"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Laurence Payne
wrote:
On Sat, 23 May 2009 00:04:47 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:

CDRs really. And I don't know if it's the make of the blank alone ( I
usually use 'name' ones of some reasonably quality reputation ) or the
drives pack up early. I've thrown out more CD drives than any other
piece of PC kit.

The first generation of CD drives certainly seemed to have about a 3
year life.

A lot of my failed CD-Rs date from days before I realised that burning
at the manufacturer's maximum rated speed was NOT a good idea.

I've often had a situation where a newly-burnt CDR would not play properly
in a specific device or drive.



Faulty recordings seem to follow you around somewhat, don't they? I don't
remember more than the very occasional 'coaster' back in the CDR days but
it's been many a year since I was involved with them - thankfully, not more
than a small few (probably less than 3 altogether) DVDR coasters back in
those days either.

With DVDs, it wasn't just a question of the disks and the drives used to
burn them; the player came into the equation also - there was a time that
any disk with the purple Rytek dye (irrespective of manufacturer or brand)
would play in any of the DVD players we had at the time. Then it all seemed
to go off the fang and replay difficulties manifested themselves even on a
few Rytex disks - stuttering, 'hanging', picture break-up, thise dreadful
'digital squeaks' occasionally and machine lock-up! It was as if the players
had evolved away from the media!


I've also found it helps to use a particular brand, TDK in my experience
works well. But this does seem to vary both with choice of writer, and
with
the playback/reading devices.


I have also found TDK to be reliable and don't think I've ever had a failure
with them. Now that it's Bluray, with prices up to £25 for a *single* 50GB
BD-REDL atm, dodgy disks/replay problems are definitely not desirable, but
the TDK disks work well and appear to be reliable as does another disk I
have - a single 5 quid cheaper Maxell which has TDK also. While, OTOH, the
25 Gig 'LG' BDRE bundled free with the LG 'Super Multi Blue' drive (can't
remember the model number) is not TDK dye and is not useable in either of
the Samsung or Sony players we have!

Hardly surprising that the TDK disks should be OK though, as they were
members of the original BDF group:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Founders