Princo 2X DVD-R or Ritek 1X for A05 and DRU-500A??

[VEFF]

I own both an A05 and a DRU-500A.
I was thinking of getting Princo 2X DVD-R, since both burners can burn
these at 2X, while only the Sony (for now at least) writes many 1X DVD-Rs at 2X.

I read so many things about Princo being crap, and Ritek being better
How true is this?

I have Princo 2X and they work great so far, although
I wonder if they are less compatible as far as playback on SOME DVD players is concerned...

What I am really concerned about is long term longevity and/or quality issues...

Right now I can get:
100 Princo 2X for $78 + shipping

100 Ritek 1X (can only be burned at 1X on the A05) are closer to $90...

So pricewise, and more importantly in terms of write speed, the Princo wins.
I don't want to get 4X, because I justified the purchase of my 2nd DVD burner (A05) to myself by saying that I could burn at 2X on 2 drives
(DRU-500A and A05) at the same time, effectively burning at 4X and recoup my extra drive costs quickly...

Any thoughts?

[fng]

I found a decent deal on riteks on ebay. You have to be patient and willing to work your bid. I posted it in the Hot Deals forum:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=9208

[boblx2]

It's funny you mentioned Princo discs as being crappy media. I also have the Sony and the Pioneer drives and guess what? Princo is one of the ones that work in my A05. I have a bunch of these blue Princo -R/W discs that the A05 seems to love. It will also burn Ritek 4 X media at 4 X. Those are the only ones that I have found that work reliably on the A05. Most everything works on the Sony. I have not tried other Princo products. I bought the drive to burn at 4X so was not interested in others. Now I have the Sony burning at 4X (finally!) so I have other options. If you read my other thread the Sony problems were caused by IDE bus configuration.
But so far I like Ritek 4X media with both of the drives. You can get them from Hyper Micromedia for less then two bucks a disc. I would never use 100 so 25 is a good lot size for me.

..........

[HyperYagami]

For Ritek, I think your mileage might vary. Some people have good luck burning 2x with them, but my batch could never do it and I had to return it (I do give Meritline.com credit for taking it back with no questions asked though). I'm still waiting for the 2nd batch from rima.com.

Also, it's kinda tricky what they mean by the term "works". In my case, the disc did burn in 2x, but the Sony couldn't read it back (or took more than 30 seconds to read the file tree, for 1x burns it took about 8 seconds and that's the normal time) while my Samsung 308B can. I had no problem with Maxell DVD-R in 2x so I know it's not the drive.

[VEFF]

I own both an A05 and a DRU-500A.
I was thinking of getting Princo 2X DVD-R, since both burners can burn
these at 2X, while only the Sony (for now at least) writes many 1X DVD-Rs at 2X.

I read so many things about Princo being crap, and Ritek being better
How true is this?

I have Princo 2X and they work great so far, although
I wonder if they are less compatible as far as playback on SOME DVD players is concerned...

What I am really concerned about is long term longevity and/or quality issues...

Right now I can get:
100 Princo 2X for $78 + shipping

100 Ritek 1X (can only be burned at 1X on the A05) are closer to $90...

So pricewise, and more importantly in terms of write speed, the Princo wins.
I don't want to get 4X, because I justified the purchase of my 2nd DVD burner (A05) to myself by saying that I could burn at 2X on 2 drives
(DRU-500A and A05) at the same time, effectively burning at 4X and recoup my extra drive costs quickly...

Any thoughts?

The price on the Princos went up $4 per 100, must have been someone's post on a Hot Deals site that caused an influx of orders...

The Riteks have already gone up recently too...

[Kennyshin]

It might have to do with the Chinese New Year's holiday. Shipping has begun just now.

[boblx2]

I just ordered 25 Ritek 4X discs from Hyper Micromedia for $48.00 and I just check their web site and that is there price today. So you might want to check there for them, apparently they have not yet raised their prices.

......

[VEFF]

I just ordered 25 Ritek 4X discs from Hyper Micromedia for $48.00 and I just check their web site and that is there price today. So you might want to check there for them, apparently they have not yet raised their prices.

......

Thanks, I might get some 4X from esbuy.com; apparently they are the same, and cost less (44 shipped I believe).

Yesbuy.net has a great deal on 2X Princo, but I am nervous, because
of their reseller rating.

Ideally I would just get the 2X Princo, but I keep reading so many negative comments about Princo.

I may get 25 2X Princo and 25 4X Ritek....

Decisions, decisions...

[boblx2]

I am having less then Stellar luck with these Ritek 4X discs and this Sony drive.
Right now it looks like the only Ritek 4X media that the Sony DRU-500A w/1.0g will burn at 4X is the DVD-ON RItek 4X discs. And they cost about $2.60 per disc in quantities of 10. Neither the Meritline or the Hyper Micromedia discs will perform at 4X they come in at 2X. Although DVDINFO and DVD Decrypter both agree that all 3 sets of media are identical. There are clearly differences. The media is not wasted though because my A05 burns them all at 4X! Go figure.
I think at this point I am going to get out of the 4X market until it gets more reliable. Apparently this Sony drive is very sensitive to the dye on the media or something. It doesn't make any sense to me as a user why one will burn any of them at 4X and the Sony is so selective.
So I am going to concentrate on 2X for the Sony and use the 4X for the A05 and stop wasting media on the Sony. Well, it is not really wasted but I do not need to spend that kind of money on 2X media. But the good news is that none of them are coasters.


...........

