How fast?

[Rahul]

Hi everyone

I own an Asus 5224a and a Sony DVD-ROM drive. The Asus is connected as the Secondary Master and the Sony as the Primary Slave (HDD as primary master). What should the burning time be for a full 80 min CD copy in this configuration when using On The Fly mode in nero? I am currently getting times of about 5 mins at 52x burning. Does this sound correct?
If not what am I doing wrong? Should I have the drives configured in a different manner?

Thanks
Rahul

[Inertia]

Burning on the fly at 52X is not supported by most source drives. Your Sony DVD-ROM drive may not be able to keep up with the burner recording at 52X. If so, this will automatically cause the recording time to increase due to the read speed not supporting the write speed. What is the model of your Sony CD-ROM drive?

Burning time with a 52X drive should between 2:30 and 3:00 minutes approximately. When burning from the hard drive, slower times are most commonly caused by DMA not being properly activated for the drive(s). It is also possible that media may not support 52X burning and the drive is slowing to a speed that the media can support. After you verify that DMA is properly enabled, if the burning speed is still deficient, try a different quality high speed media. In the U.S., Taiyo Yuden is sold as Fuji branded 48X media (should say Made in Japan on the packaging). This is excellent media and should allow a full 52X burn speed with low error rates.

Make sure that DMA is enabled for your Asus and Sony. Depending on your operating system see the FAQ's and select the "How to enable DMA" thread for your operating system.

[Rahul]

Thanks for the reply.
The model number of my Sony DVD-ROM is DDU1621. I have made sure DMA is enabled on both the Sony and the Asus. I am using TDK Gold media which supports 52x burning.
I think the problem is that my DVD can read CDs at max 48x and thus cannot keep up with the burner - which explains why the read buffer keeps on moving between 100% and 0% whilst CD copying. Thanks for your help though..

Rahul

[Inertia]

You're welcome.

When you want to burn on the fly, try reducing the burn speed by increments to find the fastest speed that doesn't cause the buffer to empty. The highest speed that doesn't drain the buffer will be the fastest true on-the-fly burn speed.

It should be faster than trying to burn at 52X and waiting while the burn stops for the buffer to refill.

[Bhairav]

Rahul, can you post the ATIP from that TDK Gold media? I've seen some of them here, but because some TDKs are made by CMC, I figured I'd let a bakra (like you ) get some first and then post it here.
To find the ATIP, download CDRIdentifier from:

http://www.softnews.ro/public/cat/3/7/3-7-33.shtml

CLick on the download link on the right, and use the 2nd mirror.

Do post the ATIP info when you can.

BTW, are you from India?

[Rahul]

ATIP: 97m 26s 66f
Disc Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics Corp.
Reflective layer: Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine)
Media type: CD-Recordable
Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
nominal Capacity: 702.82MB (79m 59s 71f / LBA: 359846)

Are these TDK cdrs ok or should I be purchasing another brand?

I am from India but living in Australia.
Rahul

[Bhairav]

Bleh. Just bleh! CMC = not good, Rahul. They won't last for very long, and the burn quality is not too good either.
If you're in Oz, Taiyo Yuden media, which is generally regarded to be the best, is pretty widely available. It will work well with your Asus burner.
Stay away from CMC, they're colloquially known as Crap Media Company

[dolphinius_rex]

In all fairness, remember that CMC has agreements with Mitsubishi Chemicals, and is FULLY capable of producing media just as good as Taiyo Yuden.... they just don't do it very often! Like Memorex, their problem isn't that they don't have good quality, their problem is you don't know what you're getting, EVER.

[dodecahedron]

In all fairness, remember that CMC has agreements with Mitsubishi Chemicals

yes. to produce the DataLife line of media, which is nowhere near as good as the DataLifePlus or Taiyo Yuden.

and is FULLY capable of producing media just as good as Taiyo Yuden

i'm sure many (most?) people would diasagree with you on that.

[rdgrimes]

FULLY capable of producing media just as good as Taiyo Yuden....

I'll sign in on the NOT side of that statement. It is true that with the same stampers and the same dye, they should be able to produce the "same" discs, but it remains to be demonstrated. Even the Mitsubishi CDR's made there are of widely varying quality. My hunch is that a CDR production line is like any other, it all depends on the bloke that's at the controls. And they likely push the production line speed beyond what is "best".

