Do you find generic media reliable?

[Texun]

I've bought stacks of those generic CDR's from CompUSA and never had a problem that wasn't my fault. Some are several years old now and still work fine. I'll admit however that my music CD's don't last long but it's mecause of how I treat them. When I burn MP3's to a CD it's usually for short term use. I get tired of the CD and trash it, but the patches, apps and files that I keep stored have held up fine.

For DVD's I have been using Ritek red label from Newegg. No problems there either. My most often used burners have been Pioneer, NEC, and Liteon a few years ago.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: DrZoidberg
I disagree about LiteOn being crap burners. Crap media even on good burners like Plextor/NEC also leads to DVD movies skipping occasionally like every 20 mins, unusable coasters after few years.

Actually if u buy decent quality media LiteOn can burn dvds with very low PIF/PI errors. I copy alot of DVDS and always perfect burns when using TDK and Verbatim DataLife+, while had problems when i was using generic media made in China.

Have u tried using a program that tests your copied DVD's for PI and PIF errors? Like Nero CD-DVD Speed program, goto Extra in menu and select Quality Test. Even original DVD's u buy from shop have some PI and PIF errors though few. All DVD drives/players have some error tolerance so dvd viewing never skips appears perfect.

Club CD Freaks forum has really good articles on good DVD media.
DVD Media Tests

If you read their articles u will never ever buy generic media again. I mean like 40c each for generic media that occasionally give coasters and you have to throw away, 60c each for good branded media that always give perfect burns NEVER ANY COASTERS like Taiyo Yuden, Mitsubishi, Ritek.

my liteon burner 812s just died on me after a year when the warranty runs out! I've looked underneath it and see their is no ventilation, that's right no little hole to relief it of excessive heat and so that why it burns media crappy after a few burn cause it can't tolerate too much heat. when I look at burned media, their are discoloration in different zones. meaning it didn't burn well on even quality media. like sun spots. like baking a dvd in an oven.

I have NEC 2510A for 2 years now and it still function flawlessly! burn is good, read is good.

40c and 60c is too much! 100 for 28.80 Taiyo Yuden, very high quality can burn even at 16x. that's 28.8 cents a piece! look in hot deals of this forum.
I get generic media for as little as 13cents a piece. So 1 bad out of 50 is still good!
I test out all my burned media so their is 0 chance that any burn is bad.

 

[CraigRT]

I hate generic media... especially DVD's... CD-R's are not so bad... but generic DVD's definitely work less than they fail. (in my experiences)

 

[Jeff7181]

CD's yes. DVD's absolutely not. I guess in a few years DVD technology will advance to the point that quality discs can be made easily and cheaply so the quality won't vary a whole lot. Right now I'm using RiData DVD+R and DVD-R and a package of CD-R's with no markings on them, and I have a package of Khypermedia CD-R's standing by.

 

[Oyeve]

The first time I used Khypermedia (about 3 years ago) they crapped out on every burner I tried them on (about 4 dif models) I called them and they reimbursed me the full amount. I'm sure they are better now but still dont trust em. Ritec or TDK for me.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
CD's yes. DVD's absolutely not. I guess in a few years DVD technology will advance to the point that quality discs can be made easily and cheaply so the quality won't vary a whole lot. Right now I'm using RiData DVD+R and DVD-R and a package of CD-R's with no markings on them, and I have a package of Khypermedia CD-R's standing by.

Maybe burner will advance to the point where dvd media type or quality does not matter? You got it the wrong way. You may find that some media burn better on some burners then others that are picky about media type. It's like with inkjet printers, some print better using quality paper but some like HP prints good even on plain paper. My liteon burner now dead often wouldn't recognize generic dvd-r inserted so I had to insert it a second time or 3rd time. The hardware needs to get better to adapt to bigger variety of media types. Same with Generic Dimms, they just don't work on some mobo that can't handle high density module. so you have some that say it works great while others do not. It's a mixed experience but to say generic is bad or worthless is making assumption that all is bad.

 

[RebelDog]

Originally posted by: furballi
Hit n miss. I don't have $ to burn, so I use Fuji Made in Japan Taiyo Yuden media.

