Ahhhh!!! Where Are Blank CD-Rs Manufactured?

Okay, I'll have to put this crudely (only because my bed is calling me ) They >tend< to have a high C1 error rate; towards the ends of discs, I've often had them topple over into C2 errors aswell.

This with two different brands of writer.

It's funny, I've heard Ritek get a very bad press, yet some of the best I have are made by them. It's horses for courses ... or disc for writers ?

Phil

 

The Kodak Gold Ultima discs are gold with black print on the label side and greenish-gold on the "write" side. I use them for important backups as they were supposedly designed to be reliable over the long-term. In my experience, they're very good discs.

 

Thanks for the info on the Kodak Gold Utima discs. I will have to look for them the next time I'm at the stores.

 

You won't find them because they are no longer made. Kodak stopped production on them two years ago. Many people, like me, still have stashes of them. Kodack still had them in stock as soon as early this year, and i'm sure some internet retailer out there still has some...

 

Do you know of any software for the PC that checks the C1 & C2 error rates on a disc? My CMC/Imation CD-Rs from five years ago play great, where i've had trouble with some Ritek blanks made for TDK.

Ritek gets serious respect in Europe these days.

 

Well, different applications work for different makes of CD drive. This gets complicated, as I have 3 drives which get used regularly:

My main PC:
Plextor Ultraplex 40
Yamaha F1

Internet/Server:
LiteOn 52246S

The Plextor is champ when it comes to measuring C2s. As for C1 errors, this is specifically the reason I bought the LiteOn - up until recently LiteOn drives were the only drives capable of C1 checking. They are worth buying for this alone, and the price is a no brainer. They also do C2s, but I find them to be less strict than a Plextor.

Sadly, the Yamaha doesn't report either.

Software wise:

For C2 error checking, Nero CD Speed will do the job - it used to come bundled with Nero 5, but you can also get it here. It's free.

http://www.cdspeed2000.com

A great little tool, it has just been updated; a "C1 error" check box has just appeared which is permanently greyed out, so either my drive uses the wrong protocol, or it is in developement. Other than that, CD speed will work with any CD Rom hardware that supports C2 error checking.

For C1/C2 combined in one program, I mainly use K's Probe, which is specifically written for Liteon hardware. It's written by Karr Wang, one of Liteons engineers. It's available here:

http://karr.myweb.hinet.net/

He updates this software constantly! He hangs out at www.cdrlabs.com too, where this software has it's own thread. Before K Probe came along, I used to use WSES - this was DOS only however.

The Plextor Premium comes bundled with it's own software which now does C1 checking.

While none of the above solutions are as accurate as the hardware error checkers out there, they cost a hundredth of the price! Once you have compared a few discs, you soon know what you are looking for in the graphs.


Phil

 

Thanks for that bit of info Grant, I guess I'll have to pass on the Kodak's then.

 

Well, Phil, It turns out that we have a Plextor PlexWriter, Yamaha F1, and Nero 5 with CD Speed. Too bad I haven't loaded up Nero on the PC with the Plextor.

As long as those Imations don't give me any playpack greif, i'm not going to worry about it. If I ever notice a sign of it, i'll quickly do a copy to a new blank. Commercially made music CDs still have higher error rates than most CD-Rs.

 

BT, Keep an eye out and grab 'em if you see 'em. Like Grant, I got a stash before they discontinued production. When I bought them at BJ's, I was surprised to be able to pick them up at such a good price. Then I found out they were no longer going to be made - that explains why BJ's had so many cases of them: Kodak was evidently clearing them out. Then they were gone...

 

Wicked advice Casino, Actually my son works selling cell phone's at our local BJ's. I will ask him to look for them to see if they still have any left. Although I'm sitting here with 300 brand new Maxell Pro's that I bought sometime around back in January. I'm just waiting to get my new computer system to start to use them as I will have a lot of backing up to do.