Recommended Media?

[Guest]

I have a Plextor 12x10x32 on the way and thought I'd pick up some media before it arrives. However, I'm boggled by the number of different vendors and 'types' of CD/R and CD/RW media.

What particular vendor (& media type) would those with experience recommend as top notch, reliable CD/R media?

I plan to backup important data (as well as burn some Audio CD's

 

[Guest]

To elaborate:

Which is best media vendor/type for Audio CD's (sound quality)
Which is best media vendor/type for backup (reliability & longevity)

 

[LordKaos]

The Best?

Audio :Mitsui 74m/650 Mb (Golden Dye) (Works perfectly on my car´s CD Jukebox! )
Data : Mitsui 80m/700 Mb

Better burn in Hell with some company than freeze in Heaven all alone

 

[Guest]

Checking Pricewatch I see only 2 suppliers for Mitsui media (Memorymedia and CDR Planet). Neither show anything with a 'gold dye' (they're all silver). Acutally, MemoryMedia doesn't even LIST Mitsui on their website.

Do you have a particular source you might recommend for the Mitsui?

 

[LordKaos]

The mitsui are gool all around , if you can find the newest
golden dye (Saying on the cover!), any other from mitsui are good!
But you probably will find the Golden dye anyway!
Check the cover of a Mitsui CD box to know if it´s a golden dye!

Better burn in Hell with some company than freeze in Heaven all alone

 

[bdaley]

I've had good luck with 80 min Verbatim CDRs on my Plextor 12/10/32. The music CDs I've made have worked great in my car. I get them at Sam's Club. $13 for 20 w/jewel case.

"There's no such thing as gravity, the Earth just sucks"

 

[Guest]

I' ve also got the Plextor, here are my recommendations.

I recommend you Kodak and Pioneer CDs, both support 12x speed and are readable in all my audio CD players (including my Panasonic which only reads this brands of CDs). The Kodak CD's are supposed to last 30 years minimum, anyway, they have been my favourite brand for abouth three years, I asked my friends to use them when I wanted them to record a CD for me.Both of them are recommended by Plextor in their homepage.

The best brands of 10x CDRW are Ricoh and Verbatim, I think they are the only ones manufacturing them, I think Ricoh CDRW media are cheaper. Both of them are recommended by Plextor in their homepage.

I also use 80 min Traxdata CDs, they support 12x, and I have burned about 25 of them without any problems. They don't appear in the recommended CDs list of Plextor, I suppose they forget them as they work very well for me.

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[jvanber]

I recently got rid of my plextor (8x/4x/32x) just to increase my burn speed, and I gotta tell ya, burn whatever you can that's cheapest.

I used to purchase that Kodak gold stuff, because back in the 1x/2x days, it would never fail. These days though, with larger buffers, and new under-run technology, I'd have to recommend that you start out cheap, and work your way up. Maybe borrow a couple disks from a buddy and see how they work, or swap media if you buy a bulk pack, just to see how different types burn.

You know that real cheap media that CompUSA sells for $30 per 100-pack (blue media)? I burn that flawlessly at 12X (yes, they're only rated at 8x, but for 30 cents a disk, I figured what the hell. Kudos to me). The only downside is that it is prone to chipping, so if its something important, I just stick a paper-label on the top. Your Kodak media has a nice coating on the top, so it doesn't chip as easily. (try bending it though, and watch the gold flakes fly off the platter)

Just my two cents, but it doesn't hurt to trade media with some people, and see how it burns on your system.

Joshua

 

[Guest]

The real cheap media is surely cheap, and it can be burned at 12x but...

I am going to tell you a story...

Some time ago I went to a store called Media Markt. They sold CDs for 50 cents (I am in Spain, that is expensive), I burnt 12 of them, and burnt them at 12x without any problem. As I thought they were good ones, I burnt another 10 units. All of them gave me write errors, I brought them back to the shop, told them I thought they were defective, and they gave me a new box for free. I tried 3 cds of the new box = 3 coasters. I got my money back.

That was 3 months ago. I sold CDs of the good batch to some friends of mine. Now some of them have told me they cannot read the CDs anymore - the CDs where audio CDs, what if I had used them for backups of important data?

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[LordKaos]

Well, if you would´ve bougth the new 121032A or 161040A
from Plextor you wouldn´t need to worry about buffer under-run with pricy CD, because the Plextor have Burn-proof (Buffer Under-Run proof!)

Better burn in Hell with some company than freeze in Heaven all alone

 

[LordKaos]

That´s the reason why i won´t mind paying 75 cents for a
Mitsui (Quality!) over 25 cents (Cheapo´s!)!
At least i know they will last !
And about the cheapos, i once made a copy of "Engines of Creation" from Joe Satriani in cheapo in order to listen to it on my car! When i was listening to it at home i heard
snaps ! That´s right snaps on a CD! I figured right away that it was due to the poor quality of the cd!
Burnt another copy on a Mitsui, and what i got was Crystal clear and pure sound!
Now , tell me , is it worth the difference in price ?
Yes , it most certainly is!

