DVD quality

[Stardrone]

Hey there! I want to buy some double-layered DVDs for storing large ISOs and I need your advice with some companies. I bought some time ago a pack of HP DL-DVDs and now the data on the DVDs is taking ages to copy/install and it's only 1 year after they were burnt (1 year ago = about 10 minutes for 6GB game installation, now 2 hours and half). Now, there are no HP DVDs on sale in my country at this time, but there are Serioux, Verbatim, copyme and Traxdata DVDs, with prices ranging from 6$ per set of 10 DVDs (Serioux) to 18$ per set (Traxdata). Now, usually the more expensive the better the quality, so I want to know if it's better to buy a Traxdata expensive set or Serioux is good enough to equal Traxdata quality at a smaller price.

[Slamman]

Rather picky THIRD home DVD "multi" burner I bought has worked in regard to reading JVC branded media I recorded, this is ALSO significant in factoring in WHERE and HOW you burned your media and what it plays back on, Don't be fooled, there's some trial and error involved and I learned early on with just CD burners, it's getting to know what BRANDs work best in what hardware. Fuji I see recommended in my LG/Goldstar branded recorder. I've had luck with Verbatim as well, but if you're shopping for the hardware end, check ePinions and other user reviews to know what media has been proven effective

 

DL can also effect a player's reading prior to burning on it, as can DVD RW media, I'm pretty convinced from my experiments though no doubt our Mod Led By will cry foul of my post, he's not here to over-see how I know such things, so I am speaking from what I've done with my own setups

[Wolf68k]

The thing about CD and DVD media is that there is no one better brand than the other. There does seem to be better media codes, basically who really made it, than others. The problem is that all of the brands use different makers with what seems like every different run of their media.

Example: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia?dvdmedia...h+or+List+Media

Here you see HP uses primarily CMC MAG.xx for most of their blanks listed here, however they also use; MCC.....xxx, PHILIPS.Cxx, RICOHJPNxxx and SKC.....xxx, note that the xx and xxx are variables that change. Notice that in this case the MCC and RICOHJPN have gotten the best reviews while the CMC MAG and PHILIPS are mostly mixed, with some good already but others listed as "mixed". Now click on one of the Media Codes; I picked RICOHJPNR00 and the result is a wide range of different brands that used that maker's batch run to brand their name to.

 

My point is that you won't know what you got until you buy it, open it and run some software that will tell you what the media code is so you can look it up to see if you got something that everyone says is good, mixed or poor, which by that time you're SOL because you can't return it.

 

Also take a look at each media's reviews from the users. Notice that some have better luck with blanks using that media code and from different brands based on the burner itself.

 

Does speed of the burn have anything to do with anything? Some actually think yes it does. I actually saw someone say once about burning Wii pirated games 'to burn at the slowest speed because the Wii can't read at X-speed.' This is stupid because the reader has no idea how fast the media was burned at, it's not like there is some hidden thing written when you burn a disc that tells the reader to read at "this" speed because that's what it's burned at. However burning at slower does make for better chances of a good burn. There is a possibility that if you burn at the fastest speed the burner or blank media supports that some things might not be written correctly. It's kind of like compressing a file with let's say WinRAR; the lower the compression the less time it takes to compress the file(s), but the higher the compression the more time it takes to compress. With most burning software you can enable the "verify" feature, which will check to make sure everything is on there exactly like the source material which also means the total time will increase but a small price to pay to make sure everything is good.

 

What makes for burner discs to last a long time is storage and handling. If you use the burned disc a lot it is likely to fail faster over time. If you just take your disc up in a pile some place on your desk or shelf or where ever, that will affect how long it'll last as well, but this is true of pressed disc as well as burned. If you're not using the disc put it in a case of some kind. The best would be a jewel case like what you get audio CDs in but a case like a DVD movie will work as well too, and it doesn't matter if it's a single or double disc case or a stand or thin size case. That's not to say CD/DVD wallets aren't good just take care of how you handle them. Where you store the disc is important too. Don't leave them in a window or a car/truck or outside in a tool shed, and I won't trust it in a climate controlled storage unit either. Buy a shelf or file cabinet for your room/office and stick them in there.

