Burners & media: members' results and recommendations

[WildHeart]

And now for something completely different.....

How about a 3 inch mini DVD-R? This was labeled Memorex but made in Taiwan.



Results were not as good as for a full size disc by the same manufacturer. Not a lot of samples though.

[Mrs. 2p]

oh, wow! this is becoming a wealth of information on all sorts of different burners and media. well done people!

unfortunately it's become a bit too long to follow in any reasonably easy way or length of time. I think it would be useful to have a regular update of conclusions and rankings somewhere for ease of reference. With dates attached to it.

A summary of significant comments would be nice too, but more work...

LanJackal, do you feel up to it? Since this was your contribution, I guess it would be only fair for you to be taking the credit and doing this (fair for whom, I'm not sure ). Also because it seems that the most sensible place would be the first post, and I believe it's yours .

I for example, was counting on looking on here for tips for my next dvd-burner, but found that with over 100 posts -and more by the time I get around to it- I'll probably have a hard time.

How does that sound? a group effort towards DVD-burning reviews?

[LANjackal]

oh, wow! this is becoming a wealth of information on all sorts of different burners and media. well done people!

Since that was the intended outcome, I am quite gratified. However, only one drive and 2 discs came from me. The bulk of the contributions have come from the rest of the Slyck community, which I am happy for. Couldn't do it without them. Thanks guys .

unfortunately it's become a bit too long to follow in any reasonably easy way or length of time. I think it would be useful to have a regular update of conclusions and rankings somewhere for ease of reference. With dates attached to it.

*Sigh* I actually started worrying about that problem last week. I've tried posting running updates whenever someone new breaks into the top 3 in the media or hardware category. The reason I chose only the top 3 is that otherwise I'd have to re-order everyone's standings manually (I am not an HTML, PHP or BBS wizard by any measure). Hate to sound lame, but I spend almost 2 hours/day trawling feeds for news articles and other hours replying to threads here and there... so keeping track of EVERY result would be VERY difficult.


I think the basic information provided by the top 3 is sufficient for now, for several reasons:

If you want to run out to the store and get some dics, you're not going to go for the #4 disc in the line. You're going to be looking out for numero uno. 3 options (notice how tightly spaced they are) should be enough, I think.

The same reasoning goes for drives, with some exceptions.


Hence, here's my idea: I'm going to expand the media ratings to include 2 categories instead of the current 1. These categories will be as follows:

- DVD+-R media
- DVD+-R DL media
- DVD+-RW media

This should reflect reality, in which rewritable media is often necessary for a particular job. Rewritable DL media will be added as soon a result for it is posted.

Drive ratings will be expanded to:

- Internal drives
- External drives

This should help users with laptops who can't get an external NEC solution, for example (DIY external housing jobs don't count due to the huge number of combinations possible).

If anyone has any other ideas, please feel free to add them in.

[Mrs. 2p]

sounds great! actually, what I had in mind was something similar to those "running conclusions" as you call them, but all posted in the first post instead of throughout the thread, for ease of reference.

That, any relevant additional information/comments, so that the occasional lurker will get the main idea by simply reading the first post. Then, if he wants detail or substantiation, he continues reading.

[EDIT]
I thought this article from Tom's Hardware might be a nice complement to the thread, and help enlighten those reading here in search of parameters to make a choice.

In The Latest DVD Writers' True Speeds, Roland Marianna notes that there isn't much point in going for the fastest drives, because hardly any media supports those speeds (only DVD+R seemed to reach the now standard x16 writing speed). But what I thought was particularly interesting were the performance benchmarks achieved by the various drives on the various media. I guess a difference in speed of 13ms really is no big deal in real life, but then again, it's the sort of thing that would be difficult to test outside a testing lab.

[HEAT84]

Hmm... I just read the article at Tom's hardware.com I saw DL DVD-R's in Office Depot a few days ago.

[LANjackal]

I waited for feedback on the proposed rules, and no one seemed to object to my ideas, so here are the new rules for posting results in this thread.


NEW THREAD RULES

New rules for this thread are in effect to facilitate the monitoring of results and eliminate the need to hunt for a roundup thereof.

Here they are:

1 - Post ANY results if you have them

2 - If your post makes you one of the top 3 in any of the results categories, quote and edit the standings in a post of your own to reflect the change. BE FAIR. Cheating will not be appreciated

3 - DRIVE RELIABILITY RESULTS REMOVED due to the fact that the ratings depend partially on the media the drive is burning to and vary as such.