Better burn in Hell with some company than freeze in Heaven all alone

 

[crapple0]

I personally use Imations. When I had my relatively-good Creative drive, I never made a coaster. I make coasters once in a while now, but I blame the AOpen piece-of-crap 12x10 drive. Imations are also pretty cheap ($15 USD for a spindle of 50 or $7 USD for a 10-pack with slim jewel cases). They seem to last and work just fine. Anyone have any horror stories about those?

~Crapple0

"intel inside, idiot outside"

 

[Guest]

Don't name me Imations, bought 10 of them last year, they were cheap and I know Imation makes good magnetic media (but what about optical?).

Right now, if I turn my head 80 degrees to the right, I can see 4 Imations in the coaster section of my CD shelf, the curious thing is that when I switched the brand I had no problem.

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[Guest]

Well I buy cheapo cds , no brand, 12x compatible , box of 10 for £5.50 UK. They work perfectly every time. Dye is really thin though, you hold it up to light you can see right through them...but they work great so i dont care

Screw you guys->->->I'm goin home

 

[Guest]

What if the ones you have sold to your friends and the ones you used for backup of important data became unreadable after, say, 3 months?

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[Guest]

Well then, the solution is very simple....go back to the shop , kick the crap outve them and demand compensation

Screw you guys->->->I'm goin home

 

[Guest]

As you may have read from previous messages, different people had had different experiences with different media and different CD recorders. My suggestion to you is to test read alot. Try different brands, but the important thing is to, burn different things, data, audio, multi-session, using many different methods, and many different burning programs...in fact try using all the features that came with your burning program. Then to test if the CD was good, you should try to read it on MANY different cd-rom, especially the "cheap" ones. Can you play a silver/blue audio data on a 4x cd-rom? Can you play a gold cd on the same 4x cdrom? If a media can be read by a crappy CD drive, then it's a pretty good media. As others have mentioned before, if you see "gold dye" or "gold/gold" or "gold on gold", then the chance of that CD being readable by ALL cd drive is HIGHER than those blue or blue/green or silver/blue (worst) types. Not to mention they DO last longer. My experiences of gold cdr in car cdplayer had been more favorable than the silver/blue ones. My personal favorites have been the golden Kodak, and Imation. But those are more expensive than the generic name brands. If you're just burning audio stuff for your personal enjoyment, or for temporarity data transport from one computer another, use the cheap ones. If you have important data that you plan to keep for posterity, then go ahead and invest in a couple good quality gold/gold Kodaks.

An my last words, to be more "opinionate", so to speak--Just as one should NEVER buy "BTC" products, don't ever by "GQ" (Great Quality) brand of CDr. They suck. Period! Wanna guess what color is the dye?

 

[LordKaos]

I wouldn´t say £5.5 for a box of 10 CD´s is cheap!
For that price i buy a box of Mitsui´s and they are Top Notch!
I think you´re being Screwed!

Better burn in Hell with some company than freeze in Heaven all alone

 

[LordKaos]

You should make do , on that recommendation!!

P.S: "I´m not FAT, i´m just Big-boned!!" :-D
Eh eh ! I just love SOUTHPARk! Eheh!

Better burn in Hell with some company than freeze in Heaven all alone

 

[LordKaos]

Uuh!!
Green --> Seasick?
Blue --> Mad with envy? or ,
Red --> Shame?


Yellow doesn´t count, they´re Chinese! (No offense to Asians intended !)

Better burn in Hell with some company than freeze in Heaven all alone

 

[jvanber]

I haven't tried this myself, but I've actually heard that rice-cakes can make excellent CDR media. Instead of coasters, you can just spread peanut-butter on them, and eat 'em when they don't burn properly.

Can anyone verify this???

Joshua

 

[Guest]

I tried it yesterday with my Plextor 12/10/32A, the best about using rice is that the laser makes it extra crunchy.

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[Guest]

For AUDIO, you want GOLD/GOLD, and always GOLD. Actually, there's a true silver type that's made strictly for audio (you know the type you see when you buy an original album from the store). But since I've never tried them and my gold/gold rule had always works, I'd just go gold/gold.
Trust me on the gold/gold only rule, a lot of sucky cd player or cd-rom can't read non-gold.
Similar rule goes for backup (reliability and longevity).
Vendors:
if you gots the $$, go for KODAK! be aware that although Kodak is good, they may be more expensive only because of their NAME.
others:
MITSUI, GIGASTORAGE (particularly good lately), and see previous posts for other major gold/gold brand.

Where can you buy? On-line. It's hard to find good cdr media from the local Fry's or CompUSA or even PCClub.

p.s. DON'T buy GQ:Great Quality brand--I know they now have gold cdr too, but I wouldn't trust them.

 

[Guest]

here's a link to where you can buy GigaStorage gold/gold
http://www.qtccdr.com/cgi-bin/product-detail.cfm?category=CDR Media&subcategory=80 MIN&product=CDR-GG80-GS&unit=Y

 

[igottaknife]

huh what would you say about the PNY Black Diamonds I burn??
16x 700MB and they're black like PS games

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