I mentioned this in another thread, but decided to expand on it in its own, so I could get some feedback.
I recently ran across some discs that I totally fell in love with. Thoseād be Optodisc, 8x. Man, they worked great. First time Iāve ever gone through a hundred of 'em and didnāt get any bad burns or defective discs. Happy as a clam. Stable, steady burning, too.
Ok, things seem great, right? So I head back to Shop4tech for another batch. I kinda think that outfit isnāt so hot, since they openly shill for themselves everywhere, but they do keep the price down and usually deliver, so what the heck, bank account trumps my pride. The new batch got here today, and right off I see something aināt right. The little paper label that sits on top is different. Says āAcro-Circleā on it, and itās a yellow checker pattern, not the familiar brown background. I do a little digging, and in a few places I see that Acro-Circle is supposed to be a sub of Optodisc. So, natch, I think everythingās cool. They musta just changed their label and did a little housecleaning or something. But then I fire up DVDInfo and DVD Identifier, to see if theyāre the exact same Optodiscs with a new label, or a different type, merely from the same company. Since I liked the previous ones so much.
Imagine my surprise. These arenāt Optodiscs at all. The info says theyāre Taiyo Yuden (TYG02). Thatās the same code I got when I made the mistake of buying those lousy BurnMasters from AllMediaOutlet (read: crooks). Real garbage. Factory rejects or bootleg fakes, one or the other, Iām sure. Iāve burned half a dozen today to give them a shot, and they suck. Oh, theyāre burning alright, but theyāre performing like 2x discs. I should point out here that Iāve got a Pioneer 107 and an NEC 3520A. Actual TYs are compatible with these drives. These discs have the descriptors for up to 12x, with a stated manufacturerās rating of 8x. Bull. The discs canāt accept the data at that rate, even though the drive is trying to because it thinks they can. It keeps having to reload the buffer ever couple of secs. Takes half an hour to burn one of these. Ridiculous.
Anyway, Iām very curious if anyone else has gotten ahold of any āAcro-Circleā discs (yellow, checkerboard insert/label), and if they ID as these, or Optodisc (theyāre supposed to have a manufacturerās ID of āOPTODISCR008ā), and how well they work (if youāve got the real thing, of course). The Optodiscs I got that came with the brown label on top, with a listed part # of 1660939000, were just wonderful, and I want to buy them exclusively. Donāt know what to make of Acro-Circle, though. Even their homepage doesnāt mention Optodisc, but other sites swear up and down theyāre the same thing (which would be weird, since Acro is in Taiwan, and Optodisc is in Japan, or so I read).
Heh, I want to complain about the screwup, but Iām not sure what to complain about. Do I get upset that these are Acro-Circle and not the same thing they sold me before, or just ticked that it wasnāt even what was supposed to be in the cakeboxes?
Kurgan