MAXELL DVD-R vs DVD+R Quality Questions...

Maxell DVD-R can be made by different makers, the ones made by Maxell in
Japan are top quality media. Other makers will not be so good. So you need
to specify who made them, and/or stick with ones marked "Made In Japan".
There are also 2x and 4x versions that are completely different media.
LiteOn burners are certainly well-known for poor DVD-R performance, but the
Pioneer should do great with them.
Use http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/ to ID the discs.



"Cory Seedan" wrote in message
...

Has anybody used Maxell 4x DVD-R's? I'd like something to compare my
experience against. This is kind of long but I hope it's informative,
not just my usual rambling. g

After looking at my results, can anybody tell me WTF is going on? At
first glance, either both Lite On and Pioneer DVD+/-RW units are
incompatible with Maxell DVD-R's or I got hit by an astronomical
coincidence in that 3 different lots of discs purchased in different
states at differet times were bad!

In recent weeks I've purchased 3 spindles of Maxell 4x DVD-R's from
different retailers (one from a California online store, one from a NH
Walmart and one from a Staples). I bought the first 2 spindles based
on satified users I read in the usual websites... (Ritdat not being
available locally, it was aa choice between Maxell and "no-name
blanks. The 3rd spindle was purchased from (Newegg, along with the
Pioneer burner) as a "control" just on the longshot that the spindles
purchased in MA and NH were from the same production lot. I've tried
these discs in 2 different burners and an additional DVDROM drive.
The burners included:

Lite On SOHW 812s (8x write)
Pioneer DVR-108 (16x write) (flashed to Rev 1.14)

The Player was a Lite-On 5232K Combo CDRW/DVDROM drive.

I initially used the Lite On 812 but the Lite-On would not produce a
working Maxell DVD-R at higher than 2x! I gave up on the 812 ordered
the Pioneer to replace it and did all further tests when the Pioneer
arrived several days afterward.

The Maxell DVD-R discs:

On one disc, CD/DVD Diagnostic reported the manufacturer as "Maxell"
but on subsequent checks, Diagnostic reported "No Manufacturer."
Two spindles were unusable. CD/DVDR Diagnostic reported ~50% soft
errors and ~48% hard unrecoverable errors. The drive burped, belched
disks. Visually, an inspection of the burn showed large splotches
along with many smaller dots of lighter reflectivity where the burn
didn't "take." (Then disks were taken directly from a newly opened
spindle and were clean and it was NOT fingerprints).

The third spindle fared only slightly better. These 4x DVD-Rs did not
show any physical defects in the dye after burning, but the drives had
a lot of trouble reading them. It did recover every error but it took
many minutes worth of retries reading bad sectors. CD/DVD Diagnostic
reportes nearly 50% soft errors on each disk, warning that the disk
arrears to be bad, averaging only 250 sectors/second and encountering
about 50% soft errors on each disc, though few or no hard errors.

Because all 3 readers had to struggle so hard to recover data from thr
DVD-R's, I would NOT use these discs for anything but expensive
decorative coasters and clock faces.

ON THE OTHER HAND The DVD+R discs fared a lot better.

While at a local Staples on a different errand, I purchased a "sale"
spindle of 15 Maxell 4x DVD+R's for comparison with the bad DVD-R's.
These were reported by my diagnostic software to be manufactured by
Ricoh, not Maxell. Strange enough, later attempts on same discs from
this batch, like those above, returned "No Manufactureer Data."
Strange, indeed. Anyway, despite whoever made them, the proof of the
pudding is in the eating so...

For a fair comparison, I burned the exact same batch of files to
several of these disks. CD/DVD Diagnostic reported several discs as
"Appears Good," reading at close to 4000 sectors/second with fewer
than d .4 percent soft errors and absolutely no hard errors on these
discs. Unlike their "-" bretheren, attempts to read random files on
the "+" discs proved that none of my drives had any trouble reading
them.

Admittedly, these are much more acceptable results, but I definitely
will not be buying any more MAXELL disks of any type and will also be
refraining from buying very few DVD+/-R discs of any brand until I get
this w out.

What suprises me is that other people report no problems at all with
the same media under similar conditions. Either both my LiteOn and
Pioneer burners have compatibility problems with Maxell DVD-R discs
(and possibly ANY DVD-R media), no matter who actually manufactured
them, or Maxell must have purchased or produced an incomprehensibly
large lot of bad DVD-R disks this year. Next month, when I can afford
it, I'll buy small qualtities of DVD-R media from several different
manufacturers to see if either of my burners have better results.

I'm left scratching my head and grasping at straws. Does anybody have
ANY idea what may be happening? Thanks for your comments.

Respectfully submitted,

-Corey-S-

BTW, My computers are on the older side, but not completely ancient,
so I don't think the probem.
1.8 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, 150+ GB free drive space.
Windows ME using Nero 6.3

BTW, SMH and Terry Smith are respectfully requested NOT to reply as
they have demonstrated they have absolutely NOTHING to contribute, and
will be summarily ignored.

"Cory Seedan" wrote in message
...

Has anybody used Maxell 4x DVD-R's? I'd like something to compare my
experience against. This is kind of long but I hope it's informative,
not just my usual rambling. g

(snip)

My personal experience with Maxell is similar, and
involves several formats. First, I used to buy Maxell s-vhs tapes, for use
not only in my s-vhs recorder, for also for use in a D-vhs recorder.
I bought the Maxell XR-S Black tapes. Those were discontinued and replaced
with Maxell Super VHS,
same price as the Blacks, but they perform very poorly in S-VHS recorders,
and wont perform at all my D-VHS machine. I switched to TDK XP Super Pro
S-VHS, which are actually cheaper, and perform superbly in both S and D-VHS.
About the same time, I was
buying Maxell CR-R blanks, and my LiteOn burner started having trouble
recognizing them. I switched to various other brands, no problems.
I recently purchased a Samsung stand alone DVD
recorder, DVD-R 4000. WalMart had a package of Maxell DVD-r blanks in their
clearance section. Bought them and tried to burn them with poor results,
ended up with coasters. Memorex blanks work just fine.
I can only say, IMHO, Maxell blanks in several formats have taken a direct
hit in terms of quality, however the price has remained the same.
I wont be buying anything Maxell in the future.
YMMV.

Deke