Mitsui/MAM-A 16x Gold DVD+R

Before anyone makes comments about gold media being marketing hype, yes I know. I've read the posts here.

Anyways, I noticed that a computer supplies store near me have had these for a while, so I decided to pick two up today in CDFreaks fashion for testing. They weren't too outrageously priced (at CAD$1.49+tax/disc) so I though they'd be fun to try.

The MID of these things are: MBIPG101 R05

The inner hub of both discs say: N0072U DVDPLUSR 16X B

The outer hubs say: 6244D5108608 1 B & 6244D5108643 2 B

I'm not surprised since it's been said that MAM-A uses MBI's stampers to make gold discs. However, I am surprised at the fact that there's been no mention of these things. I see posts on here and in online stores about gold DVD-R, but not gold DVD+R. Any comments about this?

As for their appearance, they're unbranded with a shiny gold-tinted top. The recording side has the typical dark blue/purple colour -- but it seems darker, probably because of the gold reflective layer.

Finally, any suggestions as to how I should burn these things? I have a Liteon LH-20A1S and I was thinking of leaving HT, OHT and SB to their defaults and then burning at 8x.

Gold media is not completely a marketing hype as the last C't test showed.
That is if manufacturers do all other production steps well.

However in most cases it's marketing hype.

Still I like my Emtec GOLD's (MPO MADE) DVD+R's. (Very good media)

The fact that MBIL suplies stampers to MAM-A has been mentioned a few times on this board ( as well as others)

With the gold disc's 4x might be better, then again quite some lower recording speeds seem to be less good optimized as 8x for the newer lite on's. So I think 8x might be a good start. If it goes bad you could try 4x on the other. I do know that quite some drives give not so great results at 16x for the MAM-A GOLD dvd-r and I expect for this one that compatability won't be as good as it should as well.

What's your opinion on Mitsui's/MAM-A's gold media? As I recall, they've been preaching about the benefits of gold reflective layers since the CD ages.

We don't see a lot of MPO's products in these parts. Rarely, I'll see something Hi-Space branded.

Did you come across the Emtecs locally or did you order them from elsewhere?

I think I'll stick with 4x to be on the safe side. I'll be sure to post scans of the burns once I find something worthy of being burnt onto a gold disc...

You know that the only advantage is absence of corrosion, I guess? All other reasons are.. well, lies.

For actual performance, the best is silver. In most cases, gold introduces more problems than it solves. Unless everything is done right, as Dakhaas mentioned. It's a hard task. If it gets done nicely, then the media can be good (though actual performance will not surpass that of more conventional media of good quality), and you'll have the possible benefit of a longer lifespan.

Why do I write "possible"? Because even though the reflective layer is indeed one of the sensitive components of a disc, there are other usual suspects. The dye itself for instance can be more sensitive to aging than the reflective layer, and gold won't protect the dye. Better polycarbonate and bonding, leading to superior air/humidity tightness, these could help the dye. Not the gold in the reflective layer, noooo sir.

OK I stop. (though I DO use some gold discs myself ).

For actual performance ?
Well the thing is that the MPO GOLD DVD+R disc's might actually be the best media I've used so far.(If you don't care about money). Well MPO does put itself a part from most good disc's by compatability, good scans, stability and in combination with the theoretical unrivaled waranty system. The low's are the burn speed (4x), the high pricing and the fact that they are allmost impossible to get these days. But the performance is above the standard good media.

C't 16 of this year had some very nice results, which actually showed how tricky gold media actually is. It also showed finally the potential of Verbatims arhival gold. A disc which should be purely from a theoretical point the best solution, but results befor C't showed that theory and real life situations do not allways match.

MPO seems to be no longer making media, which means no more Great 4x gold media.

So from all the information it can be seen that if anything is done right that gold should be the better (but also more expensive) material. Then again I would suggest to first look at all other improvements befor deciding to use gold as all the results (c't,cdfreaks, cdrlabs) show.

About reflectivity. Most people think gold is much inferior to silver for reflectivity.

Fact is that I've seen a couple of cd-r tests from the old days were in the disc's with the best reflectivity actually were using gold as reflective layer. The product of the same manufacturers using silver layer actually improved to be inferior. Even while the same Manufacturer did say in that test that silver has a better reflectivity and compatability. Quite funny.

Hey, we disagree. Nice! - It's not easy to disagree openly with the experts. I have to make an effort to forget that I can look like a fool. I'll do my best and let it be.

Let's get something out of the way: at the time I wrote my post, I had never read any post from you stating that gold could be inherently superior for actual DVD+/-R performance. So I was definitly not callling you a liar. An for some reason, I'm pretty sure I'll never do. Just wanted to make sure this is clear as crystal.

