dbminter

I had a LiteOne drive, I think it was, that had some sort of internal counter of how many times it burned a disc. However, my tests with the feature didn't actually show it WAS keeping an accurate count!

I haven't used any other site except Amazon.com to get my media since about 2004. So, I can't say. I've not heard of billet banking either. From the JPG, I can only relate that it looks like a Western Union form of payment. Where you electronically send cash. I doubt Amazon.com accepts that as a form of payment. I Googled billet banking and got only questions asking if it was accepted for various services as payment. I got a few Brazil hits so it's apparently fairly common in Brazil? I searched wikipedia too and there was no page devoted directly to billet banking. So, without knowing what it is, I can't say.

The only site I get my media from is Amazon.com in the United States. I don't know if they accept bank slips as I don't know what those are. And I don't know if they ship internationally or not. Go by their web site and contact customer service. Amazon.com has DataLifePlus Verbatim DVD-R and Taiyo Yuden DVD-R.

Well, it's not that they're fake Verbatim. Verbatim just bought them from CMC and put their label on them. It's not uncommon. Most media manufacturers don't make their own media. Sony used to make it's own DVD-R and then farmed them out to Ritek. Verbatim itself, I think, doesn't make its own media except for its BD-R. They farm out to Mitsubishi or CMC. As I said I'd not buy them. Of course, you're always welcome to buy them, check the MID, and try to return them if they're CMC if you want. I generally return my CMC media and haven't had problems returning them to Amazon.com or Office Depot. I didn't return those last BD-RE's because I only spent $18 total and by the time I paid return shipping, it wouldn't be worth it for the little I'd get back. I don't know anything about where you could buy them in Brazil, sorry. But, I did Google Amazon.com Brazil and found this: However, from what little I know of what the Brazilian language would be, this site doesn't appear to offer electronics. Just books and Kindle.

No, I would not buy those. I'm pretty sure my experience in the past has been that packaging in the United States has CMC media. I believe that's one of the packaging you find in brick and mortar stores and all brick and mortar store Verbatim media is CMC. Even if it says Mitsubishi Kagaku Media on the package, it's not guaranteed to be Mitsubishi. I just yesterday received some MKM labeled on the package Verbatim BD-RE's that were, yes, you guessed it, CMC! I immediately posted a DO NOT BUY review on Amazon.com.

Never heard of MAM-A or Videolar. Now, some of these brands I've never heard of may because they're Brazilian. They may be local companies who got their DVD's from someone else and put their label on them. If I had to harbor a guess, if I've never heard of them, their quality can't be on par with Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden. Some unknown company won't be willing to pump money into a quality product. They won't farm out to a quality manufacturer either. I'd say they're cheap companies looking to make a higher profit margin on cheaper media.

I think Prodisc had a bad history in terms of the quality of their DVD's. I'm only going on memory, though, as I can't recall if I ever encountered a Prodisc before. Optodisc still makes media. However, I will never buy another of their products because I know they've used CMC in the past and who is to say they still don't or won't go back to them in the future. They burned their bridges with me when I spent $1,000 over their switch to CMC! Most likely what happened is they lost their good reputation with buyers and people stopped buying. So, online retailers generally stopped carrying their products because no one was buying them. Plus, manufacturers go out business. Simply put, the cheaper makers like CMC can outbid others because their products are junk. And the companies who put their name on the label generally only care about the profit margin, not supplying a quality product. COUGH MEMOREX COUGH. Amazon.com still has some Optodisc media under the Acro brand. But only mini DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM. There's an OptodiscAmerica website where you can order media directly from them. I wouldn't recommend it, though!

Yes, Optodisc actually made by Optodisc up until around 2004 was good. I've got 11 and 12 year old OPTODISCK MID's that are still playable today. CMC Optodisc's wouldn't even complete a burn 50% of the time. Never heard of Smartbuy, sorry.

Wow, you're one of the fastest repliers I've seen here. You're about as fast as I am! That means the drive always supported mDisc. Why it wouldn't have firmware to write to mDisc BEFORE it was shipped out is beyond me. Sounds suspicious to me. Let's just say it's true that a firmware update will enable your drive to write to mDisc. ImgBurn still won't need an update to write to mDisc. Optodisc used to make its own media before switching to CMC and Lead Data, another cheap manufacturer. As for Ritek reliability, I can still only relate my experience. I've come across some Maxell DVD-R's that were Riteks that I burned 9 years ago and they're still readable. In fact, I know this as recently as Saturday when I played a Maxell Ritek DVD-R burned in 2006. Again I consider Ritek a good 2nd tier quality DVD. Europeans report lower quality results with Ritek.

