funny, I found the CMC optimums to be fairly decent as well (depending on which speed though)...LOL! actually if you look in the CMC media agreement topic, you will see that CMC media that performed well was 32x Optimum CMC media. Since then I have tested 40x CMC media as well, it didn't perform as well as the 32x media did, but it was completely readable at least.

(in reply to jason4k)

About the difference with optimums this still can be caused by great difference in batch quality.
Not every companny has a good quality controle as Mitsui & TY had in the past. New quality controle is less good.

The only companny which still improves there quality is Ritek however they had a long way to go. Haven't seen bad 80 minutes stuff any more from Ritek, but on 80+ media it seems that they still can't do it right. Also still no 80+ correct identified media from Ritek.

About Optimums the disc Rex gave me and that I tested were quite good. Much better as expected. Still could be a lucky batch.

The Philips CMC disc's are known to have great difference in quality.
Sometimes there really good but other times there quite bad. (the optimums might had the same thing but I only tested 3 disc's of the same batch. So I don't know)(Old Philips Ritek disc's actually had the same problem. However the batches starting from 32x seem allways to be ussable.)

By the way CMC disc's can't be put outside here in Holland for a week or they become unreadable.[:o)] The old cyanine ones even discolour. [:o)]

(in reply to jason4k)

Well, even my T.Y discs wouldn't survive a week outside of my place... but that is because the kids that live in the same apartment complex as me would steal them [:p]

(in reply to jason4k)

Hey people don't want CMC disc's that's why there were still out there.[:p]

(in reply to jason4k)

LOL!

(in reply to jason4k)

Actually, I think CMC's discs vary in quality, because the ones from Philips 48X (CMC) perform somewhat better than Optimum 48X (CMC), but both of them are far inferior than the ones from Mistsubishi azo which I accidently bought from Khypermedia... Now, I think it's just the rebate thing.

Also I'm thinking about one more possibility about this Khyper issue. Since I bought the Khypermedia from Officemax, could Officemax be actually re-labeling the Mistubishi's as Khypermedia? And it could be possible cuz they might have a tough time selling those 16X, 650mb CDRs, and they just relabel them to sell them out.[xx(]

(in reply to jason4k)

It's unlikely the retail store would do that, usually they don't care about those sorts of things. If the stock doesn't move over a period of time, then they don't buy any more and put the remaining stock on sale. It's usually the wholesalers/importers that do all the sneaky stuff like rebranding and re-certifying.

(in reply to jason4k)

You're right rex... that really makes sense to me...

About the re-certifying crap, it's really funny to me. They're re-certifying something really burns at only 16x as 48x. and that's one hell of a definition for re-certifying... Rex, pls don't take me wrong, I'm not flaming at you. And right now, every packaging outside of a box says cdr is certified at some crap speed. But what I wanna say to them is, why don't you certify my a$$ for me too![}:)][}:)]

(in reply to jason4k)

Yeah, well I've been on both sides of the issue, so I understand it better then most. I don't think that the people really knew what they were doing when they stuck the audio discs in the K-Hypermedia box. I'm sure somebody though they could be burned at 48x, and with some devices, say a CD duplicator, maybe they can be? I ran into something similar with speed issues a while back, when I complained to one of my previous suppliers that the business card CD-Rs that he sold me were "certified" for 24x, but could not be burned higher then 8x. This is because the drive will not let you... oddly, his CD duplicator let him burn them at 24x without any problems, so I kinda lost that argument [:p]. So as annoying as it is to the consumer, as long as the provider can in some way proove that the discs burn at their "certified" speed, we can't really do too much. Unless of course you want to try to bring the issue up with Philips, who is the one who makes all the rules for certification, but I doubt they would do anything.

When it comes down to it, you can look at this issue one of two ways:

1: You were ripped off, and the discs you were sold don't perform at their advertised specifications.

or

2: You got lucky, and ended up with some CD-Rs that would normally have costed likely 2x or 3x as much, and are much higher quality then what you should have received.

All things considered, I suggest number 2

(in reply to jason4k)

quote:

---

Originally posted by rjw

Hey people don't want CMC disc's that's why there were still out there.[:p]

---

I have had some CMC's outside my house for over a year and even the Dustmen Refuse to take them !!!

(in reply to jason4k)

Hey Rex and all other readers of this post, guess what I also found in that Khypermedia spindle? I found some 700mb/80min Mitsubishi CDRs, here's the ATIP:

ATIP: 97m 15s 21f
Disc Manufacturer: Mitsubishi Chemicals Corp.
Reflective layer: Dye (Long strategy; e.g. Cyanine, Azo etc.)
Media type: CD-Recordable
Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f / LBA: 359849)

man...that spindle is really all mixed up... but luckily, there're some 80min for me, haha~

(in reply to jason4k)

Yeha, that is something I've experienced with CMC brands before quite often... mixing and matching of different CD-Rs in the same spindle. Although I've never seen it done with CD-Rs not made by CMC.... the only thing that would explain this to me would be if these CD-Rs were all made in a CMC factory in Taiwan, and they got treated like regular CMC overstock for some reason... still odd, but at least in your favour!

(in reply to jason4k)

Jason4k, I was wondering if you would mind posting your test results for your Mitsubishi Azo discs. I bought a 100 pack of Khypermedia 48x that's also free after rebates from OfficeMax and found that all of them are Mitsubishi Azo's. On my Lite-On LTR 48125W, SmartBURN only lets me burn them at 32x. I found that the test result came up very poor for C1 errors and was wondering if it's the same for your discs.

[img]http://www.geocities.com/henry2cool/cdtest.txt[/img]

I thought Mitsubishi Azo discs should be good and significantly better than CMC discs... unless it's beccause it was branded from Khypermedia.

Btw, I always get a spurt of C2 errors around the 56-57min mark on all the discs I scan whether they were burned from my drive or not, is there something wrong with my drive?

(in reply to jason4k)

HeNry2kOoL: Don't worry about that spike of C1/C2 errors around the 56-57min mark. That is common to all LiteON burners using the mediatek '5' chipset, and have no reflection of the CD quality, just a glitch. You will find they disappear if you reduce your testing speed to 40x

Regarding your experiences with Azo discs, take a look at my review site (www.thedolphinreview.com) and see how your disc compares to my experiences with Verbatim Datalife Plus discs... Unfortunatly, the LiteON 48125W does not like AZO dyes at all it appears!

(in reply to jason4k)

Dolphinius_Rex:
Thanks, your review site was great and helped me better understand the discs and the results of it under different burn speeds. It seems like your Verbatim discs did a lot better than mine, since mine were burnt at 32x and still came up much more C1 errors than you did at 32x. Does the the azo discs affect all Lite-On drives or just our particular model or chipset? Is this a hardware limitation or can a future firmware update from Lite-On help correct this issue?

(in reply to jason4k)

Okay guys, here's a rule of thumb. For Metal AZO discs, the maximum recording speed should be no quicker than 24x, preferably 16x. For Super Azo, avoid them at all costs.

My LiteOn LTR-32123S with XS0X firmware can record Metal Azo CD-R's and I get no more than 3500 C1 errors throughout the length of the disc. That's pretty darned good for older media. Shame that Verbatim/Mitsubishi has gone downhill since the 16x days though!

TerminalVeloCD

(in reply to jason4k)