 

 

For DL media I've only used one set so far, and that's from Memorex that burns at a max of 2.4X. I made one in 2007 stuck in a 30-40disc CD wallet and never messed with much. After reading your experience I took it out and put in my Samsung blu-ray HTS player for the first time ever and it played just fine, just like it did when I first made it tested the result on the Philips DVD player I had at the time (still have just don't use much for obvious reasons).

 

 

I'm am curious about something you said at the start of your topic: "...for storing large ISOs ..." You're burning the actual ISO file to the disc, like you would a bunch of images? Or are you burning the ISO as a disc to the disc? The way you make it sound is the first one. So as if you have say 2 or 3, or more, ISOs on a single disc. Then you say, "...now the data on the DVDs is taking ages to copy/install..." Are you trying to mount the ISO that is still on the disc using a virtual drive and do the install?

Let me explain so we're both on the same page, at least from the way I'm reading it. You have 2+ ISOs on a DVDDL, you then put that disc in and use let's say DaemonTools to mount one of the ISO which then appears in Windows as a disc and you then run the installer for whatever it is.

If this is the case, that is likely your problem there. I don't think it would have matter if you just made this disc 2 second ago using the best quality blank disc there is and burned at the slowest possible speed to guaranty the best burn possible, or if you did all of that but the disc is 1+years old. You need to copy the ISO from the disc to your HDD then mount it.

The problem is that let's say there was a magically way to put in a physical disc into a DVD drive, but to read that disc it has to pass through another disc on another DVD drive. If you had burned the ISO as a disc and it was having problems reading after X-amount of time, then I would say it's either the media or the drive but if pressed disc (meaning a store bought copy) was reading fine on the same drive but the burned stuff wasn't then if's the burned copy with the fault.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry to have rambled on, but at least mine wasn't gibberish that didn't answer the question.

[Stardrone]

I'm am curious about something you said at the start of your topic: "...for storing large ISOs ..." You're burning the actual ISO file to the disc, like you would a bunch of images? Or are you burning the ISO as a disc to the disc? The way you make it sound is the first one. So as if you have say 2 or 3, or more, ISOs on a single disc. Then you say, "...now the data on the DVDs is taking ages to copy/install..." Are you trying to mount the ISO that is still on the disc using a virtual drive and do the install?

Let me explain so we're both on the same page, at least from the way I'm reading it. You have 2+ ISOs on a DVDDL, you then put that disc in and use let's say DaemonTools to mount one of the ISO which then appears in Windows as a disc and you then run the installer for whatever it is.

If this is the case, that is likely your problem there. I don't think it would have matter if you just made this disc 2 second ago using the best quality blank disc there is and burned at the slowest possible speed to guaranty the best burn possible, or if you did all of that but the disc is 1+years old. You need to copy the ISO from the disc to your HDD then mount it.

The problem is that let's say there was a magically way to put in a physical disc into a DVD drive, but to read that disc it has to pass through another disc on another DVD drive. If you had burned the ISO as a disc and it was having problems reading after X-amount of time, then I would say it's either the media or the drive but if pressed disc (meaning a store bought copy) was reading fine on the same drive but the burned stuff wasn't then if's the burned copy with the fault.

Sorry, that was a typo. When I said "storing large ISOs" I meant using the Burn Image to Disc feature, so I burnt the ISO as a disc to disc, transforming the blank into a "fake original" installation disc.

[Wolf68k]

Ah ok, yes that would be more logical but trust me I have seen people that burn the ISO file to disc, as I thought you had worded, and think that the "disc" should work that way and then some do it because they want the ISO file for some other reason and just load a bunch onto a disc but then copy the ISO back to the HDD for use when needed.

 

As to why it would be acting slower after a year of use, I can't tell you without more testing and more background. If you had tested the burned disc right after you made it and it seems normal but then after a year and using the exact same drive it's then slower, that could be a problem with the disc or the drive. As it is I would try the disc on other drives and systems to see how it acts there.