A firmware update will not enable a drive that did not support mDisc to support mDisc. It's hardware based, not software based. HP got in big trouble in 2003 for claiming their DVD+R only capable drive could be made DVD+RW capable with a firmware update. It simply can't be done that way. The hardware has to support it before the firmware can. Again ImgBurn just sends write commands to the drive. As long as the drive supports mDisc, ImgBurn will burn data to them because the drive itself carries out the necessary hardware functions to perform the write. I don't know how long any particular DVD media can last after burning. When DVD recordable first came out, they said it would last 100 years. However, a decade of tests later shows you will probably get less than half of that. It's hard to say because we've only had like 13 years of recordable DVD media to test with in the field. I found some TDK CD-R's I burned 10 years ago. Ritek made them. Now, my experience with Ritek media has been it's a good 2nd tier DVD manufacturer. However, in Europe, Ritek seems to be of lower quality. So, I'd say Ritek probably makes TDK's DVD's, but that's not necessarily so just because Ritek made their CD-R's 10 years ago. Companies often switch manufacturers to save money, like Optodisc did switching to CMC. Ruined their reputation with me and I'll NEVER buy another Optodisc product.

ImgBurn does not need an update to burn mDisc. Your drive must support mDisc. If it does, it will have the mDisc logo on its front, usually. My LG supports mDisc. ImgBurn will write to mDisc according to mDisc's FAQ site. But, I told you that already. As for long any media lasts, I can only tell you that cheap media like Prodisc last less than a year. For a comparison, I can only offer my DVD+R DL from Verbatim made by Mitsubishi I burned back in 2009 are still readable. I don't recall much information on TDK DVD. I can relate their CD and BD from personal experience. I had TDK CD-R that seemed to be pretty good. I have some I burned 10 years ago that are still readable. TDK makes Japanese packaging Verbatim BD-RE DL that I had no problems with. However, TDK pulls a Verbatim in that they farm out their inkjet printable BD-RE to CMC! Yet, I didn't have a problem with those BD-RE's. But, who's to say CMC BD-RE media will last? In fact, a follow up to my review on Amazon.com had one purchaser who said his only wrote twice before dying!

As I said, the only ones I had heard of before were Philips and Emtec. Philips I believe had a reputation for poor quality media so I'd guess any Blu-Ray they make would be CMC. Emtec I also believe has a bad reputation for DVD so their Blu-Ray would probably be CMC. If you go back to my previous posts, there was some quoted text that contained a link to reviews of Blu-Ray media quality. Those brands you mentioned might be reviewed in that link, so you might want to check it out. Actually, I just looked for you. You can thank me later. http://blog.consumerpla.net/2011/01/best-blank-blu-ray-media-review-guide.html The best brand in the world is subjective, of course. I had no problems with the Taiyo Yuden media I came across and the author of ImgBurn and several other ISF Gods here also recommend the use of Taiyo Yuden. So, it's definitely one of the best brands in the world. I believe Verbatim is the best brand in the world simply because it was recommended to me years ago by LUK to try it and I've had little problems with them. You should definitely have little problem with TY, but I've only ever bought their CD-R's, which were good quality. So, for direct experience, I can't offer any relation. I don't know anything about the reflective layers of Blu-Ray in terms of their composition. So, I don't know if they oxidize on contact with oxygen.

Are you talking Blu-Ray? Either way, I've got one answer for all of them. Multilaser: Never heard of them. Philips: Probably CMC as their DVD seems to be CMC. Nipponic: Never heard of them. Emtec: I believe they have a very poor DVD record, so probably CMC. Maxprint: Never heard of them. If you're not looking for CD-R, then I don't have much direct, recent experience with Taiyo Yuden DVD-R. I've come across a few of them over the years. And Taiyo Yuden is recommended along with Verbatim by the author of ImgBurn and several other users. So, I've also come to recommend TY based on their recommendations and Verbatim based on my own personal usage.

