DSLRUsers.com

CD-R quality comparison:

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cd ... lity.shtml

I have used several hundred TDK CD-Rs and never had a dud. And the last lot I bought were $39-50. For a hundred of them.

Thanks for the info, it's always a worry!
Cheers,
G. Lamy

As with Greg B, I usually grab a 50 or 100 spindle pack of TDK Gold cd-r's. Never had issues with them, and they cost about $35 for 100 at BigW when on special.

I've been a Verbatim person for ages.

TDK have done me wrong a couple of times, but I find the Verbatims are also among the best when it comes to printable cd's with good quality.

Good Info Birdy on the cd-rs. I guess we all have our favorites and well not that i have but use lazer's which we buy about 600+ cd-rs and a lot of dvdr's as well. been getting them from perth and was paying $30 per 100, now they are $25 per 100 and never ever had a dud, and i do go through a lot of cds here.
Cheers
John

Taiyo Yuden supposedly are the Rolls Royce of CDRs. I was fond of Kodak golds until they were discontinued. TDKs and Verbatims became my staple diet. I had not had any CDRs coasters in all my use; so it surprised me then that the first batch of DVD-Rs I burnt I had experienced a failure (TDK -R 8x, ID#:TTG02 on Pioneer DVR108). Subsequent intermitted read errors on Sony -Rs lead me to conclude that DVDRs do not have the same permanence as CDRs.

Onyx, I think it was prolly your burner, i have a mate who had that model and everytime he did a dvd for me it was stuffed, more duds than good workable ones. I have an earlier model Pioneer 4x and have never had a bad burn infact i still use it on my other computer, it works great never had a problem so why replace it, and well i would hate to think just how many dvdrs it has burnt.
Cheers
John

Although it seems to make sense, you can't use your experience with one type of media from a particular firm then translate it to other media. For example, much TDK media is rebranded. Their CD Media can be made by a range of plants (from Ritek (mixed quality) to Taiyo Yuden (the Rolls Royce)). Their DVD +Rs are Ricoh (high quality) and the last lot of DVD -Rs I used of theirs were CMC (don't know much about this manufacturer). I tend to buy the +R DVDs for preference, for use in my Pioneer 108, but have had no probs with the -Rs either. I have heard that the manufacturers of the -Rs have changed from time to time, so you may need to be careful. I prefer to use Verbatim, but I can't always get hold of these for a reasonable price, so find TDK a good second choice.

With CDs, I stick to Verbatim (used to be a Kodak gold user too). I've used many brands of CD in the past that burned fine, but 12 mths later the data was unreadable. I usually pay around $25 for 50 from a range of suppliers - JB Hi-Fi, Harris Technology etc for inkjet printables - you can get non-printables for around $42 for 100. I know this is more than the price of TDKs mentioned below, but I'm happy to pay the for peace of mind.

When I say peace of mind, it's not just burning successfully or even verifying the data that's the whole story. The question is, will this data still be readable 5 years from now. Although I got successful burns with some cheap media, many of these have since failed even the 1 year test. The media that failed included Laser brand (CD) media, although I have heard that their quality has improved in more recent times.

With DVDs I also had what looked to be good burns on cheaper media, but by then I'd discovered software that tested the quality of the burn (you had to have a lite-on burner to use it and fortunately I still have an older one in my son's PC). This confirms higher quality burns with Ricoh (including TDK +Rs) and Verbatim media.

Another great thing about TDK and Verbatim is that their inkjet printable surfaces are also of good quality, which allows me to present something more pleasant than the usual scribble (oh and another thing, NEVER use stick on labels on CDs and DVDs if you are going to use them in anything other than PCs - and I wouldn't even recommend them for that - they unbalance the spin, the labels can get "eaten" by slot loading machines and they tend to come unstuck over time).

Regardless of the media quality, I think it's important to make two copies of anything that's important - such as photographs. This guards against media failure and, if you store one copy offsite, this provides further protection against loss.

Hope this helps.

BBJ wrote:Onyx, I think it was prolly your burner, i have a mate who had that model and everytime he did a dvd for me it was stuffed, more duds than good workable ones.

The Sony -R's were burnt on Birddog's Sony writers read fine on my Pioneer. It was the Teac drive in my notebook that had problems reading it. And not all the time. The TDK TTG02 burnt on DVR108 failed at their rated 8x speed, but Verbatim/CMC 8x media were burned fine at 12x in the same drive, as well as 8x TY's at 16x speed, so I suspect it's dodgy batches of the media more so than quirks of the drive. Yes, I'm running latest firmware always.

As ru32day states, it's also not valid to suggest data integrity at time of burn matters, it's the weeks/months/years down the track that matters. Failures of media due to aging cannot be predicted until they happen.