200 pc for 30.00 shipped from shopampm http://www.shopampm.com/product_info.php?products_id=514
Burned 8x on nec 2510a and 12x on nec 3540a
Impressive quality. Just kidding… 
It’s soso, just thought I’d let everyone know if this media is worth buying.
Liteon dvdrom don’t like silver matte media, doesn’t read well at 3.3gb and above. Its great for backing up junk and casual user or if you just want a lot of media to burn for fun. This is it.
..
continued. 1st pic, speed test of disc burned on nec 3540a. 2nd pic, speed test of disc burned on nec 2510a. seems like nec 2510a is better at burning media or maybe that disc was a poor one, I dunno but I’m too lazy to do more burn test. It’s so time consuming.
Run some ‘disc quality’ tests on some of the discs using the NEC 3540, run the tests at 5x for accurate comparisons. Transfer rate tests are useful, but PI/PIF quality tests will usually give you a much better judgement of the media’s burn quality.
Hi scoobiedoobie 
Mmmmh… I’m not sure I agree with you on this one.
Actually I think the contrary (recently converted 
)… the way I see things now, PIE/PIF scans are far less reliable than transfert rate tests to judge of real-world quality. The main use of PIE/PIF scanning, for me, is to compare media, burners and firmwares, and check for degradation.
A bad TRT in a drive known for being a good reader (and reliable for TRT) is a sign of a bad disc/burn in almost all cases IMO.
This said, I’m also interested to see scans of these discs. 
bring them on, sugarmommyst!
A transfer rate test is a useful test, however it is useful for different reasons than a PI/PIF test. It will tell you if the data can be read, and at what speeds it is being read at, nothing more. A PI/PIF test will give you specific numbers of errors which, depending on their concentrations and levels, will tell you the general burn quality. Both tests have their place and if you want a thorough test of a disc, doing both tests would be ideal.
To make an obvious example of the value of PI/PIF tests over transfer rate tests in some circumstances, I’ve used similar cheap generic tests to these (including VDSPMSAB), and they generally have very high PI/PIF levels when burned, however they often give perfect transfer rate tests. Now take a TY disc with a great PI/PIF test and an identical looking transfer rate test. If you are judging your burns and trusting the disc’s likelyhood of holding up over time by the transfer rate tests, the test results between TY and cheap, generic discs will be identical. Of course you and I both know that the fact that the PI/PIF scans of the generic discs are far worse than the TY’s PI/PIF scans tells us that there is a much greater likelyhood of having problems with the discs with the far worse PI/PIF tests, even though a transfer rate test may not necessarily show it.
Yes, his transfer rate tests are less than perfect and are a general indication of ‘somewhat shaky but useable discs’. The PI/PIF tests will almost certainly translate the same though, the PI/PIF scans are undoubtedly fairly poor and would indicate just the same thing, ‘shaky but useable discs’. Rarely will an excellent PI/PIF test translate into a poor transfer rate test (especially with the addition of jitter level measurements as well), just as a fairly poor PI/PIF test will nearly always translate into a poor transfer rate test. The advantage of PI/PIF tests is the reporting of actual error levels throughout the disc. Without it, one could argue that TY and Princo are equal if both have perfect transfer rate tests (which would actually hold true if based only on the discs’ current playability and nothing else).
I have a few discs that are now unreadable that I backed up when they were still readable, some with perfect transfer rate tests no less. Why did I back them up, even with good transfer rate tests? PI/PIF tests told me that the discs had elevated PI/PIF levels. I often suggest that people run transfer rate tests and I run them myself a fair amount, but PI/PIF tests have some definite advantages, especially when you become accustomed to how PI/PIF levels translate into a disc’s quality and probability of playback ability.
If you want a rough ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with little room in between for judging a disc’s quality, a transfer rate test will give you that kind of indication. If you want a more specific translation of a disc’s burn quality, a PI/PIF would do a better job of that. Without PI/PIF tests, all different types of media would more or less be defined by either ‘great’ or ‘horrible’ with little in between.