I don't know anything about the composition of the reflective layer. I couldn't tell you whether it's organic or inorganic. However, if I had to harbor a guess, I'd say that a reflective layer wouldn't be organic. I can't think of a reason why it would have to be. But, I can't say for certain as I don't know. I don't know about Brazil but in the US, if it doesn't say LTH it's HTL. And LTH must say LTH on the package. You could try contacting Amazon.com and see if they offer international shipping. I don't know otherwise how you might get them imported. If you can get them from Amazon.com, I can give you links to the discs I've bought before with good MID's. I've only used Taiyo Yuden CD-R's as far as I know. My DVD-R needs I get from Verbatim. Actually, I recall having seen TY MID's before on discs I've used in the past.

HTL is High To Low and LTH is Low To High. The names refer to the kind of reflectivity the discs offer. I'm not entirely sure what the difference in the reflectivity means. I'd guess by the use of the term reflectivity, the upshot would be that one has a better compatibility with players. The reflectivity of a disc is often times the primary concern in how well a burner will handle a disc or a player will read one. There is one other difference between HTL and LTH. HTL means factories designed specifically to produce Blu-Rays. LTH uses a process that converts CD and DVD factories to create Blu-Ray. So, LTH, I would guess, uses organic dye. LTH results in cheaper production costs but LTH media is problematic in drives and players that were made before LTH was created. HTL I believe uses a layer of inorganic zinc and copper alloy. LTH, I believe, is the one that uses an organic dye. As far as I know, the reflectivity is not related to whether a dye is organic or not. The reflectivity should be on the surface of the disc. However, I don't know for this sure. Physical properties of media are not my forte. All manufacturers of Blu-Ray used HTL before the creation of LTH, naturally. After the introduction of LTH, I know that the Memorex and Verbatim BD-R's I've used are HTL. The only BD-R's I use now, the Verbatim, are HTL. It's easy to tell if your discs are LTH because the packaging for LTH must be labeled as LTH.

From what I quoted, it seems the inorganic dye used in HTL BD-R is some kind of zinc and copper alloy. The laser melts the metals into pips that are interpreted as 1's and 0's. As with CD and DVD, there are many kinds of dye manufacturers for Blu-Ray. Yes, CMC makes Blu-Ray, unfortunately! Ritek makes them. TDK does. And Verbatim can make its own, or maybe Mitsubishi makes it for them. The Verbatim BD-R's MID has VERBAT in it, so I don't know if that means Verbatim itself makes them or if Mitsubisihi made it for them. I don't know anything about the physical science of the layers in a multi-layer Blu-Ray. I only know that there are no layer breaks like in DVD+-R DL. When the burn reaches the end of one layer, it just starts burning to the next one. I would have to say since there are multiple layers in BD-R DL and BD-R XL that would imply they're stacked on top of each other like in DVD+-R DL.

Blu-Rays come in 3 layer formats: single layer BD-R, double layer BD-R DL, and triple layer BD-R XL. BD-R are 25 GB. BD-R DL are 50 GB. And to confuse matters, BD-R XL are 100 GB and not 75! Not all Blu-Ray drive support BD-R XL so far, though. And, they are working on a quad layer BD that will support 125 GB. The desingers of Blu-Ray claim it's scratch resistant. I don't buy that. If you tasked me with a Blu-Ray and a pair of scissors, I'm pretty sure I could scratch it. However, I do believe Blu-Ray is more scratch RESISTANT than CD's and DVD's. They have a special kind of coating on them that the others don't.