[dolphinius_rex]

and is FULLY capable of producing media just as good as Taiyo Yuden

i'm sure many (most?) people would diasagree with you on that.

Yeah, I know they would, they have before and I'm sure they will again. For what it's worth, I have limited proof. I had a massive argument in the CDRinfo.com forum before I became a moderator there, and it ended with a member of the forum arranged offical media testing done by CD Associates for me. Below is a copy of the results he posted in CDRInfo.com

Material used
Hardware used
Plextor 24/10/40A (1.04)
Yamaha CRW-F1(1.0D)
Lite On 48125W (VS08)
CDA3000 (2x)

Additional Software used
WSES
NERO ( for burning)
NERO CD SPEED.

Results(analyzer scores)
Media was burned at rated speed. With the Lite On Except for DDD since the disc’s didn’t have a speed rating befor we burned the disc’s . After the test we read on the site that it was only 32x media.
For Plextor drive we used 24x and for the Yamaha we had OWSC.

Double Diamond Digital (AOD atip Plasmon)32x
Yamaha CRW-F1 -96
Lite On (burned on 48x) -96
Plextor -97
Average -96.33

Mitsubishi Azo 48x (Singapore)
Yamaha CRW-F1 -93
Lite On -96
Plextor -94
Average -94.33

Plextor (TY) 48x
Yamaha CRW-F1 -95
Lite On -94
Plextor -92
Average -93.66

Enovation Media OPTIMUM BRAND (CMC Magnetics) (A grade) –32x
Yamaha CRW-F1(1.0D) - 93
Lite On 48245W (VS08) - 93
Plextor 2410A (1.04) - 94
Average - 93.33

Sunstar (CMC Magnetics) 32x
Yamaha CRW-F1 OWSC - 80
Lite On - 88
Plextor - 88
Average - 85.33

Sony (Sony corp) 32x
Yamaha CRW-F1 OWSC -84
Lite On -81
Plextor -89
Average -84.66

Imation 32x (CMC Magnetics)
Yamaha CRW-F1 - 0
Lite On -87
Plextor -87
Average -58

Enovation Media disc with DST atip code which has been removed from the shelves.
Burned with the Plextor on 12x - 0
Retries on 8 speed and 24 speed still say 0

Back checking our results.
Using WSES
WSES doesn't seem to count all errors. (C1 and C2) and at this point we are still researching to see what it does count. Now one good thing can be said while it doesn't count all errors the really bad disc's can not slip trough Easily.

Using NERO CD SPEED
We had some very weird results with NERO CD SPEED and different readers. We have seen the DST disc passing NERO’s test with (almost) zero errors and a low speed or almost zero errors and 40x. While the disc’s are bad. NERO CD SPEED uses C2 recognition but it seems that quite a lot of drives are not accurate enough. With other words NERO CD SPEED’s quality test are not that good. The claim zero errors on CD SPEED isn’t a very good one.

Second Analyzer and measurements additional times to test about reproduction.
All disc's were measured at least 4 times with the first analyzer from a source which doesn’t want to be named.
Some disc's where also checked with a second analyzer(same model) from PC-ACTIVE at the HCC fair.
What we experienced was the following sometimes. Disc's got one point higher of lower now looking through the tables of errors we found out that this was manly based on E31/E11 errors. These results can happen on the same analyzer. Now significant difference was there in results with the second analyzer.

Comparing with the results of the Dutch Magazine PC Consument.
The Dutch Magazine PC Consument tested the following brands the following way.They used a CDA 3000 analyzer and the following 2 drives. Lite On 48125W and a Plextor 40/12/40A. Now they tested 3 batches of 1 disc for each burner.
Now here are there scores for the same disc's as we used. (They tested more disc's and also CD-RW's but these CD-RW's results weren't based on a couple of rewritings. If people want more results from this test then let me know. )
Double Diamond Digital -93,8
Sony -87,2
Imation -79,2
These were exactly the same brands and types as our disc's.
So again Sony and Imation fail and DDD is getting very good results.

CMC Media Agreement.
Now to come back on the thing that caused us the problems of doing the tests.

The Media Dolphinius Rex supplied Enovation Media Optimal Brand (CMC Magnetics) seems to be okay. If it is really cheap media then it would even get a big reccomendation by a lot of sources which I have worked together with.
Still I don’t now about aging quality but then again the best thing against aging seems to be Writing Quality of a disc. In other words disc with low errors aren’t going as fast down as the others. But ofcourse this summers there will be a second outside tests with the tested disc’s.

