I thought Verbatim (MCC) was good stuff? Fast degradation?..no it's paper labels!

One more question - what about labels? Most, if not all, of these discs had stick on labels. I've now learned that these can affect balance, but what about degradation?

Erm... I think it's safe to say the labels are actually the culprit in the case, NOT the sleeves. You should have told us you had labels on earlier! Stick on Labels are notorious for producing results like you've been having

The good news is that you can often "fix" the balance issues by removing the label.

that tidbit of info would have helped oh well, live and learn

Labels????

SORRY! I just read this (about labels). I wonder if I pull a label and rescan, if the results will be any better. I'll have to try that now.

I'm storing all of my discs in paper sleeves, no such issues at all. And, to be technical, discs in the paper sleeves I've used aren't exactly resting on their 'edge', the best way I can describe it is that they are 'hovering' about 1/8" above the bottom of the sleeve.

Warping is certainly a possibility as the cause for problems, but I'd say it's far from a certainty that warping from paper sleeves is the issue. I would continue considering other possibilities before you settle on this as the problem.

edit: oh hell, this is what happens when I don't read the responses on page two before posting. Well at least my intuition was right in feeling it wasn't warp from paper sleeves. Labels on DVDs are BAD BAD BAD!

Yes, you will very often find that simply removing the labels will 'fix' the problem. It's not entirely clear what exactly labels do to the disc, whether it causes an imbalance in the disc, warping of the disc, or? I feel that they warp the discs, in which case you may get even better results if you remove the label, 'rest' the disc for a few hours or a couple days, and then scan the disc, as it may allow the disc to 'flatten' out after having been warped.

I'm not sure of the safest way to remove labels without causing any further damage to your discs, I've read of people just using lukewarm water with a small amount of soap in it. Not sure if that's the best way of doing it or not but you don't want to flex the disc when you remove the label, if you can avoid it.

yes i dont recomend dvd labels at all get a decent dvd printer and printable media if thats what you want to do.

I was going to say that the only real disadvantage of paper sleeves is that the disc surface comes into contact with the disc and can cause scuffing on regulalrly used discs.

I have used card sleeves to good effect these dont touch the surface of the disc as they bow out away from the disc when a disc is in.

Oh man, I feel like such a a$$. I'm so sorry guys. It was the labels, or at least I'm pretty sure it was.

Here's a before and after scan of the same disc from earlier today, with the label, and just now, without. What a waste of cyberspace I just took up today.

With Label


Without Label


Will you all please accept my apologies!

It's not a waste of space, you probably would have found out about the problems of labels if you had researched them more, but how were you to know they could cause such problems? After all, these companies selling the labels are usually advertising them for use with DVDs along with CDs (they aren't such a big issue with CDs, if any issue at all), although I've seen SOME labels sold with a warning about problems if used with DVDs. I'm just glad you resolved the problems, too bad you wasted the time of buying and burning the labels, only to remove them . Maybe if you remove them carefully and they're still usable you can stick them on the paper sleeves? If it makes you feel any better, this problem with labels has found it's way to alot of people and they had to learn the hard way about their problems just like you.

I am not certain what the issue is but i do a lot of printing on photo paper and i have noticed that it takes a few days for the photographic coating on paper to completly dry out and thus paper tends to curl.
What this means is that if you print a label then stick it to a disc then as the label drys it will shrink which will in turn bend or warp the disc.

The best thing to do is use printable media if thats what you need and then fix or seal the photographic coating so that it cant be further affected over time by the atmosphere.

Hah you had me worried about mcc004! good to see you found the problem, those labels sure are evil. I've figured that out myself also back when i first started burning dvd's.

I feel so foolish, but am glad that MCC stuff isn't that bad after all! I felt used because I did so much research a year ago before deciding what media was for me.

And Soobie, you'r right. Heck the labels say "safe for recordable DVD media" right on them.

Thanks again guys!

I guess this once again proves, that the solution to a poblem can very often be found in the information that is not known when you start investigating it.

This time the missing piece of information was that labels had been attached to the discs. Next time the missing piece of information might be that the discs had been used for actual table coasters on a concrete table.

Can't see the problem here - well not least if you use Ritek - it's not likely to result in poorer scans nor significantly reduce their useful life span

LOL

Maybe we should make a sticky topic about labeling being so problematic.
Is it me or am I seeing people reporting problems at least once a month that are just caused by labelling !!

Also SteveG call yourself lucky because most times after removing there still is quite some damage.

I agree. I'll try to find some time to either write something, or merge several threads, and make a sticky out of it.

Mmmh... The other question that is asked again and again is "can I write on my DVDs"... I guess the best thing to do, actually, would be to upgrade the FAQ. I'll consult rdgrimes and the team.

I think if I put them on concrete, I might mention that.

Seriously though, for someone who uses DVD media as needed and doesn't put a ton of sweat and tears into understanding the good with the bad, you could easily see how something like this could be overlooked.

I do think it's a worthwhile FAQ, and point to this thread as proof that it's not an urban legend, but true!

I always refer to the User manual that comes with the DVD burner to see what brands of media that the burner has been tested with to try and reduce write errors. They must list the different brands for a reason.

Mostly commercial partnerships.

BTW, did you read the whole thread? The issue was not the media, but the sticky paper labels...

Good point. Let's see if we can prevent the confusion...

* * Changed thread title to reflect the real reason of the problems * *

I had a problem with some labelled DVDs recently (Verbatim 16X MCC 004). I've done some testing, and here's what I've found (results based on immediate testing, not long term degradation)
Burn a DVD and test - excellent scan
Add a blank label - still a good result, PI Failures about the same, but PI Errors rise at the end (from 10 to 30 or 40 range)
Add some text printing - much worse results - areas with high failure rate and high error rate
Add a photo from cdcovers.cc - horrible results. Very high failure and error rates.
Wrote with a Sharpie on an unlabelled disk - again, poor results.

So while there may be a problem with labels degrading DVDs over time, there also appears to be a problem that I would guess is related to how the laser reads the DVD, when ink is added to the label, or when you write on the DVD with a Sharpie.

It is also interesting that some DVDs that were unreadable with my burner (LiteON 1633s), I was able to copy to my hard drive using a DVD ROM drive.

Anyone use "core" (central hub) labels? I have tried a few (they come with Memorex labels) and they don't cause any immediate degradation..

"Sharpie" is marker, yes?
You scare me now, everyone told me there was no problem at all to write with a marker on DVD discs! They told me CDR+marker=trouble, DVDR+marker=no trouble! I write on all my DVDRs!
How can I check if my discs have issues? The scans look normal after the marker, and the discs play fine! Can they have issues later because of the ink?

After I posted, I read a lot of posts about Sharpies (a type of marker) being ok. So I re-tested my Sharpie-written DVD, and it came out ok!!

I am going to do another Sharpie test from scratch, testing immediately and after waiting a bit. Will update my results later.