No update should be needed. An mDisc capable drive should, I would think, detect an mDisc has been inserted and perform the appropriate burning operation for the inserted disc. Like how the drive can determine if a CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray has been inserted simply by reading the various ID strings from the disc. In other words, the effective upshot of this is that any write operation sent by any software would be burned to the mDisc by the drive itself. In fact, this comes directly from the mDisc FAQ site: "The software you use will not make a diffierence in the lifetime of your data. Data lifetime comes from a properly-working drive engraving data on an M-Disc. The drive engraving function should not be affected by the software you use on the PC. We find it difficult to recommend any one software package because individual needs vary and there are so many options. Mac OSX and Windows provide some basic capability. We work with Nero and CyberLink and they both have some excellent software for archiving data. We also use a number of shareware/freeware packages such as ImgBurn and Ashampoo in our lab work. We suggest you use the resources and information available on the web to checkout reviews of the software packages you are most interested in and use that information to help you make your choice. The software you use will not make a diffierence in the lifetime of your data. Data lifetime comes from a properly-working drive engraving data on an M-Disc. The drive engraving function should not be affected by the software you use on the PC." As you can see, it directly mentions they used ImgBurn. As for if Blu-Ray recordable media doesn't use dyes, I asked in the Chat forum and never got an answer. So, I Googled. Found this: "Write-once BD-R media is primarily based on inorganic dyes, found in HTL discs. Rather than re-type everything right now, I'm just going to quote from a TDK document available on their English-version Japanese site: Quote: The BD-R write-once type utilizes a recording layer of inorganic material. Since it is unaffected by exposure to light, it boasts outstanding archivability. Previous types of write-once type discs such as the CD-R, DVD-R and others utilized organic dye for their recording layer. The BD-R write-once type is based on a completely new concept for the recording layer utilizing a two-layer structure composed of silicon (Si) and copper alloy (Cu) inorganic materials. When heated by the recording laser beam, these melt and the Si and Cu alloy become a composite forming recording marks. Because the material is inorganic, it is not affected by light, thus realizing a disc with outstandingly high reliability in terms of archivability. (Fig. 6) Mitsubishi (Verbatim/MCC/MKM) has attempted to recycle old CD/DVD line manufacturing equipment to create a new type of organic Azo-based LTH BD-R, although results on those discs has been less than desired. Even second-tier HTL BD-R from the likes of Ritek or CMC has been known to perform better than Verbatim LTH BD-R. Much of this depends on the drive, so future burners could well perform better. The jury is still out on this one. I really do hope MKM suceeds with LTH, because it could lower costs long-term, and keep media profitable for that industry." So, good thing I switched from DVD+R DL for archiving double layer DVD's to BD-R's. They write faster than DVD+R DL in terms of writing the amount of data versus the time it takes. For instance, it takes 15 minutes to fill a DVD+R DL and about that time to fill a BD-R. However, with the BD-R, you can have multiple copies of the image on the disc instead of just the one copy on a DVD+R DL. And since they appear to last longer archivally, I'm glad I switched. I did some more reading in the replies to that FAQ. Seems that LTH DOES use dye. Hence why Low To High BD-R has continually failed to last more than a year after burning. I NEVER use LTH, always High To Low. And, I read even further: "Based on the user feedback we read, we also originally thought that LTH had very poor results. It turns out, however, that the very large majority of negative reviews on LTH are due to users who did not realize that their burners needed to be LTH-compatible, or did not check before purchasing LTH media. When you take out incompatibility issues, LTH media actually scores higher than the best HTL media. We rated it archival grade IF your burners are compatible. I cannot publish the link the our LTH data, as the article is not published yet (it will publish in the next 2 weeks), but it is a part of the ConsumerPla.net Blu Ray Blank Media Guide which is ongoing for another month or so. As a note, while we feel that LTH media is appropriate for data archival, it is not clear to us that it is so for audio or video, since, despite the LTH hype, many audio or video players are still not LTH-compatible. On the other hand, almost all modern data players (i.e. for computer use) are LTH-compatible today. So, in my view, at this time, data storage/ archival is a perfect use for LTH, but don't put your music or video on it if you want to take it to a friend's:-)" So, it seems the LTH media might only be problematic if you're trying to play a Blu-Ray video disc burned to LTH on players made before LTH was introduced. That site claims LTH is perfectly fine for archival. I'll stick with my HTL for now.

I don't know for sure but mDisc should not be affected nearly anywhere near as much by heat and humidity. However, of course, the actual test of an mDisc won't be until one reaches the supposed 100 year life span. Of course, CD's and DVD's were also rated at 100 years and proved not to be that long lived. The analogy of burning into rock is a good one for mDisc. So, while heat and humidity would affect the surface of an mDisc like it would affect any surface, it won't break down because they're not "organic" in the sense that dyes are. mDisc is essentially a hard surface that the laser burns depressions into. Like I said, the idea of a laser burning pits in rock is an effective one. So, heat and humidity will wear away rocks, too, but we're talking on a magnitude where you'd need far more of each to affect the writing surface of an mDisc versus an organic dye CD or DVD. Supposedly, Blu-Ray recordable discs also don't use dye. I've only read this once online and couldn't get any kind of follow up on what they do use. But, if they do not use dyes, they should, theoretically, last longer than organo-dye discs.

