"Wally" wrote in message
...
Keith G wrote:
No, Mr Molton, DVDs are not similar - just stare hard at one and
it'll come up 'Data Error (cyclic redundancy check) or somesuch. I've
handled 'digital disks' since Pontius was a pilot and these DVD Rs
and RWs are reet touchy little things - far more so than CD Rs and
RWs, IMO......
Burning on a computer burner? As a matter of idle interest, what brands of
disk have you tried, and are there any that you find better? How about
burn
speed?
OK, I'll play.
Talking only DVD media here, I have found that the 'better' (ie less prone
to failure) disks are, without exception, the branded 'famous names' like
Philips, Ricoh, Maxell, Memorex, Imation, HP etc. I have not yet had one
failure from disks like these. Cheap, unbranded disks that I have tried are
Maplins own and PC World's own 'PC Line' - failure rates here were about 3%.
The thing to bear in mind is that unbranded disks are very likely to be made
by a famous name and that one famous name (Ricoh perhaps the best example)
will be producing disks marketted under other 'famous names'. There are a
number of free utilities like DVDINFOPro
http://www.dvdinfopro.com/ that
will give up these secrets, if they are important to you.
Massive differences in price mean that it pays to try and 'match the disk to
the job' - ie cheap disks for recording/saving dross of the telly (which
will very likely be repeated in 3 months anyway) and summat special for a
'one-time only' family event, for example. There is simply no point (unless
you are very well-wedged) in paying over the odds to try and minimise
'coaster production' when a failure rate of 2 or 3 % on disks costing only
50 odd pence each will still not approach anything like the 5.99 prices for
the same type of disk (with a well-known name) on jobs that don't merit the
extra reliability. In a 'batch run' of, say, movie backups it ain't the end
of the world to have to do one twice if the cost savings are high enough.
It is important to bear in mind also that almost all DVD recorders and
players have their likes and dislikes for different flavours of disks and it
pays to find this out early in the game. Many online media stores will send
a mixed sample pack of media for you to conduct your own experiments. I
think you will find that this is much to do with the dyes that are used with
Prodisc being a bit of an habitual offender and Ritek being the current
'Golden ********' of the DVD media world these days. For those of you who
can detect a 'rosy glow' in various formats (like vinyl, for instance) you
might want to match the player/recorder to the preferred disks with a deeper
purple dye.
(Of course, with vinyl, you could always trying changing yer cartridge for
summat a bit more up-to-date.... :-)
Anyway, as far as I know, posh, expensive DVD kit is no more immune from
this than a cheap jobbie from a supermarket. The DVD forums carry much
information on these matters. Fortunately, computer DVD drives seem able to
cope with anything you throw at them!
Speed? As always, when one is a relatively early adopter, you end up stuck
with slower speeds than people who tap in at a later generation. All my kit
is oriented to 2x for 'minus' stuff and 2.4 for 'plus' stuff. (No idea what
the bitrates are - I see them every time I burn a dsik but I'm suffering
from 'unit blindness' these days and don't take much notice!) The new 4x
stuff will be with us very soon, if it isn't already......!!
Out of interest for anyone who is looking to get into the game, the name
Lucky Goldstar (LG) is the one to watch - if you do not need to change Book
Type, you will find the LG GSA4040 multiburner (plus, minus and RAM) very
hard to beat at about £85 as an OEM unit from places like Dabs.com. Also,
there are a string of LG multi (plus and minus) recorders coming out at very
reasonable prices like the new DR4810:
http://www.whatvideotv.com/news/fram...ws.php?id=5441
http://www.unbeatable.co.uk/CatalogueItem_16463.html
As well as the LG 5810-MJC due soon:
http://www.techonline.com/community/news/32280
http://www.cirrus.com/en/press/releases/P396.html
....which will be another step toward the better compatability we should be
getting from what is*supposed* to be a 'universal format' but which is, yet,
anything but!
One for the Jitterbugs.
Linear Mode