Conclusions not to be made.I am not going to say anything about media support of the tested media for the used burners. Since we only used one disc one each burner . It might happen that one disc is a little bit better then the other 2. So it is not correct to say that the Yamaha can not write Imation disc's or that The Lite On burns Mitsubishi AZO disc's better as the other 2 or Plextor disc's work better on other burners as Plextor own burners.

Our conclusions:
1 Lite On burners can burn on AZO disc's without problems. Looking at the score it indicates that is possible to write a good disc with a Lite On burner. Now we might be lucky but checking the scores from different sources show the same results.
2 CMC can make decent disc's according to above the 90 points test of the CDA3000.
3 Nero CD SPEED claims about zero errors or low errors says nothing about disc quality. Since the software is to much based on how good it can communicate with your reader and to much on the accuracy of the reader.
4 Bad disc's below the 90 points came from: SONY, Imation,Sunstar.
5 ATIP and Brand doesn't have to say anything about factory or quality. Our winner Double Diamond Digital uses Plasmon stampers and these have the ATIP of Plasmon. While in fact these disc's are made by AOD itself at there own factory in Vianen in the Netherlands. Also the results of CMC Media show that quality and factory/ATIP are not the same thing.
6 Buying from the factory itself does seem to give a better quality/price ratting. 2 of the good disc's came directly from the factory and are cheap compared to the other media.
7 For people in Holland you can order DDD disc's at www.doublediamonddigital.com

Now the big question is how to I post pictures.Since you want to see some of the printouts coming from the analyzer.
With the info about Bler/C1/C2 errors which where measured and the mapping of the BLER on the disc’s

okay, so technically it rated 0.33 lower then the T.Y. but it's pretty darn close!

[cfitz]

In all fairness, remember that CMC has agreements with Mitsubishi Chemicals

yes. to produce the DataLife line of media, which is nowhere near as good as the DataLifePlus or Taiyo Yuden.

Mitsubishi Chemicals supposedly had CMC making some DataLifePlus discs for them on CMC production lines but using Mitsubishi Chemicals processes and materials, in addition to the unabashedly CMC-made ValueLife discs (or is it just plain DataLife in other parts of the world - remember that confusing thread about the origins of Verbatim discs we had a while back? Oh what tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to figure out Verbatim media).

and is FULLY capable of producing media just as good as Taiyo Yuden

i'm sure many (most?) people would diasagree with you on that.

Some Verbatim DataLifePlus have burned with just as good a quality as Taiyo Yuden for me. Were those made directly by Mitsubishi Chemicals or through the CMC outsourcing arrangement? I don't know. If they were, then CMC did demonstrate the ability to make discs of as good a quality as Taiyo Yuden when supplied with the proper materials and motivated by sufficient quality control. Of course, even if these were CMC-made discs, do we have any guarantee that they can achieve that level of quality consistently like Taiyo Yuden does? From my personal experiences with CMC in general, I'd say no. I think that is probably what dolphinius_rex meant by:

their problem is you don't know what you're getting, EVER.

cfitz

[rdgrimes]

I have personally seen CMC discs that initially indicate good to excellent error-rates that will crap out in a very short period of time, I've also had CMC that will write very well to 9 out of 10 discs in a spindle, and the tenth one will not even write. Reliability is something that cannot be tested in this regard. It's experience that teaches us to avoid CMC. I have never seen a TY disc that did not hold up indeffinitely, and I've never seen even a smidgen of variation within a spindle. If you can get it at very low price, or free, and if it's not for critical backups, using CMC is fine. But when TY can be had at the same price, there's no reason to choose CMC.

[dodecahedron]

Mitsubishi Chemicals supposedly had CMC making some DataLifePlus discs for them on CMC production lines but using Mitsubishi Chemicals processes and materials, in addition to the unabashedly CMC-made ValueLife discs (or is it just plain DataLife in other parts of the world - remember that confusing thread about the origins of Verbatim discs we had a while back? Oh what tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to figure out Verbatim media).

supposedly !!!

actually, some of this discussion started out much earlier than the topic you referred to, cfitz.
here:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7068
and also:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7771
it was sparked off by Reg-da-Ripper's casual remarks in both those threads.
as far as i'm concerned, all this talk that Verbatim's DataLifePlus media is actually manufactured by CMC (for Verbatim) - it's all rumor.
we haven't seen one bit of support for the claim (not that we are privvy to the inner workings of the media industry...)

