Supermedia YUDEN000T02 not as good as others?

Blank Media
#1

Besides Supermediastore.com’s “Genuine Taiyo Yuden”, the YUDEN000T02 media (8x +R) can be found in a number of name brands, such as Fujifilm, Sony etc. I did several scans each for the 3 brands above, and have found Supermediastore’s discs consistently worse than Fujifilm or Sony by a significant margin (PIF in 200-500 range vs 1000+). I have NEC3520AW 1.UG burner, sampling at 8x.

Has anybody else experienced this? Seems to me the Supermediastore’s “genuine” YUDEN000T02 discs (shiny silver surface) are not as good as the other brands. How can this be? Is Supermediastore hiding some truth here?

#2

If you are using the NEC to scan, you have a problem. These drives are not really for scanning. Actually, I have found non-branded TY to be much better than brand names, especially Fuji.

#3

If you are using the NEC to scan, you have a problem. These drives are not really for scanning.

The NEC 3520A has a firmware patch I got from liggydee.cdfreaks.com that enables PIE/PIF scanning. I scanned discs of several brands. The results seem to correspond with expectations and specific disc conditions. Can you elaborate what’s wrong with this drive for scanning?

BTW, I see you perfect scan has no relevance to this topic since it’s a differenet media.

#4

The only drives considered reliable for scanning are Liteon, BenQ, and overpriced Plextors. At their best, NEC drives are a rough estimate of what an accurate scan would be with a reliable drive. While your NEC may well be doing a good job of comparitive scanning, it would not be the drive anyone here would use to try to make a claim that TY discs from one source were consistently better than from another source.

While what you suggest may be true, confirmation on a real scanning drive would be needed to seriously consider your claim. NEC drives just were not designed to scan, even though they can be forced to.

#5

My NEC 3540 reports PIFs fine. I’m confident that I’d have the same PIF (+/- 5%) rate scanning on a Benq or a Liteon – the same discrepancy you’d have if you were to scan with a Benq or a Liteon twice consecutively. In my personal experience and in my travels on the boards, I’ve noticed that it’s only the PIE reporting that’s completely out of whack with NECs. After all, PIFs and PIEs are totally different things…

My Sony-branded TY T02 has been 200-500, too Jade. Sounds like you may have a bad batch.