Optodisc and Prodisc to merge

[dolphinius_rex]

I've just received information from a reliable source that Optodisc and Prodisc have officially agreed to merge into one company.

This comes as quite a bit of a shock to many, but makes quite a bit of sense in many corporate ways. For instance, Prodisc has been completely unable to make even a DVD+RDL disc properly, whereas Optodisc is already working very hard on the futuretech of HDDVD and BluRay. So while Optodisc brings newer technology to the merger, Prodisc brings a strength in production numbers on current DVDR tech. which will allow them to remain competitive both in this market, and in the one to come in the following years.

I for one can only hope that Optodisc becomes the dominant company of the 2, since I'd hate to see Optodisc dragged down by Prodisc's love of using 5 or 6 MID codes for a single disc type, and selling them randomly without explanation to distributors.

[Wesociety]

WOW!

[dolphinius_rex]

a little more info...

It looks like the CEO of Prodisc will become the CEO of the new company, and the CEO of Optodisc will become the vice CEO of the new company. The total production capacity of the new company will supposedly be almost or about the same as CMC's, well above the maximum capacity of Ritek.

I would guess this is not going to be the last merger we see however, as many smaller manufacturing companies are not in a very good position for the future of media technology, and will either have to team up like Prodisc and Optodisc, or resign themselves to a VERY difficult (and likely shortend) business life.

[aviationwiz]

It looks like the CEO of Prodisc will become the CEO of the new company

You misunderstood, he'll be the new chairman, not CEO.

[dolphinius_rex]

It looks like the CEO of Prodisc will become the CEO of the new company

You misunderstood, he'll be the new chairman, not CEO.

Your right, that's what I meant

[dolphinius_rex]

Digitimes has now posted it:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20051004A6022.html

But everyone knows who had the info first

[Scour]

Hello!

Prodisc is the larger of this two, I guess?

You know, I´m not a fan of Optodisc. Prodisc S03 worked good in my DVD-Recorder from JVC and DVD-writer from LG, 4x DVD-R looks not so good.

I don´t know whether Optodisc made CD-R, but my ca. 5 year old CD-R from Prodisc seems to be much more reliable than many other CD-R (exception: MCC and Mitsui) like Ritek and CMC.

However, I hope that both will stay with their own media-codes

[OC-Freak]

I heared about this a short while ago too.

Maybe it means that optodisc media will change from low quality to ok quality media? Let's hope so.

[RJW]

a little more info...

It looks like the CEO of Prodisc will become the CEO of the new company, and the CEO of Optodisc will become the vice CEO of the new company. The total production capacity of the new company will supposedly be almost or about the same as CMC's, well above the maximum capacity of Ritek.

?hmm I'm not so sure about the capacity isues. CMC claimed to be the largest DVD manufacturer.
Based on the new numbers and CMC old numbers of a few months ago.
UPO (Prodisc/Optodisc) has a larger production number.

Ritek however claims to be the largest optical media manufacturer.

[dolphinius_rex]

I heared about this a short while ago too.

Maybe it means that optodisc media will change from low quality to ok quality media? Let's hope so.

I wonder if your opinion of Prodisc would be quite as good if you ran into as much crap Prodisc media as I do? Or worked with as much A Grade Optodisc as I do?

@Scour:
Optodisc never made CD-Rs (they're newer to this game then many manufacturers, and there is no money in CD-Rs anymore, so they skipped it. Smart move really.

As for Prodisc CD-Rs... my standard lifespan on them is 2-3 years with a maximum of 5 years on odd occasions. This is the A Grade Prodisc CD-R media I used to sell back when I worked for a retail blank media store in a mall. It was also because of this media that I first developed my grudge against Prodisc, since after backing it with good results for so long, I got hit with massive important data loss because of my trust. I wouldn't be NEARLY as cynical about media today if it weren't for Prodisc!

[Scour]

As for Prodisc CD-Rs... my standard lifespan on them is 2-3 years with a maximum of 5 years on odd occasions. This is the A Grade Prodisc CD-R media I used to sell back when I worked for a retail blank media store in a mall. It was also because of this media that I first developed my grudge against Prodisc, since after backing it with good results for so long, I got hit with massive important data loss because of my trust. I wouldn't be NEARLY as cynical about media today if it weren't for Prodisc!

Which color have the burning-surface? I know the Prodisc with the green site were not good, but the grenn/gold-ones looks very good to me.

Memorex CD-R 80 8x (Prodisc) scanned 5.2.05, burned August 2000

[dolphinius_rex]

They were silver bottomed, and tru-silver bottomed. All phthalocyanine based.

[OC-Freak]

I have OLD prodisc 4x CD-R discs that still works, at least did not too long ago. Sold as Megadata 4x in 1999 if I remember correctly.

I'm generally quite satisfied with prodisc. The only exception is their printable DVD media in a period from late 2004 to early 2005.

I would take Prodisc over ritek any day, and almost over CMC any day too.

As for optodisc - well, they often scan fine. But reads back like crap on some devies and usually is not able to read back at 16x with NEC drives without slowing down. And I often have about 10% coasters too, due to uneven DYE (darker spots on the disc after it's written - or write error while writing).

[dolphinius_rex]

Heh, don't even get me started on the Prodisc inkjet printable DVDRs.... I've got a couple here that had the surface peel right off after printing. One of the local DVD duplicator companies in my area that I was chatting with today was mentioning how they had to start putting in Pioneer DVR-110D drives into their duplicators now, since the Prodisc DVDRs they use were constantly failing now on their Pioneer DVR-109's. I didn't get the MID code on the offending discs, but I told him I wasn't too surprised.

