MediaRange DVD+R DL: am I doing something totally wrong?

I've been asking that myself...

To the pic: I guess "Double Slayer" fits better

I've been using MediaRange DL media a while and I'm pretty happy with them.

My Pioneer DVR-112D seems to burn them quite well.

I use them only to backup 360 games and MediaRange discs burnt in March 07 still work perfect.

Mediarange sells stuff made in china/macao stuff with borrowed MID codes (Verbatim for single layer and Ricoh for dual layer.) Ok on a odd occasion you can get MBIL(single layer)/Ritek(dual layer) made stuff but from what I heard those aren't the best MBIL/ritek disc's. (Saying it nicely)
I would suggest avoiding any mediarange media.

So what to do.
1 Return any unburned media that you still can and get your money back on those.

Befor jumping to step 2. Let us take a look at some stuff.


Official ricoh

A lot of people on this board suggest that verbatim (MIS) is the only option but actually on most drives you can burn japanese Ricoh's decently as well. 2 things however Ricoh's 8x Japanese media is more rare as verbatim ( only sold under ricoh's own brand) , hardly cheaper and burns on quite some drive slower as MKM001 !). Reason for people not to recommend it. Still it looks to be better as the MBIL made verbatims !.

Then there are the MBIL and Ritek versions with ricoh's codes.
Ritek has 2 versions and the newer version is better as the older version. But both variate in quality much.
MBIL also has it's variations and problems. Still the stuff I've seen sold under some of the bigger brands like Philips and Ricoh was quite good and had better consistancy as ritek.
However my vision on riteks dual layers might be clouded by the fact that they put more B-grade on the market as MBIL which then is sold through some of those cheap C-brands.

Unofficial/fake ricoh

Now in case of mediarange. The disc's are comming from a chinese manufacturer which tried to abuse ricoh's code to gain actually support. However it seems that for most of these cases there will be problems at the layer break because there disc's behave different from the official ricoh disc's !. On most drives this will result in a failure at the layer break or in a burn with sky high errors on the second layer. What I do know is that the pioneer DVR-112D does perform better then average with most chinese fake ricoh's. Still even with that drive it can be hit and miss. So I'm not suprised that someone11 reports that he had more success.

Then another point. Those disc's are ussing a 8x ricoh code but were 2.4x rated. Why because the quality and compatability was that bad to warrant 8x. Mediarange or the chinese guys might decided that it was ok for 2.4x however again this isn't sounding good !

So this brings us to 2.

2 We have 2 options for step 2.
A Is try to find a drive which works with the media which is expensive and hope that you still get ussable results from this crap media. Good change would be the Pioneer DVR-112D.
B Consider the fact that this media is useless.

"seems" is the important word here.
Please scan them and you will be shocked by the results.

I know that the scans are disastrous.
But scans arent everything for me. The TRT looks nice and even my old PS2 reads these discs.

Everyone who thinks he's getting geniune ricoh media for that cheap prices must be dumb.

Verbatim DLs are about three to four times the price of MediaRange.

Maybe where you live, here a Verbatim DVD+R DL is under €2 per piece.
All other cheap stuff is about €1.......

Ricoh B-grade and lower made by ritek can be found at the pricing level of Mediarange ! So you can expect genuine disc's !

10 MediaRange DLs cost about 5-6€.
10 Verbatim DLs cost about 20-25€.

so I really dont complain about quality for that price.

Not to mention they are all produced in Taiwan.

I agree, real-world playback and TRT are just as important as scanning to show the full picture.

Glad the discs work out for you, you obviously have a burner that likes them.

Edit: however, do be sure to rescan/TRT periodically to check if there's any deterioration.

Ive gotten a reliable scanning drive..finally

MediaRange DVD+R DL 2,4x (fake Ricoh) - burned with Pioneer DVR-112D @ 112L 1.22, 2,4x speed (about 1 month old)

Till the Layer Break everything is fine, but the PIEs after...man, I wonder how my XBox 360 (Hitachi Drive) can read this game (great game, played through several times)

Impressive Jitter rise (stopped the scan because it took ages)

TRT comes in some minutes.

hm, the TRT looks suprisingly ok
not perfect, but also not what ive expected.

I use mediarange DVD+R DL 8,5GB 8xSpeed and Im very satisfied. The kompatibility and scans are good too which suprised me. I used the 2,4xSpeed once before and they were trash.

Can you tell us the stamper codes on the disc?

Seems like Mediarange is selling official Ricoh now or at least in parts (thats why the price raised).

In the past they allready sold some Ritek Ricoh as well as China stuff.
So nothing new here.

If I remember well, you also told me last year that Mediarange sold both fake and "legit" MCC-coded discs...?

Mediarange DL's, are Good at this time?

You already asked this in the Living Room forum - I've removed that post, as crossposting is against our Forum Rules.

However, I'll leave your second post here as it's on-topic.

It's still the same mostly chinese/hongong/macao stuff.
With on occasion Ritek and MBIL stuff.


Exception.
Blu Rays seem to be so far made by Ritek.