I give up Ritek

No longer will you fool me with your dark purple dye. Because from this evening you have produced a landfill amount of coasters and I am fed up of you.

I've finally seen the bright side and am with immediate effect moving over to Taiyo Yuden. Yes they may be double the price but it wasn't so long ago when I was paying the same price for any media. And for the increase I will see a guaranteed burn which will last for many years.

R.I.P Ritek, you dug your own grave

congratulations young grass hopper, you have now discovered the way of the ritek, and now you may truly begin to learn...

Yes! Another virgin looses their innocence about the DVD world.

Glad you saw the light, Johntea

Excellent choice

Question

If I want to reburn some of my Riteks, and all the data scans OK (No bad sectors) will they perform as best as writing a new image from a hard drive if reburnt onto a TY disc?

Yes. The problem with Ritek is degredation, and speedy at that. As long as the data is retreivable on the original, as the dye itself has no part to play in the make up of the data stored on the disc.

Now on to the crux, for a good burn it is a mixture of disc+drive+firmware.

I know how you feel. I've joined this bandwagon myself.

Now have fun finding some TY media then, or if you live in Europe, trying to find some TY media.

Only -R Ritek media has suffered from this degradation (late G04 and G05). Not sure about DL because I don't want to spend money on stuff which doesn't work...

The D/L stuff isn't any better. The initial results are VERY mixed and they do make expensive coasters. Verbatim is still really the only reliable choice for D/L at this point.

I must say I'm not bashing Ritek entirely. While their G04 and G05 discs degrade to shit after a year, their +R discs seem to do just fine.

Just goes to prove there are no absolutes among media. I have G04s burned 3 years ago that still work great in anything that I put them into (including some picky videogame console drives). On the other hand there are still a number of bad reports about the +R Ritek media (not nearly as many as the -R though). So it all varies.

Well in some cases you could try ussing CMC dual layers if you really can not get Verbatim. But even that I would call risky !

I have seen one really screwed test (PC CONSUMENT should not post these tests or should do a better job !) were CMC Dual layer outperforms verbatim . I said screwed test !!!

Also the 8x Ritek dual layer +R disc's have some potential of being better working as the 2.4x (Some folks would say that's easy) (point is the 8x stuff does have philips approval or provisional approval and the first data while not burned at 8x does allready look much better ! )

Oh and more on topic I'm not so sure if it's the dye that's causing the problem on the ritek -R disc's.

Guess the safest thing is to stick with TY made or MCC made media. They seem to be absolutes... well, as long as they are genuine.

I don't think I'll ever trust RiTEK again myself. I've seen them degrade in as little as a couple of weeks, never mind months. I sincerely hope they go out of business over this problem with G04 and G05 disks.

Yep, bought from reputable sources, that would be wise.

They won't because perhaps it does not affect 100% of their stock - they will always find a way to blame consumer, blame recorders, blame other factors.

Yes, their +R media does not have those stability issues at least. But their DL media... aww...
But Maxell sold relabeled G05s. And they have a warranty. I wonder what they say if hundreds of customers would call them at once and telling them there's a problem with the G05s...

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Last edited by kg_evilboy; 04-06-2006 at 00:30.

Oh, yeah, I know how you felt when I read your post. In fact, I still have some Ritek G05s to reburn to TY that I haven't yet retested (because of lack of time). Especially when one factors in the time one loses to retesting for data integrity and reburning when the deteoration is oh-so-obvious, TY isn't 'expensive' anymore. Peace of mind is a wonderful thing.

I wouldn't be so sure about TY - I am a volume buyer of TY since I produce hundreds of DVDs for companies & individuals and I notice a trend that worries me a lot, quality control is getting bad - and I am afraid that TY may soon be like RITEK. I personally use TY and get excellent scans and overall it is good media. I have noticed some disc with spots on the dyes, dust and other problems, particularly towards the end of the spindle, but that is not my main concern. What I am mainly worried about is the bonding problems. I notice that all batches I order now has this problem - From a lot of tests I have done I can determine there is a problem - I have a batch of RITEk and a batch of TY, I take each one and SNAP it broken with my hands, once it snaps broken in half, the disc's 2 layers should remain intact..... The RITEKs are kept in place, the TY on the other hand as soon they are snapped, the layers separate quite easily, this is a very bad sign. At this point I am questioning whether I can rely on TY any longer. I tried bring this issue up to a TY representative in the U.S. he was very arrogant and evasive, tried bring this issue up with the online reseller, he was arrogant and very rude and said I should take this to TY, each one blaming each other.

What about Ricoh DL's?

I think you should use the discs as they are intended to be used. If this gives you problems you have reason to be worried like it's the case with Ritek

(You actually produce 100's of discs for individuals??)

Yes, mostly BETA, VHS & Movie Film 8mm/Super 8mm transfers, tons of that...... I have never had ONE complaint with TY media, but given the bonding problems I would would not expect those discs to last too long.

The bonding issue with TY is known, and yet they still scan better after 1 year than any of my G05s, and I have used different varieties of them from Ritek branded to e-net and all have failed, yet none of my Verbs 8x has, except where I have scratched them beyond rescue. The good bonding in Ritek is also known, shame sbout the QC though.

As to the dust, I have had that in Verb sealed packages too. Dust gets in pure and simple. They don't look at every disc and there are going to be the occassional off one. If you go through hundreds you are sure to see more than the average home user.

I have to agree with CJ though snapping discs is not using them as intended and so realy can't be used to have a go at the manufacturers. Now if one came apart in a player that would be a different story altogether.

CJ I can go through quite a few each year being the only one in my family (adoptive to those who have read another thread) with a DVD writer and so I get family videos from them to convert/copy as they live in different parts of the world. It's a pain in the arse but hey what can you do? Though I don't go through 100s a year thankfully. It's not that hard to imagine.

I think I'd still rather take my chances with TY than Ritek.