Ok now that this is out of the way:

Making something very good or excellent out of given materials is never a proof that these materials are 'superior'. It is true both in the technical and artistic worlds. In cooking, too (which I consider as an art BTW). Savoir-faire, precision, overall integration etc.. can make great products, or works of art, out of plain of even mediocre materials, as long as they are not frankly poor. Also, it's very possible to make awful products or works of arts out of excellent materials... So the fact that there is a gold DVDR in your top 3 is no indication that gold has any technical edge over silver for actual performance (other than longevity). Proving this would need a very, very different approach than the one you expose. Maybe you are right, but I don't think there's enough evidence.

Now about the word "lies": I don't think you'll disagree that most of the marketing talk about gold media is simply codswallop. It's possible to make great performance media without using any gold in it, and using gold in it instead of other materials won't show any dramatic improvement just because gold is used . But that's what they want customers to believe....

Until "gold" media can consistently show better performance (than more conventional media) and that this better performance can be anticipated by sound, technical considerations and manufacturing principles, all manufacturer claims are just claims. Claims without proofs can be several things: conjectures, faith, provocations etc... but in the case of marketing, since the goal is to make money, I think the world "lies" is definitly pertinent.

When writing performance here, I mean: writing compatibility, playing compatibility, mechanical stability etc... so I'm not including long-term (> 15 years) climatic stability, which I don't consider as a general "performance" per se but as an extra quality. If I do include climatic stability in the definition, then OK, I know for sure that gold has a real potential. I guess you meant "proved" to be inferior.

And to save the OP more aggravation from thread highjacking, I'll stop posting here.

I'd be interested if you have any more info about what they said in regards to the Verbatim Archival Gold media. As long as the original poster does not mind, Verbatim archival gold is a good alternative to other "gold" medias on the market today and I trust it to be pretty good.

I don't mind the direction in which this thread is going. I like seeing different opinions about things as esoteric as gold media

Looking at the results from the latest test by c't (as posted in this thread), the results for MAM-A seem very disconcerting (assuming that Kodak Gold is MAM-A, which is most likely true). Degradation seems to start extremely early.

Verbatim Archival Gold seems interesting. Apparently it has a combination of both gold and silver reflective layers. It seems like a good trade off between the longevity and reflectivity.

Unfortunately, I don't think any local stores carry these...so I'll probably have a quick look online (which I don't like doing because of shipping costs). Unfortunately, the market for conventional discs is huge and that's what stores carry...even the independent computer supply places (in fact, only one store had the MAM-A discs).

I use archival grade Verbies. I like them a lot. They're sturdy, burn very well, are just as compatible with players as regular MCC 02RG20, and the scratchproof surface is excellent, which is what I wanted. I'm not using them for archival, rather for discs with intensive use, like software installation discs (I get to install lots of them in my job).

I can't say anything, though, about their possibly superior longevity. Just (rather confident) conjectures. These puppies feel too precious to me, to have the guts to put a couple through my "chinese steamer" torture tests.

Well, as of today, only C't seem to have tested their stability. Great results, but inferior to a non-mentioned-TY-model. (sigh..).

Which is why I finally posted again, despite what I wrote above...

I think we don't disagree that much actually.

I also think that something went a bit lost in translatation and some info was lost, because I had to leave and posted a half finished post.

Missing info:
One thing about the old cd-r test.
Theoretically speaking silver should have a better reflectivity. However the real life results did not agree. Which happens quite often for optical media.



The thing is we both know, that GOLD is used mostly as a marketing hype, when it comes to real life.
Now in the past I've been allways suggesting that. However there are actually results, which show that gold media might have some benefits if done right.

There are quite some results that show that gold media of some manufacturers might be better then their silver stuff.

Now in defence of the gold = purely marketing gimmick you can say. It's gold media making more money meaning that the production spec is much more strict. Something which I completely would understand and something which would explain some odd results. But that comment would proof what I mend earlier.

Start with everything else and then look at if there still are benefits for changing the reflective layer. (and design the gold disc from the ground !)

We both know that during production (and design) allready so much can happen, that a lot of potentials of materials are lost. Which means that the only thing left is marketing, which brings me back to one of the first lines. I think the only thing on we might not agree might be the fact that I think that gold might have some potential, why you think it's purely a marketing claime, something which I completely understand with compannies as MAM-A.

Archival gold was not inferior to the TY model !
AT what time PI>280 is what you should look at !