My next USB drive I'm going to try is an Asus Blu-Ray. I'm holding on to my LiteOn USB because it has LightScribe capability. Once I exhaust my supply of LightScribe CD-R's (CMC's, of course, so they're only for non-essential use.) I'll replace it with this Asus from Amazon.com I have bookmarked. I'll try to remember when I get it to forward my experience with it. I've never used mDisc. I have an mDisc capable drive in the form of my LG, but I've never found any discs in store to try it out with. All I know about mDisc is you need a DVD+R capable reader and that mDisc DVD's are about 10 times as expensive as DVD-R is. $5 for an mDisc versus about 50 cents for a Verbatim DVD-R. Oh, and I do know they don't use dyes. They burn pits into the recordable surface. This is why mDisc lasts much longer. It's essentially like using the drive's laser to burn into a solid surface. Pioneer was rated as one of the best manufacturers by some website I read it on a few months back. My experience with them is 99% positive. Only the inkjet dual layer DVD+R issue. Oh, and one weird minor issue where when doing something, I forget what, to CD-R, the percent done counter counts backwards from 99% to 0% instead of 0% to 100%. Like I said, it's weird. As I said, if you're getting Verbatim CD or DVD, be sure it says DataLifePlus on the label. And you will probably not be able to find them in a brick and mortar store. You'll most likely have to find them online. Of course, that's the same story with Taiyo Yuden. Unfortunately, brick and mortar stores want to sell you the cheapest material at the highest price. They don't really care about the quality of the product. The only way to get generally get quality media is online.

Memorex farms out to Mitsubishi, CMC, and Ritek. As far as I know, the only Memorex Mitsubishi media is their 24x CD-RW. I've no idea why. Maybe, 24x CD-RW simply just isn't made by CMC, the normal manufacturer of their CD-R's. The only brand I know of that uses Mitsubishi otherwise is Verbatim. However, Verbatim also farms out to CMC! Unfortunately, there's never a straight answer. The company that puts their name on the package will decide to use one manufacturer for one product and a different one for another. For Verbatim, they have cheaper media lines like the Life series so they use CMC since they're cheap, and their product reflects that. Unfortunately, without an item number to go by on those Ridata, I can't compare them to anything on Amazon.com. And even if I had an item number, what is available in the Brazilian market may not necessarily be the same thing that is available in the US market. I have seen that type of packaging before, but I've never used them, so I can't comment on their quality.

You should definitely avoid Memorex burners. Memorex, generally, makes a poor product. They used to make a good CD-RW and their 24x CD-RW are good because Mitsubishi made them. And they used to make a good DVD+R. However, now, they farm out most of their CD and DVD products to, yes, you guessed, CMC! It was their DVD+R's made by CMC that weren't recognized by a, get this, MEMOREX DVD PLAYER! If you're looking for a USB drive, you should also avoid the slim model burners from any manufacturer. They're very low quality in general. And if you do get a USB drive, be sure to test a burn with it with a rewritable media. You'll be looking for Semaphore Timeout issues when trying to burn. This is a fairly common issue with USB drives caused by a conflict between the USB bridge chip in the drive and your drive controller on your PC's motherboard. I encountered one USB drive that had this issue and returned it because there's relatively no chance of fixing the issue as it's hardware based.

