Blank BD-R Disks On The Cheap This Morn

Memorex stuff is crap. CDs, DVDs, CD players... All their stuff has just barely acceptable quality. I stopped using their media even for something that I can afford to lose. I will definitely not use their BD media for something that is important to me.
 
Cranky,

Since your comment is qualitative, could you elaborate and make that a more quantitative statement. We all have our opinions, but inquiring minds want to know why.

Best Regards,
Grant
 
I don't know how reliable those disks really are, but the feedback at newegg.com is about as good as it gets, and it certainly is nice to see that BD-Rs are coming down to Earth in price. I've got a huge stock of blank single layer DVDs, but when that dwindles down I think I'll finally start switching over to using BD-R to store source footage. It's quite realistic to take footage (shot at the highest quality setting) straight from the HMC40, and burn redundant copies to BD-R for well under 3 bucks/hr now. I just wish there were good quality (and affordable) 24GB SDHC cards available, to match the capacity of the BD-R disks nicely.
 
Cranky said:
Memorex stuff is crap. CDs, DVDs, CD players... All their stuff has just barely acceptable quality. I stopped using their media even for something that I can afford to lose. I will definitely not use their BD media for something that is important to me.
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Totally disagree.

I had a 10 spindle of DVD-R-DLs a while back, i had 3 of them fail, due to a computer issue, not even the media's fault, and went to Memorex's website, filled out a form, and received a 5 pack of replacement disks in slim cases. That's 2 disks and 5 cases more than i asked for. never had bad results with any of the other media i've had from them. I had a Memorex DVD burner go bad after 2 years of (heavy) use and thought it was too soon, but them my next burner, a high end NEC, went after a year and a half.

I think it would be much more useful to the community to post what your experience actually was with a product or brand, rather than just saying that it is "crap"
 
Some CDs recorded 10 years ago have failed. Some DVDs recorded about 5 years ago have failed. Their portable CD player has stopped working. Apparently they don' t manufacture it, they use different subcontractors, so some batches may be better than other.
 
Cranky,

Regarding the discs; how does the Memorex failure rate compare to others you have used. Most every manufacturer has a range of products, low end and up. Do you recollect which line of products were consistantly bad?

What brand would you recommend? I have had failures on every brand, and it seems like a pretty generic failure rate. For me, is a disc is going to fail, it is usually a failure to boot when I want to burn. I have had very few discs fail after burning unless maybe my dog chewed on it.

Grant
 
Although I am not a fan of Memorex, I've had Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden discs fail in shorter times.

That being said, I don't know about Memorex blu ray blanks, so I'll stay out of the fray.

I do use Verbatim and prefer BD-RE discs for testing.
 
Cranky said:
Memorex stuff is crap. CDs, DVDs, CD players... All their stuff has just barely acceptable quality. I stopped using their media even for something that I can afford to lose. I will definitely not use their BD media for something that is important to me.
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I have also had problems with Memorex media. I have a Sony mini-disc recorder that I have often used for long (a few hours) uninterrupted live audio recordings. The recorder has long recording modes, up to more than five hours in its longest recording mode. I would start the recorder and leave it unattended until the session ended. At first, when I began using Memorex mini-discs, they seemed to work OK. But, in later sessions, inexplicably, the recorder would shut off prematurely and most of the programs that I assumed were recorded were only partially recorded. After this happened on a few sessions, using different Memorex mini-discs, I initially thought the recorder was defective. But when I switched to another brand (Sony), this problem stopped. The inescapable conclusion was that Memorex mini-discs were unreliable. I also had problems with Memorex rewritable CD-RW. Last year, I bought a stack of Memorex CD-RW to record MP3 files on my computer for playback on my MP3 CD player. I tried four or five discs (out of stack of 25) and ALL of them were either problematic or totally unplayable on my CD player. I had more luck with Memorex DVD+Rs, but after all that bad experience with the other media, I have been avoiding the brand.
 
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If it helps Grant, I read so many posts in different forums about issues being resolved when switching away from Memorex, but that relates to DVDs mostly.

I don't know if it extends to Memorex blu ray, but I just stay away
 
David,

My only point is that if someone rakes a product, it deserves some explanation, or it is more like trolling. I have strong opinions about many products, good and bad, based on my own experience. But I prefer being specific about the issue to give a better perspective rather than saying such and such is crap with no explanation.

The recent discussion about SD cards is a good example; people were having trouble with many different brands. A reasonable conclusion was yes, cards do fail but the data loss issue was probably more to do with other issues like formatting for example. My own read was that with regard to card brand, people were having less issues with SanDisk overall, so I went with them.

