Hi all,
I’m going to order an NEC 2500A burner by tomorrow morning. But before I do so, I would like to find out how the write quality would be on Ritek G03 media. I have about 100 of this media left and I want to make sure that the write quality would be very good, as confirmed by Kprobe scans. Has anybody been using Ritek G03s with this burner? My media is actualy Imation DVD-R but the manufacturer shows up as Ritek G03.
Any input would be appreciated.
the NEC 2500A does not work with any Ritek G03 media and does a poor job with G04. In my experience the firmware version used does not matter.
The same NEC 2500a has no problem with any other media I tried.
I have a plextor 708A that writes all ritek media perfectly.
I cant explain why the NEC 2500a doesnt write G04 media branded as TDK or ridata with the correct dye lot. It`s listed as tested media by NEC.
carthoris
i second this opinion.
i have some inkjet printable (white top) ritek G04 disks.
yesterday i burnt 2 of them, both of them had problems towards the edge of the disk (ie. the movie that i put onto the disks froze towards the end).
i then used cheap datawrite redtop v2 disk and the burnt disk worked fine without problems.
from what i can see, my nec2500 cant seem to do a good write on G04 disks. Ive burnt 4 ritek printable disks and only 2 were fully readable.
ive burnt over 10 datawrite redtop v2 disks and all of them were readable.
Many people, if not most, are getting great results with G04. It’s very important to note that not all G04 is the same. OCFreak has tried at least 4 batches, I’ve tested 2 batches, we’ve yet to see any problems with it in the 2500A. As for G03, results also vary.
Ritek makes media to OEM spec, so there can be any number of differing batches around. There’s only one way to know if your existing media will work well, and that’s to try it. No one else’s experience will predict how it will work for you.
Well, thanks for the replies guys. I went ahead and ordered this burner today anyway, because I’ve read so many good things about it. I’m hoping my Ritek G03s would work fine, because they were made for Imation, and they may be indeed grade A quality. I can’t wait to get it and try it.
I have lots of Ritek G04’s and traded my ND-2500A for a Pioneer DVR-107D and get much better results on the Pioneer with them.
By the way, I tried two different batches of G04’s - one frosted silver and the other shiny silver.
I burned 5 imation ritek G03 disks from the same 25 disk spindle and none would play properly. Tested with cdspeed 210 by ahead and they were all a disaster.
Burned the same disks with a plextor 708a and they were perfect.
My ritec G04s were by TDK and they were almost as bad as the G03s yet on my plextor708 they were perfect.
Any plus media I burn on the NEC drive tests perfect with cdspeed 210.
I feel the write stratagy used by the Nec is not optimized in the NEC. I just can`t explain how some NEC 2500A burn the G04 media correctly. I am using the early firmware ver 1.06.
I just home NEC issues a better firmware to take care of the problem.
Carthoris
*** I burned 5 imation ritek G03 disks from the same 25 disk spindle and none would play properly. Tested with cdspeed 210 by ahead and they were all a disaster. ***
This is very bad news for me. My drive has already shipped. But, fortunately newegg.com has a very liberal return policy. I’m hoping my current batch of Imations (Ritek G03s) burn fine and then I won’t buy any Ritek-manufactured media any more. Keeping my fingers crossed.
To falberni and all others having trouble with Ritek -R discs:
I just want to bring to the point that you might have the wrong approach or blame the wrong guy.
Say you buy a NEC2500 for $100 and have to pay $150 for 100 discs that deliver good burning results. I would then go with a Pioneer 107 for $150 and pay $100 for Ritek G04 and have the same results with cheaper discs. The quality will be equal, the amount of money spent, I will have a cost advantage after 100 discs burnt - and I can burn the Riteks with the hacked firmware for the Pioneer 107 from >NIL: at 8x compared to 4x with the NEC.
This leaves me with the logical conclusion:
I had also worse results with the same Ritek G04 and G03 discs with my NEC1300A compared to my Pioneer 105. It’s for sure not the discs. These results are with discs from the same spindle! However, none were so bad that they couldn’t be read or make trouble but the KPROBE results are 10x worse with the discs burnt on the NEC1300.
Ritek G04 burned at 4x in NEC 2500A by me:
Ritek G04 burned at 4x in NEC 2500A by Calaca:
Ritek G04 burned at 4x by OCFreak:
I can go on with this, but I think you can get the point. These discs were burned with the same drves and same firmware as those with poorer results. To say that this is a “firmware” or “hardware” problem is to ignore what is obvious.
One of the hallmarks of marginal quality media is the way it will produce widely varying results in different drives. Slight variations between the drives OR the media will produce very different results. One need only look at the starkly similar results that all 2500A drives produce on other media to confirm that it’s the Ritek media that’s the cause of the trouble.
And the NEC is not the first drive to demostrate these problems with Ritek G03/04 media. LiteOn and Pioneer drives have the same issues with it. My NEC produces better burns on G04 than my 106D does, almost every time.
If you want to buy cheap media for the 2500A, there’s plenty of other options that will produce good results, CMC is most notable.
Good point rdgrimes!