[cfitz]

The following isn't 100%, iron-clad proof, but it does support the contention that CMC makes Mitsubishi Chemicals (Verbatim) DataLifePlus (DLP) discs:

The establishment of cooperative relationships with leading companies in the information storage industry, including customers of the Company such as Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (Mitsubishi Chemical), Philips and Verbatim Corporation (Verbatim), has to some extent enabled the Company to gain access to certain advanced technologies.

The Company has established strategic alliances with major OEM customers such as Mitsubishi Chemical

The Company has formed business relationships with international enterprises in the storage media industry such as Mitsubishi Chemical.... Such relationships have not only enabled the Company to secure sales orders from large OEM customers but have also enabled the Company to gain access to technological and market developments in the storage media industry in Japan and elsewhere

Recently, production facilities were installed in CMC’s Mexican plant for the production of CD-Rs.

In 1998, the Company established a strategic alliance with Mitsubishi Chemical pursuant to which the Company became a major supplier of CD-Rs to Mitsubishi Chemical. In September 1999, the Company entered into a CD-R purchase agreement with Mitsubishi Chemical, pursuant to which Mitsubishi Chemical agreed to purchase at least 700 million CD-R disks from the Company over three years. The Company set up a plant at Yang Mei for the exclusive production of CD-Rs to meet Mitsubishi Chemical’s orders. The Yang Mei factory commenced operations in September 1999. In the second quarter of 2001, the Company expanded its plant in Tijuana, Mexico to help to meet Mitsubishi Chemical’s orders.

(All of the above from CMC's 2002 bond offering: http://www.cnyes.com/ir/images/cmc%AE%FC%A5~%A4%BD%A5q%B6%C5.pdf)

Nothing comes right out and says "CMC makes DLP for Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim," but to me it suggests that the nature of the relationship between the two companies is greater than simply that of buyer and contract manufacturer since Mitsubishi Chemical transferred technology to CMC, and CMC set up a dedicated plant exclusively for Mitsubishi Chemical's orders. Yes, it is unquestioned that CMC makes the ValueLife line for Mitsubishi Chemical, so it is possible that all of this simply refers to the ValueLife line. However, I don't think these special actions would be needed if CMC was only making the ValueLife line, since all that is required for that is to stamp "Verbatim" on the CMC discs, just like CMC does for Imation and others.

The production for Mitsubishi Chemical at CMC's Mexican plant is also telling. There is no question that DLP discs are made in Mexico. The good quality Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-R's I purchased were made in Mexico. However, I am unable to find any reference to a Mexican plant in Mitsubishi Chemical's annual report or Verbatim's list of facilities (Verbatim is the Mitsubishi Chemical's media subsidiary in the Americas, which includes Mexico):

http://www.m-kagaku.co.jp/english/investor/pdf/02_.pdf
http://www.mitsubishichemical.com/Subsi ... Txt.htm#VC

If Mitsubishi Chemicals doesn't have a Mexican plant, CMC does, the two companies have maintained long-term strategic partnerships, CMC makes at least some CD-R's for Verbatim in Mexico, and Verbatim DLP CD-R's are made in Mexico, then it would not be unreasonable to expect that CMC also makes the DLP discs. By the way, the Verbatim DLP CD-R's are packaged in the exact same spindles as CMC discs.

Perhaps most telling is this:

With the agreement of consignment, CMC Magnetic Corporation construct new manufacturing line (of 5 million pieces per month) exclusively for toll manufacturing for Mitsubishi Chemical and is scheduled to start the manufacturing in October 1998. Mitsubishi Chemical is going to cooperate with CMC Magnetic Corporation by supplying the expertise of manufacturing technologies and experienced personnel, inspecting the products based on the quality standards of Mitsubishi Chemical to secure the same quality with the own product of Mitsubishi Chemical. (The conventional manufacturing line of CMC Magnetic Corporation will be independently operated of the new exclusive toll manufacturing line by CMC Magnetic Corporation.)

(From Mitsubishi Chemical press release: http://www.m-kagaku.co.jp/english/newsreleases/1998/083101.htm)

This seems to square with story told about CMC making Verbatim DLP CD-R's: a dedicated plant operated independently of CMC's conventional manufacturing lines, the transfer of Mitsubishi's process and technologies to CMC, and quality control tested by and to Mitsubishi's standards.