I have had no particular issue with Memorex products. I place high value on good quality feedback from the board. But you do need to determine if it is real or Memorex. Oh I didn't want to say that......

Best Regards,
Grant
 
I agree Grant. Completely. Support for blanket statements is what provides information. Otherwise, it is merely opinion
 
ggrantly said:
David,

My only point is that if someone rakes a product, it deserves some explanation, or it is more like trolling. I have strong opinions about many products, good and bad, based on my own experience. But I prefer being specific about the issue to give a better perspective rather than saying such and such is crap with no explanation.

The recent discussion about SD cards is a good example; people were having trouble with many different brands. A reasonable conclusion was yes, cards do fail but the data loss issue was probably more to do with other issues like formatting for example. My own read was that with regard to card brand, people were having less issues with SanDisk overall, so I went with them.

I have had no particular issue with Memorex products. I place high value on good quality feedback from the board. But you do need to determine if it is real or Memorex. Oh I didn't want to say that......

Best Regards,
Grant
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Grant, I actually hate to speak negatively of the brand. I liked Memorex audio cassettes in the days of analog and Memorex media today is usually priced competitively. But reliability seems to be an issue, although that may not apply to their DVD+/-R discs. It seems to me that, although the performance of digital recording has gone up versus analog, the reliability of the media has gone down. As much as I love the efficiency and economy of optical media, such as CD-R and DVD-R, they are not as robust as we were led to believe. As Cranky mentioned having CDs and DVDs fail after five to ten years, I have little confidence in their longevity, regardless of brand. On the other hand, I have analog recordings more than 20 years old that may have deteriorated somewhat, but still play back fine.
 
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The OP brought up the reduced cost of discs and the idea of a compact, inexpensive 50gig storage scheme is pretty attractive. In DV tape days, it was a no brainer, put the tape in a shoe box and hope. But tape, hard drives, flash, and disc solutions all have their problems.

This has been well discussed in other threads, but given the state of affairs, I am curious what any of you are doing?

The discussion about brand quality is significant and appreciated. But none of the posts thus far have mentioned any real life experience with blu-ray products from any manufacturer other than a rating reported by Robert Wright.

Are any of you using blu-ray for data storage? Has it been successful?

Best Regards,
Grant
 
The best information I could find on the life of optical media is as follows... This assumes proper storage conditions:

Neither "CD rot" nor "DVD rot" are chronic problems with optical media. Known cases have been attributed to specific, isolated manufacturing defects. However, improper care and handling of optical discs can result in damage leading to "rot."

Manufacturers' estimated recorded life span (years)
CR-R = 50-200
DVD-R = 30-100
...

  • An unpublished report of the recently-terminated "NIST/LoC Optical Media Longevity Study" of recordable optical media stated that, after 11 months of testing: [4]
    • Virtually all CD-Rs tested indicated an estimated life expectancy beyond 15 years.
    • Only 47 percent of the recordable DVDs tested indicated an estimated life expectancy beyond 15 years. Some had a predicted life expectancy as short as 1.9 years.
...
Should I worry about CD rot and DVD rot?

CD rot, also known as CD bronzing, has been an issue with certain discs manufactured from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. [17] A thin layer of lacquer on the label side of the disc protects the reflective data layer. In CD-ROMs and Audio CDs — Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA) — the reflective data layer is normally aluminum. If the lacquer is damaged, applied improperly, or formulated incorrectly then the reflective data layer may become exposed, leading to aluminum corrosion. [18] The corrosion of the reflective data layer is the phenomenon described as "CD rot" and results in data loss and playback issues.
While the lacquer-related manufacturing problems have been resolved, one should protect the label side of their CDs from damage: the label side, rather than the clear side, is the most vulnerable.


A testament to the durability of Audio CDs is a natural aging study conducted by the Library of Congress. The study found discs that, despite exhibiting both unacceptable levels of BLER and uncorrectable errors, remained playable and failed to exhibit noticeable audio defects. [19]


DVD rot has been debunked as a chronic problem, yet it remains a persistent urban legend. [20] While there have been documented cases of deterioration in specific discs, they appear to be the result of poor manufacturing. [21] Improper storage and handling can damage DVDs. In particular, excessive bending, such as when removing a DVD from its case, can result in delamination, the physical separation of the DVD's layers where they are glued together.
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There is not as much information on Blu-ray disks; however, there is reason to believe that the life of Blu-ray media should be roughly equal to that of DVDs.


Bob Diaz
 
Excellent info Bob.

Sounds like the discs might rot about the time I will, so the timing seems right to give blu-ray a try.

Thanks,
Grant
 
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