Yup. On sale at least once a month at Best Buy too. Just got a 100 pack of 8x Fuji's for $40. I have never used anything else, because I have never had any problems with these. Probably around 300 burns on a Sony DRU-710 and NEC 3520A.

 

[Blain]

With media prices as low as they are, I don't mess with generic stuff anymore.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: Blain
With media prices as low as they are, I don't mess with generic stuff anymore.

100pk for 30.00 to 40.00 is not low but 12.99-16.99 for 100pk are low.
btw, you calling this messing with? I call this saving money

I only have problems on a few that wouldn't read pass 4.35gb. 30mb of worthless data anyway. I often burn from 4.0gb to 4.3gb and so it never hit that danger area.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=40&threadid=1615770&enterthread=y

Lowest I have seen so far. If you find anything lower say 9.99 to 11.99, let me know. I'll buy plenty. My minimum order is usually 500 dvd-r. I just want to have so much that it would last me for years to come and not have to worry about buying it every month.
The money I saved means I can use it toward hardware upgrades.

 

[Blain]

I need inkjet printable media, so I always buy Verbatim CDRs or DVD+R, both with DataLifePlus.

 

[RobCur]

just want to let ya know I bought 1000 of shoddy grade media for 130.00 from thetechgeek.com and then jacked up the price from 12.99 to 15.99. what kind of a f**king idiot would buy again at higher prices? they claimed one day promotion only but has been going on for more then a month. i didn't care they were shoddy but it really makes my blood boil to see scam artist are using every tricks in the books. oh well, their loss. I take my business elsewhere.

 

[teutonicknight]

Yes and no. I have discovered I get a lot more costers with Genric stuff, but I guess the cost balences it out.

 

[n7]

WTF are you using 1000 DVD-/+Rs for?

I surely hope you aren't stocking up for the next 10 yrs.

In a couple yrs., we'll all be using Blu-Ray & HD-DVD for burning...

 

[BFG10K]

I don't use generic media because I don't trust it. Mitsubishi and Imation have never failed me so I keep using them. Saving a few bucks only to find dead discs is just not worth it.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: n7
WTF are you using 1000 DVD-/+Rs for?

I surely hope you aren't stocking up for the next 10 yrs.

In a couple yrs., we'll all be using Blu-Ray & HD-DVD for burning...

as long as dvd are cheaper, we're talking about 5-10 more years from here. not 1-2 years. look how long it took for dvd to take over since the 97? it's been 8 years!

1000 means i wont have to buy dvd for a long time to come plus give away to friends for free and i woldn't felt i've lost anything. backup stuff very frquently onto the dvd cause hd space are limited! dvd = infinite storage, just a pain in the ass to back it up is all.
maybe i am obsess with dvd, maybe I am dvd crazy the secret to using them so excessively is that even if I have 1000gb hd, i would back them all up to dvd. hd stinks for reliability, crashes too often. i have lost as much as 120gb of data on 160gb cause I was too lazy like the majority who cries my hd crashes, I've lost everything! serves you right for being coach potatoes!
how I lost 120gb, all i did was resize the hd with partition magic the computer rebooted! poof all gone! f**king pissed me off, I almost took my computer and threw it out the door.

i backup everything even if it is on the hd! we can no longer trusted this stinking hd that has caused many to lose data for no good reason which range from defects, power failures, kids pissing into your computer, you drop the computer by accident, someone tipped it over by accident.

the are a few out of 50 batch of dvd-r that are bad but hey that's still better then losing everything.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I don't use generic media because I don't trust it. Mitsubishi and Imation have never failed me so I keep using them. Saving a few bucks only to find dead discs is just not worth it.

not just a few bucks, we're talking hundreds. how much would it cost you to buy 1000 of quality disc? 130-150 dollars vs 290-320 dollars of taiyo yuden media say from shop4tech.
it pretty much evens out, quality over quantity or quantity over quality. what i've found out is that leaddata01 and vdspmab01 are pure trash while skc co,.ltd. are a little better quality.

AML, longten 001, must 001 are quality generic media that burns well at 12x
shhhhh don't tell this to shop4tech or they'll start selling this as 12x and start charging much for it. The trick to saving money is to buy 4x dvd-r at discount and try to burn them higher.