4 - Media reliability has been subdivided into several categories: DVD+-R, DVD+-R DL, DVD+-RW. A category for DVD+-RW DL discs will be added once someone posts a result containing one them.

I will do my best to keep an updated copy of the standings here at the first post, so that they can be found with a single click if needed.


That said, here are the current new standings:


DVD+-R

1 - Trance - 96.1% - Ritek 16X DVD+R - RITEK-R04-01
2 - lordfoul/Omar - 95.6% - Ritek 8X DVD+R - RITEK-R03-02
3 - movieguy - 95.5% - Memorex 8x DVD+R - PRODISC-R03-03


DVD+-R DL

1 - LANjackal - 91.8% - Verbatim 6X DVD+R DL - MKM-001-00
2 - zim - 81.7% - Ritek 4X DVD+R DL - RITEK-D01-01
3 - Solomon - 60.4% - Philips 2.4X DVD+R DL - PHILIPS-041-00


DVD+-RW

1 - WildHeart - 94.8% - Philips 4X DVD+RW - PHILIPS-041-00
2 - Solomon - 93.3% - Optodisc 2.4X DVD+RW - OPTODISC-OP1-01[/quote]

[Mrs. 2p]

3 - DRIVE RELIABILITY RESULTS REMOVED due to the fact that the ratings depend partially on the media the drive is burning to and vary as such.

oops! sorry! didn't understand that from your earlier posts. why don't you just stop including new driver reliability results, but keep what is already there. with all the issues and all, it's still very telling information, and it has at least helped me make my decision.

[LANjackal]

oops! sorry! didn't understand that from your earlier posts. why don't you just stop including new driver reliability results, but keep what is already there. with all the issues and all, it's still very telling information, and it has at least helped me make my decision.

I'm glad it did.

However, the fact that the rating depends on the media messes up the rankings because not everyone does the test with the same media. Thus, those who test with poor media are penalized even if they have good hardware on hand. This makes the comparison unfair.

Also, scores vary widely depending on the media used. For example, Solomon's Samsung drive rated at 100% on one disc, but an appalling 33% on another.

For these reasons, I really can't count the drive results as being a valid indication of a drive's absolute performance any more... and that goes for the previous results too.

[Mrs. 2p]

ok, fair enough!

[WildHeart]

This one labeled Panasonic, Mfgs code indicates Taiyo Yuden. Rather disappointing results.

[WildHeart]

Another 3 inch mini DVD-R. This one was labeled SONY but mfg code says TDK. Still looking for data on SONY and TDK full size discs.

[WildHeart]

This is TDK, from their Taiwan plant:

[WildHeart]

This one really ticked me off. Package label says up to 16X, but both VSO and Nero give it 2X maximum:

[WildHeart]

This was labeled as Memorex 2.4X:

[WildHeart]

The RITEK G05 has been posted before, but we now have a greater sample size and an improved reliability rating. This was branded as Maxell:



This should move the RITEK G05 into the top three for reliability - and the highest rated DVD-R tested.

DVD+-R

1 - Trance - 96.1% - Ritek 16X DVD+R - RITEK-R04-01
2 - lordfoul/Omar - 95.6% - Ritek 8X DVD+R - RITEK-R03-02
3(tie) - movieguy - 95.5% - Memorex 8x DVD+R - PRODISC-R03-03
3(tie) - WildHeart - 95.5% - Maxell 8X DVD-R - RITEK G05

and:

DVD+-R DL

1 - LANjackal - 91.8% - Verbatim 6X DVD+R DL - MKM-001-00
2 - WildHeart - 85.7% - Memorex 2.4X DVD+R DL - RITEK-D01-01
3 - zim - 81.7% - Ritek 4X DVD+R DL - RITEK-D01-01
4 - Solomon - 60.4% - Philips 2.4X DVD+R DL - PHILIPS-041-00

Two different results for the RITEK-D01-01. The higher figure is based on a larger sample size, so should be more accurate.

[WildHeart]

Another one from CMC MAG. This one marketed as Magnavox 16X:

[Watain]

This one labeled Panasonic, Mfgs code indicates Taiyo Yuden. Rather disappointing results.

TY is hands down the best media...but yeah not a great result