[VEFF]

I am having less then Stellar luck with these Ritek 4X discs and this Sony drive.
Right now it looks like the only Ritek 4X media that the Sony DRU-500A w/1.0g will burn at 4X is the DVD-ON RItek 4X discs. And they cost about $2.60 per disc in quantities of 10. Neither the Meritline or the Hyper Micromedia discs will perform at 4X they come in at 2X. Although DVDINFO and DVD Decrypter both agree that all 3 sets of media are identical. There are clearly differences. The media is not wasted though because my A05 burns them all at 4X! Go figure.
I think at this point I am going to get out of the 4X market until it gets more reliable. Apparently this Sony drive is very sensitive to the dye on the media or something. It doesn't make any sense to me as a user why one will burn any of them at 4X and the Sony is so selective.
So I am going to concentrate on 2X for the Sony and use the 4X for the A05 and stop wasting media on the Sony. Well, it is not really wasted but I do not need to spend that kind of money on 2X media. But the good news is that none of them are coasters.


...........

I think esbuy.com carries DVD-ON Ritek 4X DVD-R media for only $44.25 for a sindle of 25 with FREE shipping?

[boblx2]

BTW, as an added post to my above post. We have two Sony drives here that both have 1.0g firmware. One of them is on a 3.0 gig sysem and the other is on a 2.4 gig system. Both of them agree on the Ritek 4X media. Neither of them will burn Meritline or Hyper Micromedia at 4X. Both of them will burn DVD-ON Ritek 4X media at 4X.

..........

[VEFF]

BTW, as an added post to my above post. We have two Sony drives here that both have 1.0g firmware. One of them is on a 3.0 gig sysem and the other is on a 2.4 gig system. Both of them agree on the Ritek 4X media. Neither of them will burn Meritline or Hyper Micromedia at 4X. Both of them will burn DVD-ON Ritek 4X media at 4X.

..........

How is the playback on home DVD players?
I know I told myself, to justify the purchase of my A05, that I could burn
at 2X on cheaper 2X media, using both my DRU-500A and my A05, to effectively burn at 4X without spending more for 4X media.
However, I want to use a different band (to diversify my media and lower the risk of my entire library becoming useless if ONE brand fails over time), so I may just get the DVD-ON 4X and forget about the Princo 2X, since I already have a lot of Princo 2X (and some 1X, now that I found out that my old DVDpro are also Princo).

Note these burners will be installed on two PCs.

[boblx2]

VEFF, why do you think those are "DVD-ON"? They are advertised as "ESBUY" media. If they really are DVD-ON that is a very good price but I did not see DVD-ON mentioned anywhere.
Like I said on another post I think I am going to stay out of the 4X market until things become a bit more stable. There is too much variation in the quality of the 4X media right now. I have enough for my A05 for awhile. I don't burn that much so I can use my Sony for + media and the A05 for anything I get in a hurry for. Meanwhile these guys can get their act together. We have two Sony's here on different systems, both have 1.0g firmware. Both of them will burn DVD-ON at 4X, neither of them will burn any other Ritek 4X media at 4X. Either the Sony drive has problems or the 4X media industry has problems. Since the A05 burns any of them at 4X I think it must be a Sony problem.

What do you think?..............

[VEFF]

VEFF, why do you think those are "DVD-ON"? They are advertised as "ESBUY" media. If they really are DVD-ON that is a very good price but I did not see DVD-ON mentioned anywhere.
Like I said on another post I think I am going to stay out of the 4X market until things become a bit more stable. There is too much variation in the quality of the 4X media right now. I have enough for my A05 for awhile. I don't burn that much so I can use my Sony for + media and the A05 for anything I get in a hurry for. Meanwhile these guys can get their act together. We have two Sony's here on different systems, both have 1.0g firmware. Both of them will burn DVD-ON at 4X, neither of them will burn any other Ritek 4X media at 4X. Either the Sony drive has problems or the 4X media industry has problems. Since the A05 burns any of them at 4X I think it must be a Sony problem.

What do you think?..............

Regarding them being DVD-ON, I based this on the photo of the spindle.
Don't the DVD-ON spinldles have exactly the same look?

Thanks for the info about the stability of the 4X; maybe I will just get the 2X Princo DVD-Rs then after all. I just wish I knew how well they played on DVD players across the board (not just my current players), as compared to, say, Ritek....

[boblx2]

VEFF, no the DVD-ON media that I have was in jewel cases, not on spindles. That doesn't mean that all DVD-ON media must be in jewel cases of course. But most Ritek 4X media look alike. I doubt you can tell by looking at it. Even ADVDINFO thinks they are the same! The only way I know the difference is to try to burn them at 4X on a Sony drive. If they do it is probably DVD-ON, if it don't it is someone else's offering! (Just joking of course)

I think that the Sony began life as a + drive. That may be the reason it does not readily work with -R 4X media as well as the Pioneer A05, which has always been into the - media business. Maybe when + R 4X media becomes prevelent we will start having better luck with burning at 4X with the Sony. Just a thought................

[boblx2]

I just learned something that may interst Sony DRU-500A owners. I began to burn a DVD using the Sony and a disc from Hyper Micromedia that previously would only run at 2X. I am one of the rare users who still uses Nero occasionally. When it came up to burn the "data disc" it selected 2X for the media. I forced it to 4X and guess what? It burned it at 4X! When I use the DVD-ON 4X media Nero selects 4X to burn. Also the CPU utilization was between 1 and 2% and it was using 275 meg of memeory. This system is a P4 2.4 gig with 512 meg of memory.
Now when I was burning the DVD-ON disc with Nero at 4X the CPU was being utilized between 8 and 11% and 120 meg of memory. Of course they were burning different files but they were both 4.3 gig DVD's.

I don't know if all of this means anything but it is interesting. I tried burning the same media with DVD Decrypter burning an .iso image and it burns at 1X. CPU utilization is 3 to 5% and memory usage is 167 meg,

So it appears this media will go 4X but it depends on the situations. I have not figured out all of the parameters that it takes to make it burn 4X but apparently they are there.


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