I've never heard of Sony's Archival Disc. However, as you know from my personal opinion of Sony, I'd say it's probably not worth it. I had a Sony BD-RE that died before its 5th write. I've had 2 Sony PS3 remotes that died within a year. Sony took over NEC/Optiarc and their drives went downhill. One Optiarc I had needed replacing after 6 months before just touching the ejected tray caused it to close. I had a PS2 in 2002 that need its entire drive assembly replaced within a year. Then, one day, I turned it on and it just booted to a black screen. Top loading was always the main cause of issues with the PS1. So, Sony used a tray loading system in the PS2. Then towards the end of the PS2's life span, Sony put a top loader BACK into the PS2 to save money on production costs! Sony did the same thing with their PS3. Needless to say, I will NEVER buy another Sony product. Which is a shame because Sony used to make a good product. The PS1, despite its top loading flaws, was a good product. Early model PS2's were a good product. Early DRU dual format burners were good. They were the first dual format burners on the market. Granted my first one had its own problem in that eventually it stopped writing at 4x to 4x rated media; only wrote at 2x. But, that was about the time Sony products started going to As for dye specifics, I only know a few things. Like CMC makes the worst. Plus, the reflectivity of the media appears to be the primary problem with compatibility with players and burners. As for the best kind of drives, it's rather subjective. LiteOn used to make a good DVD drive but they're on my shit list now. LiteOn's have a random problem with DVD+R DL's and DVD Video discs. They randomly introduced skips in playback that are not layer breaks. As for burners, I've only specifically used Blu-Ray for a few years so I can only comment on them. For a Blu-Ray, you'll want an LG or a Pioneer. However, neither one is perfect. The LG doesn't properly write Ricoh 8x DVD+RW. Any LG formatted and written one of these DVD+RW's will die within 20 writes. Plus, the LG is a very slow reading drive. The Pioneer is almost perfect. It's lasted a year so far. That's fairly rare in this day and age. However, the Pioneer has one rather idiotic failure. It will not properly write inkjet printable Verbatim MKM DVD+R DL. It WILL write branded Verbatim MKM DVD+R DL of the SAME MID as the inkjet. It's just that the inkjet versions, which are identical except for the inkjet printable surface, will always fail at the layer break, either in the burn or the verify. My LG is the BH16NS40. My Pioneer is the BDR-209M. I doubt I'd go with the LG over the Pioneer. I had another LG before this one and it still worked perfectly fine except it stopped writing DVD+R DL's. It still read and wrote DVD single layer and Blu-Rays. In fact, I only have an LG now because it's all I could find in a local brick and mortar store at Best Buy. I'd try another Pioneer before I tried another LG. I'd hope this niggling issue with inkjet DVD+R DL wouldn't carry over. HOWEVER, the LG DID carry over the DVD+RW problem from the previous version I had.

I should also point out that in the past, CMC made some decent products. Their DVD+R and CD's used to be of decent quality. Their DVD+R now, though, last ones I had, they burned but no DVD player recognized them for playing. And from ianmaty's linked site http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm about Verbatim "Production outsourced to MBI, CMC, Prodisc and FTI. Not an issue." I consider it an issue though. BUT, I've had some of CMC's BD-RE's and they formatted, wrote, verified, and data was reliably readable from them. However, I haven't tried them for only about 6 months. So, CMC may make a decent BD-RE. However, the quality control issues of the past give CMC a bad name. Plus, so many people here on the ImgBurn forums report issues with burning and their discs are CMC's. I know from experience with Optodisc. Optodiscs I burned in 2002 are still readable. But around 2004, Optodisc switched to CMC and half of those discs wouldn't burn. I didn't know about CMC at the time so I wasted about $1,000 on media and new burners before I stumbled across a post, er, somewhere else that mentioned CMC. So, I checked the MID on these Optodiscs and, sure enough, they were CMC. So, 10 years ago, CMC went on my list and stays there because I trust the quality of the product to last in the long term about as far as I can through CMC's corporate headquarters building!

Well, I can't really say if your Ridata is good. Ridata is essentially the same as Ritek in the United States. In the United States, Ritek is a good 2nd tier quality media. However, in Europe, the reports from users are that Ritek is a lower quality brand. Plus, it depends on the MID in your area of the world. Ridata may use Ritek in the US, but for what you get in Brazil, there's no way of knowing without actually buying it and checking the MID in ImgBurn. As for the world's best dye for either media, that's a subjective question. I won't use anything other than non CMC Verbatim, e.g. Mitsubishi MCC/MKM MID or Taiyo Yuden for my CD and DVD needs. For Blu-Ray, I will only use actual Verbatim, not CMC Verbatim, and Ritek from Memorex. However, some people are perfectly fine with using CMC. As for the scientific aspects of media, I don't know that. I don't know the particular tolerances of humidity and heat for my media. I just go by the MID and what I know from experience. If burns finish, if verifies finish, if DVD players read the burned media fine, and how long they've lasted after burning.