In defence on MAM-A. (Did I say that )Those kodak disc's are most likely MBIL's GOLD media not MAM-A. Unless they got a really old batch.

And that it starts bad is, because there design idea was bad. Let's use our silver MID, which is ok supported and just use gold instead of silver.

Come on you should know that we can perfectly get a long well. Even if we have some (minor) disagreements now and then. But I think the last is good, because that way we both can learn things.

On the verbatim archival golds. (PICKING IT UP IN THAT DIRECTION.)

The thing is from a purely theoreticaly point this media should be one of the best disc's out there. (Best theoretical reflectivity, with best theoretical stability and no compatability problems. ) However in earlier tests (Real life experience) this potential was never actually noticed.
Now incase of the C't test it finally shows some interesting results, which do show some potential for Verbatims sollution. Then again how much do accelerated aging tests say. They are tricky stuff, but at least the disc's do show some of there theoretical qualities. (It would have been much better if C't also took normal verbatim and those scratch guard verbatims and also would have tested numerous batches !. Because it can still be very batch related. (looking at my TY's !) )

Er.. actually I think we do!
I was referring to the fact that my comments could well be exactly what theSpam didn't want to see in his thread, i.e. polemics about gold being marketing hype. So I didn't want to highjack his thread further. But then I realised that I misunderstood his first sentence. So I knew I could keep on posting... (aaah, communication... )

Uh, indeed, you're entirely right. I didn't look at the graphs closely enough.

Though it's extremely difficult to extrapolate this data into real-world situations that would show one or the other as superior. Who knows, at lower temps, how the shape of the curve (PIE x hours) would actually look like....

The TY disc model (which one??!! Darn!) is definitly more stable on the long run at these higher temps. The Verb is more stable initially, then degrades faster after an initial pediod of superior resistance to the difficult conditions. Who on earth knows how this would translate in real-world situations.. Well, no one I guess. Sigh.

What's sure is that the Kodak gold doesn't look good at all, indeed.

Well the c't test results are even more interresting if you know what Dye is used. Taking that into account, the whole results, show that something is really messing arround and it's not the dye.

Also C't screws up in the article.
TY using a cyanine dye on their dvd's. ?? It's AZO
TDK using a pthalocyanine dye on their dvd's ?? I don't think so.

What they mainly tried to show was that the 100 year claime was purely a marketing gimmick. In that they suceeded. Problem is that the article as is on the site, does contain quite some questionable stuff and I personally do not find it completely up to their normal standards.

That makes two of us.

My curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to burn one today.

I used my LH-20A1S, as mentioned before, with the advanced settings (FHT, OHT) left to their defaults (off). I decided to play it safe so I wrote the disc at 4x.

Considering the scan, it seems fairly average. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the frequency of the PIF is very disconcerting...

If you want to play it safe, go for 8x burning next time - 6x if you really want to be conservative. It's been mentioned many times before that the burning quality of modern/newer 16x and higher-speed drives are better at speeds that are closer to about half the rated speed of high-speed media.

As a rule of thumb I use 6-8x writing speed for 8x DVD media and 8-12x for 16x DVDs. I never go down past 6x/8x for anything but the most problematic of discs as I've found out they actually end up worse by writing too slow (at least scans-wise). 16x burns at 16x media only happens when I'm rushing or if it's high-quality media - that which MBIPG101 R05 is doubtful to be, although I might be mistaken.

Let me direct you to a very useful read - Read first: Did you know: Slow write speeds + modern drives + modern media = no good. It's actually true!

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Last edited by evo69; 12-10-2008 at 12:08.

I've seen that thread.

However, the reason I'm burning at 4x is that the disc is more suited to be burnt at that speed. I know, it's confusing, a 16x MID on a disc rated for speeds way lower than that. It's all because MAM-A uses MBIs stampers to make (gold) media.

Anyways, I searched a bit more and found scans of the same discs HERE.

Apparently all of the burns there were done at 6x and higher. You can see the effects of doing that on the total PIE of all the scans listed.

The article you linked to used an 8x variant of the same MID of what you have - which is what makes 6x or faster burns on your "new" drive much more interesting to see (the results of) since the discs you have purchased are rated at 16x.

There's always a risk of creating worse burns (and wasting money) if trying out higher write speeds than 4x but then that's why the cat died... No pressure.

So, I just burnt the other disc, using the same speed settings as before (I like cats ), and the results are apparently worse for some reason. Everything before the 3.5GB mark appeared similar to the last burn. However, after that point, PIF just spiked for no apparent reason. It's not that bad, so I'll still consider it a keeper.

As well, the TRT looks fine (for the previous disc too).

My, aren't we hard-headed.