My new Verbatims

[Chewy]

Mikey,
Verbatim doesn't have any plants in Tawain or India, but all their single layer media is made there(some used to be made in Japan by TY or Singapore by MCC/Verb)
They have made press releases about subbing out the manufacture but stresses that their dye and quality control in manufacturing is used. The rest
of the information is probably confidental and you won't find direct evidence from any source.
What's interesting is that Ricoh tried the same thing with ritek, it hasn't worked nearly as well.

[rahzel]

i actually like ricoh media (+R, but their dual layer media is questionable) and pretty much all of it is made by Ritek.

also, verbatim branded Taiyo Yuden media is still found these days, but only their pastel DVDR's, and these are usually only found in europe.

truth of the matter is, pretty much all DVD manufacturers/brands are losing money so are forced to cut corners and outsource their media to cheaper taiwanese manufacturers or buy media from these taiwanese manufacturers. many brands/manufacturers have really gone downhill the past few years.

[Chewy]

the old stock 4X dvd+r ricoh seemed to be the last good media they made, must have been produced in a plant long gone.

http://www.allmediaoutlet.com/allmedia/special-genuine-ricoh-premium-grade-dvdr-dvdr-4x-upto-8x-47gb-silver-shiny-blank-dvd-media-in-100-200-500-1000-pack-group-1892.htm

best deal I ever got on +R's, 200 with free shipping then

I quit scanning the burns they were so consistent

[rahzel]

well, there are different grades of Ricoh media... i've seen MANY good scans of ricohjpnr02 and even ricohjpnr03.

[Chewy]

all my R01's scanned better than almost all the scans I have seen at cdfreaks of recent ricoh mids

people seem disappointed in the R03's

[uufta]

I have no doubts anymore that I got a bad batch of CMC made Verb's...
Did a lot of reading up on this, and burned the same movie on three diff burners.

Benq....Sony.....Samsung

[Chewy]

qs's in the mid 90's and pif totals just over 1000 aren't bad even for verbs, not great either tho.

[uufta]

Its those repeating bunches of PIFS that are the giveaway.
Gets bad also further out on the disc's, had to do alot of reading..but I am learning alot.
People over on cdreakes thought their drives were messing up, had PIF spikes in the exact same locations...(DW1655 thread)

They are still usable of course, but it was a relief to know my drive is ok.
Might use the other drives for burning more though, save on my Benq

[rahzel]

all my R01's scanned better than almost all the scans I have seen at cdfreaks of recent ricoh mids

people seem disappointed in the R03's

oh i agree, R01's are certainly better. thats not to say that r02's are bad. also, i didnt say r03's are good, but with the right drive, they can get decent results. all i said is that i HAVE seen good scans of even r03's.

[Chewy]

Its those repeating bunches of PIFS

if another different kind of media does it then it probably dirt on the guide rails
had the same thing with an old nec 3520, only much worse

I have seen that from consecutive disks in a spindle but when I pulled a disk from further away it was gone

[MikeyBK]

The strangest of coincidence guys!!!

I just happened to have a 100 spindle of Verbs 16X that did indeed have the + in the middle of the ID number, it's the latest spindle I purchased from Sam's Club. All the rest have all had the PAPA ID Number.
Well.....true to what's being said in this thread, these + ID (Prodiscs I guess) discs had failure after failure every third disc to every other disc. I was completely shocked since all the other Verbs (PAPA ID) have had 99.9% success, with the only few that were coasters all coming from one spindle with some weird blotch on them, but all the rest have been superb.

So I now am convinced as to what rahzel, Chewy, and Blu has been saying . I am taking this spindle back to get some PAPA IDed Verbs.

Thanks guys for this great lesson !

That is the strangest thing that I happened to just get that batch of + IDed(Prodiscs, I'm starting to believe ) Verbs, ain't it??!!?? Incredible.
Had I not had this thread to learn this , I would've been going NUTZ!!!!

[MikeyBK]

Here is a scan of one of those discs that actually succeeded.

[Chewy]

did you have any that seemed to burn ok but wouldn't play?

mine like that would scan ok, but something that the standalone needed wouldn't work, but the pc drive was fine with it.

[MikeyBK]

I just chapter jumped and fast forwarded thru the movie and it seems fine.
One other tell tale sign was that these +IDed Verbs could not burn at 12X (12X chosen but burned at 4X), I thought something was wrong with my BenQ 1655, but a 16X Verb from another spindle burned no problems at the 12X in my BenQ.

Alan1476 makes a possible point that it may have just been bad luck to get a bad spindle, regardless of the ID. Possible but too much coincidence, No?
We'll see.

BTW, these discs failed at the same point using IMGBurn or CopyToDVD.

[NightTran]

you can return them to Sam if you dont like them