I agree that none of this is absolute proof that CMC makes DLP CD-R's for Mitsubishi Chemical, but I think that if you view all the pieces as a whole, it is strong enough that I wouldn't dismiss statements to this effect as off-handed remarks that amount to nothing more than unsubstantiated rumor.

cfitz

[rdgrimes]

The fact of CMC making DLP would certainly explain the erratic quality control.

[cfitz]

Lest anyone get the mistaken impression that I am a fan of CMC, allow me to dispel that. I've had my own share of bad experiences with CMC's phythalocyanine discs, including the following:



Both discs are from the same spindle. The disc on the left is unburned, and has spent the last two months on the spindle in a dark box. The disc on the right was burned two months ago with a small amount of test data, and spent the last two months on top of a pile of papers next to my desk. My office has one window that faces northwest, so the disc was not exposed to any direct sunlight. However, it did get a little bit of late afternoon indirect sunlight reflected off the opposite wall some 15 feet away, and also some light from a halogen torch lamp reflected off the ceiling through a 12-foot round trip.

As you can see, the exposed disc has clearly discolored. I'm not entirely sure what caused this degradation, but I think that exposure to light, even though indirectly, was the cause. Exposure to light and the fact the disc on the right was burned are the two major differences that I can think of, and I don't think that burning was the cause because only a small amount of the disc was burned. If burning were the cause, I would expect to see the darkening to be confined to the small ring about the center where the disc was actually burned.

I also suspect light as the cause because the discoloration shows primarily on the side of the disc that was exposed to light (the disc sat with the bottom on the pile of paper and the top uncovered). As you can see from the photo, the top (reflective) layer is clearly darkened. The bottom (dye) layer that was not exposed to light seems to be pretty much the same color on both discs, with just a slight hint of darkening on the exposed disc. It may be that the change in color just doesn't show up as well on the bottom side since the phythalocyanine dye already colors that side roughly the same hue of gold.

Unfortunately, this is a little at odds with the expected degradation mechanism. I'm not a materials scientists, but by all accounts the dye layer should be much more sensitive to light than the silver reflective layer. Perhaps the sunlight degraded the top coat of protective lacquer, changing its color and allowing oxygen to penetrate and begin oxidizing the reflective layer. Cheap lacquer does age in the sun. Or perhaps the light partially penetrated the reflective layer (it isn't all that thick) and started a reaction between the dye and the reflective layer. Whatever the cause, readability has definitely taken a turn for the worse:



The above chart shows very high C1 levels. Note that the disc is very short, so short that you can see the individual 1-second tic marks where KProbe collected data.

I don't have a scan from when the disc was first burned, but be assured that it was nothing as bad as the scan shown above. For reference, here is another CMC disc from the same spindle burned a few weeks before the bad disc but stored in the dark:



And here is a Maxell/Ritek disc that was burned at the same time and stored those same two months under the same conditions right next to the Imation/CMC disc:



Not surprisingly, neither "control" disc was discolored. And also note that I tested the "control" discs at 48x read speed while I tested the bad CMC disc at 8x. The CMC disc was so bad that I lowered the speed in order to isolate the effects of the media.

What does it all mean? CMC's phythalocyanine discs aren't good quality in my personal experience. As rdgrimes said, even if they show decent quality when first burned, they don't last. Also, if you want your discs to last, be sure to store them in a cool, dark, dry place. Finally, make sure to periodically check discs that you plan to keep for a long time.

As for myself, my interest in running my own accelerated aging tests has been resurrected. Maybe I will actually get around to it this summer... or not.

cfitz

P.S. Maybe I am looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps CMC has unleashed the ancient alchemists' secret of transmutation. Buy a spindle of CMC, put them out in the sun, and watch them turn to gold, or at least to a gold color...

[Inertia]

P.S. Maybe I am looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps CMC has unleashed the ancient alchemists' secret of transmutation. Buy a spindle of CMC, put them out in the sun, and watch them turn to gold, or at least to a gold color...

Hmmm... Maybe you're on to something there, cfitz. Did you try biting the gold disc to see if you could make a dent in it? Is the gold disc much heavier than the other one?

[Reg-da-Ripper]

...
it was sparked off by Reg-da-Ripper's casual remarks in both those threads.
...

Gee, it's nice to be remembered for something.

