CDFreaks presents: EMTEC CD-R Gold Review

You can find it here: http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/EMTEC-CD-R-Gold-Review/





Feel free to comment the review in this thread.

Nice review, Jan!

Considering the price at which they're sold at (in the local shops here), I think I'll stick to burning important data on other, cheaper media

Maybe I should get some normal EMTEC MPO CD-R and try them on my burners to see how well they do. I didn't expect this media, which is supposed to be premium, to be so incompatible.

Maybe you could compare this media to MAM-A gold media...?

Oh, and there's a small typo in the conclusion: MPO is "Moulages Plastiques de l'Ouest" and not "Oest".

I have still a few of EMTEC GOLD DVD+R's arround.

See http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtop...=21953&start=0
And for cdrlabs subscribers check the initial results in the subscribers forum.

Performance based on cats measurement was in the top3.
MAM-A's gold media performed then again that might be to the fact that MAM overrated there media. Compatability sucks so MAM uses third parties stamper code and seems to go with the rating of that code.
While MPO uses a 8x own code which isn't that good supported but have decided to rate the media down to 4x, because it will work on most drives ok at that speed.

Also one thing I would add.
The DVD's come with a data retrieval and replacement media waranty.
(Something which I've never seen incase of MAM. It seems that MPO has a bit more faith in there product. )
Nothing new here some drives also really don't like KODAK or MAM GOLD media. Silver has the advantage incase of compatability.

You do realize that the review is about CD-R media and not DVD media, I hope?!

Yes I noticed.

I just supplied it as some extra info.
Should get my MPO GOLD cd-r's these days. So I can seen if they confirm nicely with the article.

Hmm I posted on the review page what my thoughts were.

There should have been a few more tests at different speeds just to see how (in)compatible the media possibly was.

Thanks for the review.

Some thoughts: Since this is a media test and not a burner test i think it's wrong to have selected faster writing speeds than the media was certified for by the manufacturer. IMHO all burns should have been done at 40x maximum. As has been suggested by cd pirate a test a slower speeds (maybe 16x, that's what all drives usually offer) for comparison would have been very interesting. I guess nobody wastes archival grade media at their highest or even at overspeed. Also since a Plextor and a BenQ drive were available a FE/TE test of the mechanical properties of the disc should have been included.

For everyones convenience, some further results with Plextor drives:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=146
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...6&postcount=17
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...8&postcount=44
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...91&postcount=6
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...3&postcount=18
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...8&postcount=23
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...9&postcount=24
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...1&postcount=25
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=169
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=170

Thanks for the review, Jan and Drage

Not often we get media reviews, hopefully we'll see more in the future

Ah, I see you results were much better with some of the slower speeds. The jitter was very good at 2x. Nice to see some different speeds. The media doesn't seem so bad now.

Hi there,

I have some gold Mitsui CD-R media older than 10 years, probably 12 or more. They all were recorded on the 4x Yamaha CDR-100 back in these days and they show absolute no degradation after 12 years of (proper) storage. Really a very good media worth every penny.

I now see gold DVD-R archival media from Mitsui which is double the price of TYG02 and was wondering if it is of better quality (longelivety?) because a TYG02 recorded at 4x or 8x is acutally quite perfect. Any exprience? I can remember back in these days gold Matsui CD-R media was better than dark green CD-R from TY.

Cheers

The CD-R media you have was manufactured by Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals of Japan, they sold their optical media division several years ago and the new DVD media is not real Japanese Mitsui and has not recieved many positive reviews. If you want gold archival grade media, Verbatim sell a gold DVD-R disc in USA.

As far as I know Mitsui *renamed* their business to MAM-A. They license their technology to Kodak, MPO and manufacture media for others (like Verbatim). You can find *genuine* MAM-A gold archival DVD-R at http://www.datamediastore.com/83438.html - Just asking if anyone can commect on gold DVD-R versus TYG02 quality in terms of burn quality and/or longelivety?

IIRC, Mitsui didn't rename their business.

They sold their American and European plants to CSI (Computer Support Italy, not what you think) in 2003. The American business was renamed MAM-A, the European business (in Ensisheim, Alsace, France) was renamed MAM-E.
(MAM meant Mitsui Advanced Media before and the backronym Manufacturing Advanced Media was invented.)

CSI went bankrupt in 2006, MAM-A and MAM-E were sold to a Swiss company called Hayet Business Inc. (a subsidiary of Hanschweiz SA) who planned to set up another media factory in the UK (didn't succeed).
MAM-E also went bankrupt in 2006.

Now there's only MAM-A left, but the quality of their products has been steadily dropping since 2003.

Gold always has lower reflectivity, so it gives worse scan results. Good silver media isn't worse than gold media. Problems with the dye are common, but problems with the reflective layer are usually rare.

We're straying quite a bit from the topic of this thread - EMTEC Gold CD-R media.

Could we please get back on topic, folks?

Got my Emtec gold disc's yesterday.
Noticed that the CD media doesn't talk of any data waranty unlike the DVD media.
So far haven't burned a disc.

Are those real BasF?

Dunno, but the Emtec logo sure looks like the BASF one.

Actually BASF's storage department was spun off and renamed to EMTEC, and later it was bought by MPO.
They had a logo "EMTEC by BASF" a few years ago.

Occasionally, BASF CD-R was Taiyo Yuden in these days

Interesting stuff, I still remember using BASF cassettes

I still remember using BASF 5.25' Floppy discs

BASF was pretty good. Shame about the EMTEC rubbish now, such as fake MCC03RG20 media

I found here:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/EMTE...roduction.html

a photo which is supposed to illustrate the structure of a EMTEC Gold CD-R:

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The data is stored into the « recording layer » and the gold protection is only on 1 side of this layer.

After reading things like my question is:
what makes the protection so superior on the other side of the recording layer where there is no gold ?
or does a CD-R no deteriorate so quickly from agressions (light, moisture, oxygen ...) coming from this other side (or the edges) and why ?

Ehh it can only be single side gold. If you put gold on the substrate layer then it can no longer be read. The substrate layer is the polycarbonate substrate layer which has to a clear polymeric material.

Light will interact directly with the dye.

Moisture and oxygene - Can react with the dye still. This is why gold alone is no guarantee of ultra stability.

Edges - WHen bonded and coated correctly the change of material entering through the sides should be small when the disc's were correctly made.

So does gold cause a longer live as silver. Hmm yes if you do everything else correctly then Gold has a higher potential when it comes to stability.
However it's not the first time that one fancy thing is completely worthless because the manufacturer seems to have problems at other points.

I do have to say that the EMTEC GOLD DVD+R(MPO made just like the CD-R's) are actually quite good. Only problem is there high price. Then again they do come with a data retrieval waranty like I said earlier.

These EMTEC Gold CD-R tested in this review are manufactured in France by MPO have the ATIP(T1) also called ATIP of Lead-in: 97m 25s 07f.

The same ATIP(T1) is also sold under the brand HiSPACE « CD-R Digital Photo - Gold technology »


According to what I know both Emtec and HiSPACE Gold CD-R’s are made with phthalocyanine dye.

Do you agree about that ?

Off-topic post moved to new thread:

Ultradisc 24 KT Gold CD-R