Verbatim Datalife made by CMC, any good?

[pika2000]

I just bought these Verbatim Datalife CD-Rs, $19.99 for 100 (2x50) at a local Office Depot. I have had good experience with the "old" Verbatim (mitsubishi). I was shocked that it's CMC now. I have Memorex CD-Rs (CMC), and the quality is not that good. Are these Verbatim CMC datalife as good as the old mitsubishi datalife? Anyone have any experience with them. It seems that now almost every CD-R brand is made in Taiwan. I still remember my Imation 8x (TY). Now, even Fuji and Verbatim are made in Taiwan.

This is the info I got from Nero CDspeed:
Manufacturer : CMC Magnetics
Code : 97m26s66f
Disc Type : CD-R
Usage : General
Recording Layer : Dye Type 6: Short Strategy (Phthalocyanine)
Recording Speed : n/a
Capacity : 79:59.71
703 MB
Additional Capacity : n/a
Overburn Capacity : not tested

Bummer, now I have 100 of them.

[pika2000]

Damn, just found out that the Mitsubishi Verbatims are Datalife "Plus." Just for warning, the Datalife Colors that I found at OD are also "non plus." The flyers at the store showed the "Plus" picture.

[MediumRare]

Welcome to the forum!

My experience with the CMC-made DataLifes is not very good. See this post: http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=83541#83541 and the references in it. Basically, the quality varies greatly, even within one package. You may have better luck- try them out.

Have a close look at the coloured DataLife's. The ones I got (in Germany) a few months ago were made in Japan and turned out to be TY's (excellent) !!

G

[pika2000]

I had one pack of the colored Datalife "Plus", and they are mitsubishi (worked great too), even though they are made in Taiwan. However, I noticed that the newer colored packs don't have the "plus" wording anymore.

[pika2000]

Well, so far they seem to burn fine with my 8x plextor.... Haven't tried on my 48x plextor, but it seems that the drive had a hard time recognizing one of the media when I tried to run CDspeed with the 48x plextor. I guess the "quality varies" can be applied here.

[pika2000]

OK, I burned some data (length 74:29) using this media, burned at 8x with my 8x plextor (plexwriter 8/4/32A). I use Nero's cdspeed to scan the media (CD quality check). On the graph, everything looks fine except a yellow spike around the 64min. CDspeed said that there are 49 errors. Scandisc surface scan shows 2.91% damaged.
Are these results "good" or bad (the fact that it is burned at 8x, not high speed)?

[TheWizard]

Those results definitely aren't good. I wouldn't burn anything too important on those discs.

[Gabe]

Hi!

It depends on the writer. My experience is, that CMC runs not bad on some writers, but after a little time the errors increases. Don´t burn important data on this

[pika2000]

Bummer. I am using CD-Rs mainly for backups. Hunting down Fuji TY is getting harder by the day. Going to a local BB or OD, nearly everything is made in Taiwan now. Major bummer.

[pika2000]

OK, buyer beware. I guess CMCs are generally bad.
First of all, my 48x plextor had a hard time recognizing the blank media. After a few tries, I managed to burn 1 disc. Data size is 37:56. The plextor burned it at 48x (actual burn speed only reached ~34x due to the total size).
After I burned it, the plextor refused to recognize the CD anymore. No matter how many times I tried inserting, and re-inserting, it just refused to read it. I tried it on my DVD-ROM drive, and used scandisc. It showed 5.7% damaged.
This is the first media that my 48x plextor had a hard time recognizing. My old 32x Memorex CMCs were not that good, but they were not this bad.