[Scour]

Hello!

Printable media is a thing for it´s own. I read often that print. media wasn´t so good like non-print. from the same manufacturer.

My conclusion is, that Optodisc-media I used is not really a media I use for important data, Prodisc looks more reliable to me. While Prodisc don´t show the best scans the media shows on every drive I burned and played no weak points, even my DVD-Recorder from JVC which is a little critical with some media, have no problems with writing it.

Don´t know whether other countries get better batches of Optodisc-media.

http://apparat.ap.funpic.de/viewforum.php?f=36

Some media looks good, others real crappy. Maybe their atches varies a lot

[dolphinius_rex]

Well, there is almost no A Grade Optodisc media in Europe from what I can tell.... kind of like how there is no A Grade Ritek media in North Americ from what I can tell. I sure wish TraxData would sell over here

[RJW]

About Optodisc SAMSUNG 8x media should be grade A and Acrocircle should be grade A. If you look well then Acrocircle can be bougth in europe.



There is A-grade Ritek in North america if you searched well.
Evidence is at cdfreaks in of there burner tests the tested ridata's are A-grade.

The current Traxdata stock in the local stores of printable media also has some problems.

Point is however that Traxdata Riteks printables finish is quite nice. (UV resistance and they don't smudge like some of the competitors do.)
However I'm not so sure if all riteks have this because C't (current issue has a printable layer test ) and some user experience claime that other riteks do not print that nice.

Most taiwanese manufacturers have/had problems when it comes to the quality controle with printables and there all busy with solving the problem.

Mitsubishi/Verbatim printables however perform just as good /bad as the non printable stuff. Also TDK's new printables are up to the same level as the non printables.

[dolphinius_rex]

About Optodisc SAMSUNG 8x media should be grade A and Acrocircle should be grade A. If you look well then Acrocircle can be bougth in europe.

Yeah, Samsung should be A Grade, regardless of where it's purchased.... but Acro Circle in Europe *MAY* be downgrade media. Unfortunately, I can't get conclusive info on that one.

[dolphinius_rex]

And this just in!!!

The merge is officially off for the moment. Pending some investigation into Optodisc's financial situation. There seems to be a lot of confusion right now about what's going on.

[Ian]

And this just in!!!

The merge is officially off for the moment. Pending some investigation into Optodisc's financial situation. There seems to be a lot of confusion right now about what's going on.

Yeah, I heard they're trying to pin that fiasco on Optodisc America. I also heard a crazy rumor that Optodisc's US office will be merging with P.T.I. (Prodisc's US office). Of course, that's just a rumor for now.

[dolphinius_rex]

For those who can read Chinese, more news is here

For those who can't read Chinese... a very painful literal translation can be found here

This whole thing seems overly confusing if you ask me!!

[Scour]

kind of like how there is no A Grade Ritek media in North Americ from what I can tell. I sure wish TraxData would sell over here

Ritek have A-Grade ?

I had old 2,4x DVD+R from Platinum (which is not known for A-Grade), and it works great. Same for my Platinum 8x -R G05

But all other media from Ritek looks crappy to me, especially the R03 and 16x-media

In the past I chosen Ritek over some brands like Optodisc, but now I´m not sure.

[dolphinius_rex]

kind of like how there is no A Grade Ritek media in North Americ from what I can tell. I sure wish TraxData would sell over here

Ritek have A-Grade ?

I had old 2,4x DVD+R from Platinum (which is not known for A-Grade), and it works great. Same for my Platinum 8x -R G05

But all other media from Ritek looks crappy to me, especially the R03 and 16x-media

In the past I chosen Ritek over some brands like Optodisc, but now I´m not sure.

In the past I would have taken Ritek over anything other then Japanese Maxell or Taiyo Yuden.... but now I'd take A Grade Optodisc over Ritek any day.

[RJW]

Update on digitimes about the merge being on hold.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20051006A6028.html

[frank1]

Yesterday at the "new big opening" of a shop I bought these 2 spindles of DVD's
branded by Deja:
for the price of 6 € each
so it is 0,24 € one blank DVD

The seller had of course no idea about MID code and manufacturer but, because I have a good experience with the other products of the label Deja brand I bought some
BTW there were in the shop just beside some Verbatim "Pearl White" sold more than twice the price at 13,90 € for a 25-spindle.


These Deja branded DVD's medias show both an OPTODISC mediacode
and the website of Deja says "NEW":
http://www.deja-gmbh.de/en/produkte.php ... =11&kat=28



OPTODISC-0R8-000


OPTODISC R008


I burned some of them in a NEC 3500 (fw 2.1A) and a Pioneer 107 D (fw 1.21) and I am quite satisfied for a price of 24 cent a disc

So I like to know from the experts what is
their opinion in general about these 2 Optodisc 8x certified media codes



----------------------------------------------------------------------
One example of a Deja branded DVD+R 8x "Optodisc 0R8 "
Video of 3,84 GB burned at 4X with a NEC 3500 fw 2.1A

Tranfer rate under CD Speed v4.07:
Drive and firmware used for the tranfer rate explained here:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 44&start=4




Scan PI/PIF done with the same drive: a DVD-ROM reader Lite-ON SOHD 16P9S: