DVD disaster Help please

[savageamusement]

I did two rather large trades last year- 50 discs or so for one.

Turns out, a year later none of the discs will burn or play through.
It was such a large set, and I was getting ready to move- so I never checked if the discs worked thoroughly enough.

I accept blame, but the issue more so seems to be the paticular discs they used- as it is a problem that arose more times than not, including using the same media in my own player to create discs . So it isn't just their burner, basically is what I am saying.

The discs are peurple on one side, and silver on the other.

Is this a brand? is this an off brand.
There is NO info on the inner rim of the disc- and all I know is, making anything with these- whether it be my player or another turns out crap.
Coasters. Never work.


I just went through and pulled about 150 discs, that items were made on the same (seemingly media)
and 13 work.

I am having an anxiety attack over this, because I doubt my own inventory now-
and when I put something in, assumed if it played it was fine- and now, come to realize at least 5 collections I thought were complete and worked fine, need to be replaced.


Can anyone tell me how to tell what brand of media this is- so that I never ever ever used it, buy it, or take it in from a trade again.

[Lamont]

i feel for you kim

discs DO degrade over time
and some faster than others

i cannot tell from the description what brand it was

can u tell us what items it is that are bad? or who the trader was???

and did the discs EVER WORK, it could be it was a bad trader, if u never checked them they might have NEVER worked at all, or they might have degraded or such

[Beavis]

Sorry to hear about your misfortunes... I can say however, over a year ago, while at Fry's Electronics in California, I bought some of their generic brand DVD discs, "no name" brands, etc..like a 30 or 50 pak, and it was dirt cheap, etc..and I thought, "why not?" "They look neat!"

Needless to say, they were purple, like you described, (I've never seen any other purplse discs, 1/2 and 1/2 again, , any way, over half of the discs stopped midway through recording process, some skipped, or others were defective, (which was why maybe they were dirt cheap)

So I lost good footage and tv shows etc...and it was useless..I don't remember the brand name sorry, and maybe my post doesn't help you, but I do stay away from generic, 'Special Buys" on generic brands and buy name-brands, TDK, SONY, etc...

[y2k3Joker]

http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/


To identify your discs

[savageamusement]

Who the trader was doesn't matter, it isn't that they are a bad trader.

I think these are generic discs- if they make such a thing.

No info at all is available on them-

Purple bottom, silver top

If I look really close- most say

otc-r84006w5 r004

4x media.


Does the fact they are 4x matter, shoudl I be trying to burn them all on Nero at a lower speed?

[Lamont]

shouldnt be an issue in this situation
id contact the person u got from and ask them to fix

[savageamusement]

No this is my responsibility.
I received them in- and checked them lazily.

I didn't try to burnt hem. I didn't try to copy all of them

I can not ask them to replace what up till now, seemed to work.
Not to mention, the cost of doing so - and time alone- is tremendous.
And beyond that, their burner isn't in good health- I don't want to be the reaosn it dies, for good. If it is at all having life left.

I did get the info on what they are, and did update my trade info requesting never ever to get it again.

So does anyone know anyway to extract the info off a disc if is says disc redundancy error?
The person refuses to repalce all of them

[TVFactFan]

Originally Posted by Lamont

i feel for you kim

discs DO degrade over time
and some faster than others

i cannot tell from the description what brand it was

can u tell us what items it is that are bad? or who the trader was???

and did the discs EVER WORK, it could be it was a bad trader, if u never checked them they might have NEVER worked at all, or they might have degraded or such

Wait a second, after all this talk about how great DVD's are you are telling me that they degrade over time?-lol So when can i expect my discs to degrade? So far VHS has lasted over 10 years.

[Lamont]

All discs will degrade eventually
BUT most high quality discs should last for years, or decades without problems
maybe 100 years

BUT dvd-rs degrade faster than pressed dvds
STILL they should last 10-20 years or so maybe longer

BUT sometimes off brand or cheaply made discs with cheap dyes are more likely to degrade
and often times other outside factors can cause discs to have issues, humididty, moisture, exposure to direct sunlight, chemical contact etc

I have dvd-rs i have had for years and they have no problems at all

THE ONLY ONES I HAVE EVER HAD Degrade in my lifetime have been on cheapo bad quality media, like the store brands u get for $2.99 for 50

when i get stuff like that on crappy discs, i IMMEDIATELY burn another set on good media, to be safe

[hounds64]

Lamont - what do you do with the "crappy" disc set then?

[Lamont]

Well my definition of Crappy might not be the same as some peoples
for instance SOME store brands are ok some are not

usually i make a back up when i get a set on media that i dont like BUT i still use the "Crappy" set to dupe off of (The media might be crappy, but the material will dupe fine as long as nothing happens to it) sometimes i luck out, i have gotten sets on "crappy" brand media that lasted for 2 years with no issues, and i can still dupe that set, so i keep the back up as a back up

BUT other times the set has issues really fast and starts to go bad and have errors all over---- in that case, the crappy set goes into the trash can!

[debwalsh]

I have tapes that are more than 25 years old at this point (both Beta and VHS), and they still play well. The estimated life expectancy for discs varies based on who you talk to, but one thing that is beneficial about discs over tapes is when you copy the disc, you don't go down another generation in quality. I keep both, even once I've converted a program to disc. For one thing, I edit out commercials on the discs, but with some of my tapes, there are commercials worth having, and I always have the tape to go back to for those commercials. Of course, having working Beta equipment is definitely becoming a challenge ...

I'm afraid I'm pretty lazy about checking discs when they come in. I tend to let parcels stack up for a while, and then when I have a little free time, I go through packages and move the discs from sleeves to cases, get the cases labelled, and spot-check the occasional disc. I have found recently though that even though the disc plays well for me in my laptop drive, it doesn't mean it will play in any of my standalone players. Poor Jen got a disc from me that looked fine when I tested it, but definitely does not play in any of her players, and doesn't play in my Panasonic player, either (haven't tested in any of the others). The friend who made the original disc is kind of busy right now, so I'm going to end up trying to re-author the disc, something I've never done before ... ah, a new adventure! :>

[tv star collector]

I still have some VHS tapes that I've had for over 20 years (and there are some others that I had to discard). You just never know. The same applies to audio tapes. Some I had for decades with no problems; others had to be replaced in just a few years. And I had to swap at least one CD that went bad (I still had my receipt). The only problem I had with a phonograph record was from my own stupidity: I had left it on the dashboard of the car (in the sunlight). Yeah, you can guess what I had when I got home: melted plastic!

[Ahmed]

that program joker linked to, tells you the manufacturer. Crappy media doesn't help.

IMO compUSA=crappy media.

[savageamusement]

I still say Speed is a factor on this.

I have crappy discs that are 8x and they play through/burn to back up fine.
Its the 4x that are hanging..I just dont get it.