Ritek Issues?

[JTnVA]

Maybe its me, maybe my players....but I think the media.

I purchased a 100 stack of Ritek/Ridata printable DVDs from Supermediastore.com. I made 5 backups and not a single one plays in any one of my three standalone players.

Two are Philips - one is a DVDR615 and the other one the model number escapes me right now but it is a 5 disc changer. The 615 does not even recognize there is a disc in the player. The 5 disc changer reads "disc error" after the dvd is inserted.

Third player is an older Sony. It plays other brands of DVD-/+R. When I put the Ritek backups in the screen just says "C 13:00" and blinks.

Three were burned with DVD Decrypter/DVD Shirk and two were made with DVD95Copy. I checked one of the sites for disc/player compatability and Ritek media is not listed as problematic.

I have verified all are good backups and they play fine on my PC.

I could understand the occasional bad DVD, but 5 in a row, thats crazy. I know that a lot of people love Ritek Media, but for my first experience I am not totally impressed.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. I am totally open to retracting any disappointment if someone has a fix that would work.

[blutach]

Hiya JTnVA

I've also got an older SONY and cop that error occasionally. But SONY's absolutely love Ritek +Rs (at least the real Riteks) - no doubt.

Riteks are a good brand but I've heard they have been moving away from their own Media ID R03 to using an outsourced maufacturer, RicohJPN, which are considered inferior.

Find out your media ID (see my sig). Make sure your burner's firmware is up to date, burn no faster than 4x, with verify on and, as you are doing now, always test your burns.

Regards

[ormonde]

"I purchased a 100 stack of Ritek/Ridata printable DVDs from Supermediastore.com."

But were they -R; RW or +R; RW? It might just be a compatibility issue among your standalone players.

[JTnVA]

"But were they -R; RW or +R; RW? It might just be a compatibility issue among your standalone players."

Ritek 100 Pack G04 4X DVD-R white inkjet printable

[jmet]

With what program did you burn with?

[JTnVA]

Three were burned with DVD Decrypter (3.4.3.0)/DVD Shrink and two were made with DVD95Copy.

[blutach]

The SONY C 13:00 can indicate a dirty lens. Try to clean it.

Have you tried +R disks? - Can't speak for Philips, but SONYs very much prefer them.

Regards

[JTnVA]

I will clean the lens, but other discs are playing in the Sony w/o issue.

I thought it may be a -R vs +R issue. A friend gave me a couple of -R Sony discs that I burned and they are working fine. The only issue is with the Riteks at this point. I have purchased a small amount of Ritek+R and will see if I have better luck.

Details on the stack of -R discs:
SONY DVD RW DRU-710A BY02 (ATA)
Current Profile: DVD-R

Disc Information:
Status: Empty
Erasable: No
Free Sectors: 2,297,888
Free Space: 4,706,074,624 bytes
Free Time: 510:40:38 (MM:SS:FF)

Pre-recorded Information:
Manufacturer ID: RITEKG04

Physical Format Information (Last Recorded):
Book Type: DVD-R
Part Version: 5
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 1
Track Path: Parallel Track Path (PTP)
Linear Density: 0.267 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 0
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 0

[lfcrule1972]

Realise this is an older topic now - but here goes anyway !

Up until my last order of blank media I had been using Grade A Go4's from SVP Comms here in England. From my last order of 30 blanks, 7 failed verify on Decrypter and Dvdinfopro and 2 were binned due to blotches all over the dye before I even wrote to them.

From my time on the Decrypter forum I was reading more complaints about the previously highly recommended G04's and concluded that they were not as good as they used to be. Last order I placed was for RiDisc Extreme G05's and these have been superb - have burnt 30 so far and all but 2 have reached the 8x burn rate and all have verified ok on my NEC2510.

When they first came out there was a lot of criticism for G05s and the quality....but I would recommend them now based on my experiences with NEC burners.

[greedylobster]

Ritek quality concerns...

As for lfcrule1972 - often, I believe this is the case more often than not - the quality of the media depends on the order that was placed by the supplier. If the supplier decided to lower the plank a little - they request the manufacturer to supply media that is not exactly 100% flawless. That's how one gets discs that look a little off the mark. But the unit cost of such media is lower and the profit margin foort he supplier is higher therefore.
Another issue also is that there are manufacturers, particularly in continental China who copy codes and appearance of famous and reputed brands and chuck them out into the market. This media is inferior, but often hard to spot. I have seen such SONY media which looked exactly as the original - you would not be able to tell the difference, but on scanning the manufacturer's code was missing. I have seen RITEK discs that were bogus RITEK discs made in mainland China. I believe there are more hard days ahead of RITEK at the moment as they are moving their production lines in Vietnam from Europe to offset low market prices for media and squeeze mor buck out of Charlies...
To blutach: one of this kind of suppliers was in Asutralia by the way. They used to supply PRODISC media which was not exactly top of the rande quality. They had very appealing price but unacceptably high failure rate. Yet they made their money, dropped the business off and switched to something else.
Have fun

[lfcrule1972]

I agree, altho to be fair my usual supplier of blank media in England (SVP Comms) is very good about quality and honesty in their ads, if its Grade A in the ad they really think it is...... They do sell cack as well but its well observed that its of a lesser grade

[blutach]

@greedylobster - I am sorry you had such a bad experience here. I have a damn good online supplier (www.pcx.com.au) who, when they were out temporarily of stock of my beloved R03s, got hold of their OS supplier and confirmed the media ID for me and even phoned me back (long distance!) to confirm. I have never had a bad R03 and quite frankly, never expect to. As you say, however, there are plenty of fakes around, and it is getting worse.

Regards

[lfcrule1972]

Sounds like a good company blutach

[Chulupee]

for what ever its worth, i also have been having the same problem. I have always used ritek ridata GO4s w/ no problem ever. I just recently bought a 100 pack from the same company i always did, and out of the 30 i have burned i have 28 coasters, and believe me i have tried everything besides replacing the burner. I believe riteks quality has definitly lowered, i just bought taiyo yuden and they work perfectly.

[greedylobster]

There has been a problem with R04 and R05 which RITEK has admitted to. According to them this is why they phased out this media hastily. Apparently from what they say there was a manufacturer in HK who faked the code of the media and sold large quantiities on the market as RITEK media. That's why there were a lot of complaints at some point in time about the drop in quality. They report that the manufacturers of the bogus discs also added the bogus discs to good ones to water down the degree of failures. RITEK also admits that they were not completely innocent themselves and they sold some quantities of lower grade media too, which had only added to the pain in the rear end of the punters. To terminate the trouble they just stopped the production of the troubled code media.
I read it on the net from on a reputred site, who published the comments by RITEK.
When I spoke with a hi-flyer from RITEK some months ago, they independently mentioned that they did have some trouble in HK indeed. So I guess this can be taken as truth...
Have fun...