I'm staying out of this one...for now. cfitz has eloquently argued my point.

[dodecahedron]

The following isn't 100%, iron-clad proof, but it does support the contention that CMC makes Mitsubishi Chemicals (Verbatim) DataLifePlus (DLP) discs:
...
I agree that none of this is absolute proof that CMC makes DLP CD-R's for Mitsubishi Chemical, but I think that if you view all the pieces as a whole, it is strong enough that I wouldn't dismiss statements to this effect as off-handed remarks that amount to nothing more than unsubstantiated rumor.

yes.
up to now we haven't seen any "proof", so it was a "off-hand remark" as far as i was concerned.
but you do make a strong argument. so it may very well be true.

The fact of CMC making DLP would certainly explain the erratic quality control.

alas

Gee, it's nice to be remembered for something.

I'm staying out of this one...for now. cfitz has eloquently argued my point.

no hard feelings, man

[Reg-da-Ripper]

no hard feelings, man

None here as well.

But I do know now that as long as I don't enter the Plextor vs. Lite-On "debate" and I don't say that "CMC makes FujiFilm CD-Rs", I'll be all right.

[dolphinius_rex]

regarding CMC making DLP CD-Rs; I have no personal experience of this, but I know someone who was telling me about his Verbatim discs, and since he didn't know much about them I got him to run Nero CD Speed on them. The info He gave back to me reported them as CMC, and yet he swore tome that they said DataLife Plus, and not Data Value Plus, or just DataLife. I specifically clarified the importance of accuracy in the names 3 times before I even considered CMC as making DLP discs. I can't verify that he was telling me the truth, but he didn't know anything about the manufacturers before hand, and woudn't have even known what to lie about...

and yes, I totally agree that CMC is unreliable, I was just trying to point out that unreliable doesn't mean that it can't be good at times. And no, I would not consider buying CMC media over Taiyo Yuden under any condition, nor would I recommend it!

[MediumRare]

I don't like CMC's. Even with brand names (e.g. Philips 16x that were completely unuseable) you can't rely on them to work OK. I think it probably does boil down to a QA question in the end. The best CMC's I've encountered were 40x Verbatim DataLife- the "PromoPack" made in Mexico that I bought out of curiousity- but they weren't up to DLPs and had absolutely no reserves re. burning speed.

I guess that if Verbatim keeps an eye over the shoulder of the workers in Mexico (ouch- that's horrible mixed metaphor) and CMC does separate the production lines, then they'll be able to keep the quality up. And if the quality is there, then the arrangement is OK.

The fact of CMC making DLP would certainly explain the erratic quality control.

Dunno about that- the Mexico's were better than the "Made in India". Maybe those are made by MBI under similar arrangements. Any information on that cfitz?

The info He gave back to me reported them as CMC, and yet he swore tome that they said DataLife Plus, and not Data Value Plus, or just DataLife.

Maybe he ran afoul of the "PromoPack" with misleading packaging (pictures here in the Verbatim thread cfitz mentioned earlier).

G

[cfitz]

up to now we haven't seen any "proof"

Which is why I tried to present some here.

Maybe those are made by MBI under similar arrangements. Any information on that cfitz?

Other than the fact that MBI does make some discs for Verbatim/Mitsubishi Chemical, no. I suppose one might apply one of the arguments from above. Mitsubishi Chemical does not appear to have any CD-R plants in India (it does have other chemical plants in India), MBI does have plants in India, MBI is known to make some CD-R's for Mitsubishi Chemical, and some Verbatim DLP are made in India, so it would not be unreasonable to expect that MBI makes DLP as well.

Did you try biting the gold disc to see if you could make a dent in it? Is the gold disc much heavier than the other one?

Hah! Did you think I would reveal that secret while I am busy cornering the market on CMC discs.... er... I mean if I were busy cornering the market on CMC discs?

I'm surprised no one said "Wow! That CMC disc sure is nasty looking." I guess everyone already expects the worst from CMC, so it was no big surprise. I can't say that the bad results were, in general, a surprise to me. But the dramatically visible degradation that occurred so quickly and was so clearly visible to the naked eye was a bit of a surprise.

cfitz

[dodecahedron]

up to now we haven't seen any "proof", so it was a "off-hand remark" as far as i was concerned.
but you do make a strong argument. so it may very well be true.

Which is why I tried to present some here.

good job!
i am convinced...