Scoobiedoobie,
I don’t deny most of your arguments, my friend, but I wonder if you got my point: if a transfert rate test is bad in a reliable reader, the overall quality of the burned disc is marginal at best, whatever a PIE/PIF scan will show.
Also I don’t subscirbe to this point of view:
Actually I’ve seen SO MANY exceptions that I don’t really believe in the “rarely” anymore. Except for the jitter part, which was my motivation to add a Benq to my scanning drives. (and I certainly don’t regret it 
)
Another thought about this:
That’s exactly why I mentioned that one of my main use for scanning is comparing medias, but even more to check for degradation. Actually if a single scan just after the burn was able to indicate a good disc, some Ritek G05 could be compared as equal to TY and MCC. But figures are VERY different after some time - I think scanning over time is far more important than scanning just after the burn.
Whatever. I don’t want to argue about this with you here, it’s not the right place (but I’d be delighted to keep on discussing this in another thread). What I meant in my post was mainly that when I see such TRTs as the ones posted above, I don’t NEED a scan to know that the burn is bad. I don’t need “better judgment of the bun quality” when I know it’s bad anyway. If TRT is good, then of course, I’m interested in the scanning figures. Or if this is unknown media (or burner) to me, like it’s the case here.
So, sugarmommyst, I hope we’ll see some scanning?
Cheers
And as I’ve said in my previous post as well as this one, I don’t have any doubts that the PI/PIF tests are also going to show issues. As I described in my previous post, I consider PI/PIF testing a more specific way of revealing the details of a burn’s quality vs. the relatively vague indicators from a transfer rate test (speed dips). Does the transfer rate test tell us that the discs are not the greatest of burns? Yes. Would a PI/PIF test reveal additional, and more specific, information on the burn in the form of the error levels that cause those slowdowns in his transfer rate tests? Yes. I suggested PI/PIF tests because they give more detailed information about the burn.
To sum up how I would describe the benefits of each test, PI/PIF tests are a better indicator of a disc’s burn quality, while a transfer rate test is a better indicator of the ability of the disc to be played back smoothly on a standalone player when speaking of a DVD Video disc. The two are not the same thing, and I maintain that a PI/PIF test is a better test of BURN QUALITY.
OK, you drive me into it… sigh LOL 
Let’s try not to get too passionate about it, OK? 
Not necessarily. 
As I mentioned above, I’ve seen many good PIE/PIF scans showing troubled reading curves and vice-versa. That’s among the things leading me to trust a TRT over a PIE/PIF scan for the real-world behaviour of the disc. Scanning only reports the errors that the drive “sees”. A TRT is a real-world test, it reads the actual data, unlike scanning that retrieves bits in ECC raws without actually reading the “real” data (AFAIK). Disc data is not read this way when the disc is actually used in real-world. And low-level errors are not the only parameters impacting readability of a disc! You yourself mentioned jitter (that is BTW lacking in most scans performed on this board…) which plays an important part.
while a transfer rate test is a better indicator of the ability of the disc to be played back smoothly on a standalone player
To play back smoothly… not only in standalone players.
Now if you mean “burn quality” in the strictest sense, you’re mostly right, and this can explain why we disagree, as I take into account the mechanical properties of the disc, it’s reflectivity, its stability at high speeds etc… - all things that impact the overall quality of the burned disc, and that a PIE/PIF scan does NOT show, unless performed at full speed maybe, which is not a consensus on this board.
Of course, not up to the point that a good scan would show such horrid reading curves as the ones above (except the last one).
These discs are going to be garbage no matter what tests you run on them. Even if they are given to you for free, they waste time.
Well I think stuff like this because of there low price and the fact that something could be tweaked might make it ideal candidates for testing stuff like autostrategy and solidburn. BUt that’s the only reason why someone would use ultra cheap disc’s from someone who uses interaxia’s manufacutering technology.