Still miss a comparison of a Lite-On, NEC, Pioneer based on the same spindle of Ritek G04… That’s what I suggested in the other post. Seems you have a Pio 106 and a NEC2500. I would still be very interested in such a comparision. As of today I have only seen worse burns with my NEC1300 compared to the Pio-105. Definitely the reason is not the variation among disc manufacturing. But I have posted before that Ritek has several production locations/ lines and the discs might differ in quality. And could be bad - I do not question that. I’m only speaking about my results with discs from the same spindle - and the NEC 1300 burns are worse for sure.
A workaround of course is to stay away completely from the Riteks but there are no brands to my knowledge that would be either better, equal, more even more consistant at the same price level.
Still miss a comparison of a Lite-On, NEC, Pioneer based on the same spindle of Ritek G04…
Been posted in the DVD test forum for some time, and had similar results from a second batch of G04 as well.
Ritek freely advertises that they make media to OEM spec, G04 under different brands can be very different.
Can’t imagine that Ritek would “tweak” their G04s to different standards based on the OEM they produce their discs for.
There might be differences between the locations /lines, tests and OEM acceptance criteria -but not differences how they make the discs for various OEMs. That’s not how the industry works. It would be just more expensive and create more trouble that it would do any good. IMHO that’s a misinterpretation.
If you have a good product, you want to produce as much of it as possible and in the same way all over the world. The only way to make money in the long run.
the strange thing is that the cheaper disks burn much better on my nec2500 than when using the supposedly superior quality riteks.
from the review, ive noticed that good results were seen when using the cheap disks. i intend to try out some very cheap disks very soon, although the datawrite redtop (v2) disks that im using now are now being sold in the uk for about £8/25, which is about as cheap as they come.
also, for the people who are having good results (and bad results) could you post what ide channel u r using, ie. primary/secondary/slave/master etc). im just wondering if having my nec on as primary master could be causing any problems.
ocfreak’s review had the nec on as a secondary slave if i remembrer correctly.
btw. im using an intel chipset motherboard and intel cpu (so no nvidia/via chipsets).
The NEC 2500A has a problem with Ritek Disks branded unbranded A grade A- grade B grade whatever you want to call them.
The firmware in the DVD burner determines how it will handle the disk its attempting to write. I dont know how many different disk stratagies the firmware can contain but I will say this. Nec posted on its website a list of disks and Ritek G04 is listed. The fault lies in the hands of NEC. How do we get this info to them so it can be corrected. It`s also not good for Ritek since it makes them look bad.
Maybe what we need is a listing of user feedback listing the burner, model ,firmware, Ide position, DVD ID code and brand name,
All tested using nero cdspeed (not the best way but a good start)
Also listing the DVD drive and its firmware such as liteoneit HD166 firmware DS1A
Possibly one of the moderators could standerdize this and we could post this info.
The bottom line is to match a burner with the best possible media choices
Thanks in advance
Carthoris
for the people who are using ritek disks with good success, do u guys have ASPI drivers installed?
i dont have aspi drivers and cannot write reliably to ritekG04 disks.
I have ASP! 4.60 with windows me and never had a problem with Ritek GO3 or GO4 with my Plextor 708A. Now with a NEC 2500A in the same position as the Plex its a no go.
The plex is in another system and it works fine.
The problem is NEC 2500A`s write strategy for Ritek.
I hope this helps
I got my NEC 2500A delivered today. First the good news. I burned one 2X OptoDisk Gold DVD-R and one 2X OptoDisk DVD-RW. They both burnt fine. Nero CD Speed lines were very straight for both. Checked Kprobe on Lite-On 48161H combo drive. Kprobe results looked okay. Now the bad news. I burnt two Imation 2X DVD-R. These are high quality Ritek G03s packaged by Imation. I had burnt many of these with my Pioneer A04 with great results before. The NEC finished the burns but then it couldn’t read them. I put them in the Lite-On combo drive and it managed to finish the Nero CD Speed test on one of them. The speed line looked terrible, one of the worst I’ve ever seen. The second one could not finish the Nero CD Speed test. It failed. This drive is going back. I’ve already placed my order for a Pioneer 107D.
Imation media is some of the worst I’ve ever used. I have had so many problems with these CDs. And using the c1/c2 test with my Plextor drive confimed this. I went through and reburnt every CD in my library burned on this media. Imation CDs are completely worthless and I’d never use them no matter what.
I can only assume that Imation DVDs are just as bad. The pioneer DVR-107 may write them, but look at the kprobe scans. They are trash.
I currently have a LiteOn 411s, PIO A05 and NEC 2500a at my disposal. I also have an AMD and Intel system. I would be more than glad to test some Ritek G04 -R media in both systems with every drive, but i would like some recommendations on the best way to test them.
In particular, i need recommendations on best firmware for each drive (ex. FS0J/411s, 1.33/A05, 1.06/2500A), I would make a backup .iso of a movie with dvddecryptor and then burn it using either Nero 5.5.10.54 or DVDDecryptor–or any other program recommended. also, burn speeds for the drive–assuming 4x for each and finally, how fast to read the media when using Kprobe 1.1.29.