x DVD-R for $9.75 i think.. these also work great.. ive gone through 25 already.. for backup purposes for XBOX and DVD movies..

Same experience here. The only bad GQ discs I have bought were a 10 pack of 24x CD-Rs a few years ago.

I don't like the GQ 8x DVD+Rs (OptoDisc) or some of the 4x DVD+Rs (CMC), but the rest work great.

 

[ReiAyanami]

for those that bought the GQ, what does the underside look like? is the dye really light and cheap looking?

also after you burn them does the underside look like it has visible physical inconsistencies

 

[xybertron]

FWIW - The Great Quality 8x DVD-R are Matrix and work great for me.

I didn't really like the GC 4x DVD-R media as far as burn quality however I haven't had any problems with it.

If you don't use Herrie firmware with NEC then your wasting your time.

 

[fustercluck]

This deal is also online luckily for those like me who don't have a Fry's near them.

Outpost link

 

[dc]

anyone know who makes the GQ dvd+rw discs?
it's 9.99 for 25 this week.

 

[yourdeardaniel]

Originally posted by: dc
anyone know who makes the GQ dvd+rw discs?
it's 9.99 for 25 this week.

GQ 2.4X DVD+RW
INFODISCA01

from The official "Great Quality" GQ brand DVD thread http://club.cdfreaks.com/showt...php?t=89875&page=1

 

[dc]

thanks