Verbatim is OFF Plextor's Approved List

bobmitch 2005-07-28 15:08:23 UTC #1

Talked to tech support today. New PX-716A replacement (TLA 0308) is good to go. 16X burns on Taiyo Yuden...and some Verbatim. Out of the same cake pak...I will get a 16X burn at 5:45 and a 12X burn, 8X burn and more. Having problems with the DL +R at 8X on my PX-740A. Will burn the first layer at 8X and second layer at 4X...Verbatim quality all over the road. Plextor says that Verbatim is using a different manufacturing plant and things have gone from good to bad to worse. If you want to keep burning Verbatim at 16X (or at least ones that will), don't update to the new PX-716A firmware 1.09, due in the next few weeks. It will remove Verbatim from the high speed list.

Bob

Two_Degrees 2005-07-28 15:51:48 UTC #2

Seems to me it has more to do with Plextor not being able to create a good write strategy for MCC004, since other drives seem to be able to burn them at 16x just fine (and even some 716A drives if you turn PowerRec off)...

Stoneburner 2005-07-28 16:06:55 UTC #3

I was wondering why i was getting erratic burns with my MCC004 lately. Actually they were not erratic results at all, they were all crappy results (about 10 of them) until th very last one i burned which gave me the results i was used to.

Stoneburner 2005-07-28 16:09:14 UTC #4

P.S i get even crappier results on ty02 so maybe my burner is just borked.

chas0039 2005-07-28 20:13:02 UTC #5

I have see others with unsatisfactory 716 burns on TY T02 so it might not be just you.

Two_Degrees 2005-07-28 20:16:36 UTC #6

I haven't seen too many (any?) bad burns of T02@8x...

Pellinore 2005-07-28 20:52:18 UTC #7

I was just wondering the same, my MCC004 cake that i just bought has been just horrible. With verbatim i always had good results untill this new batch.

hwp 2005-07-28 22:55:32 UTC #8

I rather doubt that. What you are describing is exactly what Powerec was designed for to solve, and what it is already doing now on even very good media: stepping down in speed if the media is not up to it's rated speed.

BTW: Verbatim produces in different locations around the world. In my experience everything that does not come out of taiwan would fall under what your Plextor techie has described. Also 8x media from Verbatim (especially the printable kind) have never lived up to a true 8x rating IMHO. Given all that accoding to that techies rambling Verbatim should never had made it into the recommended list at all.

Newsflash:
The reason for recent quality issues might also have another cause:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12172

Lord_Voldemort 2005-07-29 00:53:13 UTC #9

Are you sure that you didn't buy fake TY02? There are lots of them out there, and that would explain crappy results on assumedly TY02 media...

tehGrue 2005-07-29 06:14:18 UTC #10

Ouch! Too bad, I'll have to try some new Verbatims and see if they've really gone bad or what. My burns on MCC002 and MCC003 run circles around my YUDEN000T02's.

bobmitch 2005-07-29 06:57:31 UTC #11

I have two cakes of Verbatim left. 16X DVD+R (MCC004) white, inkjet printable purchased at Sams Club and 16X DVD-R (MCC 03RG20) silver. When I burn the +R with my Plextor 740A and test on the 716A...they come back BAD on one of the three zones (usually inner). The -R disks always pass. When I burn them with the 716A...I get sporadic burn speeds on the +R...1 out of 4 will do 16X totally. Most burn to around the inner zone and then slow down to 12X or even slower. The -R usually burn through to 16X. Mind you I use +R more, so I replaced recently. The cakepak of -R are older. I have always gotten sporadic quality problems with Verbatim. Believe it or not...Plextor recommends CMC or Maxell for faster speed burns and better quality for the 740A...never thought I'd see CMC on an approved list.

Bob

Also...PowerRec does work on the 716A. Using the same +R disks in the 716A...it will slow the burn down to 10-12X on the inner zone...and because of that...the quality of burns is always Good to Very Good. My older NEC ND-3500A, which is in my other machine, burns em all with an EXCELLENT to Very Good result...Go figure.

zevia 2005-07-29 06:57:41 UTC #12

I would believe that Taiyo Yuden TY02 and TYG02 will not be supported @16x, but not Verbatim MCC004/MCC03RG20. Some newer dvd burners now don't support (yet) TY02 and TYG02 @16x such as PX-740A and BenQ 1640, not to mention LG 4163. Also, there are more fake TYs around rather than Verbatims. Verbatim, especially the +R MCC004 has been giving me constantly good result @16x compare to TYs.

Stoneburner 2005-07-29 08:37:11 UTC #13

Well I bought fuji Films, I doubt they use fake TY. ANd yes it was from jabon.

And i've been getting better results with an old batch of mcco3rg20 than the last two batches of mcc004. Thing is my drive used to have excellent results until about Firmware 1.06. I suppose it still does sometimes. So i'll just make like a politician and blame the media.

bob11879 2005-07-29 08:57:22 UTC #14

Unlikely. Plextor, with the exception of announcing DL support in a firmware upgrade, never has pre-announced firmware and certainly has never pre-announced a feature reduction. Coming from a tech support source, I'd take that info with a grain of salt. TS is usually the last to know...been there, done that..

As mentioned above, if the media production results in crappy discs, PoweRec is designed to compensate. I doubt Plextor will go through a wholesale change to the write strategy to remove a particular ADIP for each speed supported when they already have a feature to correct for sloppy media.

Lord_Voldemort 2005-07-29 09:13:38 UTC #15

True, as far as I know, they don't. I had some Fuji TYs as well, and they were real.

Stoneburner 2005-07-29 13:54:27 UTC #16

both verbatim 16x + and - R's are on sale at BB for 10 dollars for 25 packs. I wonder if this is related to potential quality issues.

zevia 2005-07-29 14:06:19 UTC #17

No, it's only a regular weekly sales.

ftp1020 2005-07-29 14:28:23 UTC #18

I, for one, am very relieved that Plextor's PoweRec can still burn (at lower speed, mind) on this terrible, shoddy 16x media put out by fly-by-night outfits like Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, Ricoh, and Maxell.

Those other ODD companies are obviously 'faking it' on such substandard media...

rago88 2005-07-29 17:42:07 UTC #19

well you guys have me confused now.

Have been using Verbatim 16x dvd+ for 6 months and
have burned well over 250 movies with never a coaster.
my actual burn speeds are around 4 minutes per movie.
Using 1.08.
My copies [Write to drive/disk] average 11 minutes total time.

Should I run for the hills and switch media or ignore all the plextor "sky is falling in daily hoopala"?
Tony

bobmitch 2005-07-29 17:50:31 UTC #20

I think the bottom line is that if it works for you...work with it. The same tech who told me that told me that there was nothing wrong with my PX-740A...then later...I had more issues with the 740A and a tech that I have dealt with in the past told me the drive had problems recalibrating the laser entering into the second layer burn. So I take the first tech's word with a grain of salt. He seemed clueless...The second guy knows his stuff...he actually got me set up with an earlier issue...

Bob