Hi all,

I am sure this question has been asked before, but which Factory of CDR makers is the best? I have some stuff stored, that I would really like to keep for a long time. I am not one of those people who throw their CDs around. All of my important CDR's are in cases or sleeves. But I have heard of certain manufacturers whose CDRs loose their chemical formula, etc., and the CDR becomes partially/fully unreadable. Now, the one factory that I know is suppose to be very good is Taiyo Yuden Company Limited. But after that, I am a little confused. A while back, I ran into a site dedicated to CD Media, which is http://www.cdmediaworld.com and they actually did a CDR quality test, which is here http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom...d_quality.shtml

Now it looks as though this test is a little out of date, but Taiyo Yuden is considered good by them as well. But, the confusion for me begins at Ritek. Basically, on this site, ALL of Ritek's CDRs were considered VERY BAD, and they all failed the aging test. However, reading on some other places/forums, I have seen people say that Ritek along with Taiyo Yuden are the BEST. This is very confusing to see one where it says WORST and the other say BEST. If anyone can clear this up, I would appreciate it.

Also, if anyone could look thru the following list, and rate what they think of these Manufacturers, it would help me greatly.

1) Taiyo Yuden (I have heard VERY GOOD)
2) Kodak (I have heard VERY GOOD, but they have stopped producing)
3) Ricoh (I have heard VERY GOOD)
4) CMC Magnetics (I have heard BAD and OK)
5) TDK (I have heard OK and GOOD)
6) Mitsubishi (I have heard OK)
7) Ritek (I have heard VERY BAD and VERY GOOD)???
8) Fornet (I have heard VERY BAD)
9) Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals (I have heard VERY GOOD)
10) Princo (I have heard BAD)
11) FUJI Photo Film (I have heard OK)
12) Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. (I have heard OK)
13) Prodisc (I have heard OK and GOOD)
14) Multi Media Masters & Machinery SA (I have heard VERY BAD)
15) Seantram Technology (I have heard VERY BAD)
16) Gigastorage Corp. (I have heard VERY BAD)

I know this is a lot of companies, but I wanted to be very thorough. I have run accross EVERY single one of these companies at one point or another. And I want to know what everyone thinks of them, so that I can transfer some important information from one of these BAD manufacturers to a GOOD one. Thank You.

SuperG

I reckon you'd be better off posting this to the The Good and the Bad CDRInfo Forum

But... Here's my 2 cents (and I have to DJ, so things have to work reliably (and no, I dont just download music, I make up my own compilations... Ever tried lugging 7 years worth of Vinyl singles and albums around with you?))

1) Taiyo Yuden 10/10

2) Kodak 10/10 -- Stocks may be getting old now, if you can find them; they will already have a year or so off their life span

3) Ricoh 9/10 -- Make sure if you buy Ricoh brand, that they are manufactured by Ricoh

4) CMC Magnetics 5/10 -- Probably a topic for a long debate, but my opinion is why bother? Why not get some TY's, Mitsui's or Riteks?

5) TDK -- 9/10. The Consumer Audio Discs are excellent, and D-View 40x ones produce a max C1 error rating of ~15 / sector.

6) Mitsubishi 7/10 -- Varies depending on where made in the world. Also older Lite-ons suffer from compatability with the AZO layers that Verbatim DataLifePlus's use. The good ones are fantastic, however.

7) Ritek 9/10 -- Old (very) discs Crap - new discs Brilliant

8) Fornet -- Not used, see CMC argument

9) Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals 10/10 -- The only rival for TY

10) Princo 0/10 -- in my experience

11) FUJI Photo Film -- no experience of

12) Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. -- Didnt know they were manufacturers

13) Prodisc -- New stuff by prodisC 9/10. Note that ProdisK is not the same stuff

14) Multi Media Masters & Machinery SA -- 0/10

15) Seantram Technology -- No experience

16) Gigastorage Corp -- 0/10

==
EDIT: -- hmm, I see you already have...

Lev,

Thanks for the detailed reply. As for Hitachi Maxell and Fuji Photo Film, they used to do there own CDRs, i.e. Maxell Brand and Fuji Film Brand. However, as of rescent, they have I guess decided to go with major manufacturers instead. Maxell CDRs are now made by Ritek, and Fuji Film CDRs are now made by Taiyo Yuden. Both of these are good for me, since I like Taiyo Yuden, and now I am starting to like Ritek after finding out more and more that the old ones were crap, but the new ones are very good.

And anyone else who wants to put in their 2 cents, please post. The more the better

I recently bought a 50 cakebox of unlabelled TY ... they have two different production series (A & E) where E is the superior (better quality management) ...

Mitsui Gold Ultra 24 is a very decent media as well ...

I have some old Platinum (Ritek) that died (became partially unreadable) after 1-1,5 years of simple storage (no sunlight, no humidity) which is a PITA ...

A good adress for buying media (somewhat more expensive) is the Feurio! online store ...

With this thread about Tayo Yuden, we have finished all good manufacturers : any CDR can quickly die after some time.



CD-RW.ORG says that Ritek was very bad in the past, and improved to very good quality.

My 2 cents. In Compact Casette era I had over 600 CC. About 1/3 of them was TDK. I always loved TDK and always trusted them. When CD-Rs came, I had choosen TDK again. I thoght that TDK always cares about consumer and the manufacturer doesn't matter if TDK certifies CD-R (it should mean it is good). So was till I bought 3 TDK RW-12 speed. I burned them on 12x and verified-OK. 2 weeks later 1 of them was completely unreadable (even TOC). 2 of them a little better. I burned them on 10x and just after burning they was already unreadable. Burned on 4x and got readble 2 of them but with many errors.
P.S. They were stored in dark place (I do so always). I have TEAC 540. And nobody can say it is a bad drive. No problems till that RWs.
P.P.S. Here is ATIP:
ATIP: Information not available
Disc Manufacturer: Unknown
Reflective layer: Unknown
Media type: Unknown
Recording Speeds: Unknown
nominal Capacity: Unknown

Got it using CDR Identifier

I have with me HP CD-R media which were made by Ritek Co. (not available anymore since HP stopped production). Also available here in India are Samsung 40-52X CD-R media which are also made by Ritek Co.

The HP CD-R cost Rs. 35-40, while the Samsung CD-R costs only Rs. 9-10. Does this mean that the HP CD-R and the Samsung CD-R's are of the same quality?

TDK have finally got their act together with CDR's (although their Prodisc stuff, Ritek's and TY have *never* given me any problems). Nowadays they actually monitor the manufacturing standards themselves - and tend to only use Ritek.

CD-RW is another matter, it's a more unreliable media than CDR.

Of course. But such brand as TDK has to product CD-RW which can hold my info more than 2 weeks.
Even more. I have 4 Phillips 12x (CMC). They are excellent. Burned each of them more than 100 times on 12x. 0.00000000000000000000 errors.
Don't want to say CMC is good. I just mean that CD-RW can hold data more than 2 weeks.

And...
I found this on TDK's site:
... with an expected archival lifespan of well over 30 years.

Here is the link (click 'more information' there)
http://tdk-europe.com/products/uk/recordab...emedia/12/CD-RW

I bought 20 TDK by Ritek 3 month ago. About 1 week ago I bought 1 TDK Metallic and was surprised - they are made by Mitsui. And have more yellowish color than Riteks.