Media with this MID never was above low quality.
Well I have seen some good results with interaxia media. But that was with the prototypes interaxia made themselves and a few disc’s made by 3A.
But 3A soon changed to plasmon for there technology.
This makes you wonder what the manufacturers are doing that use this code because the specs of it do let you think it has some potential.
I have comeback to do a few more tests for nostalgia reasons. Pic 1-3 are 3rd testing using same vdspmsab 01 media, pic 4 is quality scan of disc burned on nec 2510a at 8x from above. I doubt I want to do quality scan for 2nd disc burned on nec 3540a because it was a defective media. 200 for 30 dollars shipped is the cheapest I found in America even yesbuy.net charge 10 bucks more for this kind of media but their quality are worse or are really garbage in comparison.
Your first PI/PIF test in comparison to its transfer rate test only further proves my point as to the advantage of a PI/PIF test. Looking at the transfer rate test, all that you see is a very minor dip at the edge of the disc, something that is not that uncommon, even with some very good burns you will sometimes see a small dip at the edge because of the very high speeds (16x). In other words, that one small dip would not be a big cause of concern. In contrast, take one look at the PI/PIF test and you’ll see that there are huge error levels, especially at the very edge. PI errors, although not a primary concern, are horrific, and no one would feel comfortable with the level of PIF errors at the edge of the disc. If someone was to judge the quality of the disc by the transfer rate test, they would feel that the disc was ok. If they were to judge the disc with the PI/PIF test, they would know better and not trust the disc.
This is exactly the reason I suggested PI/PIF tests, they give you more detail into the burn’s quality, from your own comparisons you quite easily just proved my point.
a very minor dip at the edge of the disc, something that is not that uncommon, even with some very good burns
You’re also fooling yourself if you just assume that because the PIE/PIF test is good, the disc/burn is good: there are other factors than error levels, and a troubled reading curve in a TRT can catch problems that a scan won’t, even more so if the scanner doesn’t report jitter levels. (That’s why even if LiteOn drives are more “accurate” and fair, I prefer to scan with a Benq 1640)
from your own comparisons you quite easily just proved my point.
Flawed logic (I’m surprised, coming from you!). The TRT does show a slowdown in the problematic area. It proves the TRT alone can tell you there is a problem which is my point. Actually it kinda proves BOTH our points, agreed. But I wonder why you are so eager to dismiss the TRT part…
Of course, my statements about TRTs are valid if (and only if) the test is performed on a reliable reader for TRTs (I stated this above), just like the 3540A is.
As a sidenote I’ve performed more than 600 scans and TRTs on different drives, I think I have some background to my opinions in this area…
@sugarmommyst: thanks for the graphs
Why I have comeback to do another test? to prove to others that cheap media is not as bad as they thought. please note that i had oversped them too much and the quality suffer adversely in my first few burn. I would like to do 8x on 3540a. You will see a great improvement. 
You still won’t accept the facts already pointed out.
You can even burn crappy Princos and get a good scan result - then scan them again a week later and you’ll know why they are only good as frisbees or for the bin.
I still wouldn’t chance them, other than for very temporary storage - transferring data between computers in different locations, for example, which I frequently do.
They may scan beautifully to start with but, as with my old G05s, they may not be readable weeks from now.
Just my thoughts.
sugarmommyst,
No disrespect intended, but those are some horrible scans brother. Even the 8x burns are borderline IMO. I don’t know about you guys, but I have never seen a dip in rate test that scanned good with PIE, PIF test. I always back up Transfer Rate Test dips with full scan to find problem area. I think some folks experience TRT dips while having other apps or programs running and cause interference with the scan.
Just IMO, so take it for what it is worth. If you search these threads you will see that quit a lot of us have wasted many hours reproducing disk because we used below standard media. I know it is tempting to try new media that was on sale for that supper low price, more times than not, there was a reason it was on sale.
