pjclark1

Just burnt some Yellows Media ID CMC MAG AE1 (same as titanium)
Burnt on a NEC 3500a with Quikee Extreme V2 firmware @ 12x




and another one




I've highlighted the faster part of the burn, PI fails do rise here but this seems to be a feature of high speed burns,guess

we will all have to get used to this, but still pretty good for 12x

Same as Titanium, these appear to be great disks.
Again play in everything I own, including my very picky PS2



________________________________________________________________________________




themanwithapc

A very generous 25 pack spindle arrived this morning. Will carry out 5 varied tests to test the credentials of these discs.

The spindle and packaging of the discs is exactly the same as the Datawrite Titaniums that have recently been used. This

makes it very difficult to tell what disc you are buying. The top of the disc is also similar to the Datawrite Yellows 4x

(ritek G04) that were released last year, but this was hardly a surprise considering these discs are the successors to the

Datawrite Yellow 4x.

HARDWARE SETUP:
Windows XP Home
Athlon XP 2800+ Barton
1024 Samsung DDR Ram PC2700
160GB Maxtor IDE + 160GB Seagate SATA
NEC 2500A
Sony DVD ROM (DDU1612)
Sony DAV S400
PS2 version 7 with Magic 3

TESTS
1. DVD-r to DVD-r (ripped to hard drive)
2. DVD-r to DVD-r (on the fly)
3. PS2 game
4. Converted from avi file

Disc ID: CMC MAG. AE1
After much confusion about the dye of this disc, it seems as if Datawrite has stuck with its new favourite, the CMC dye, also

used in the Datawrite Titaniums and Datasafe Classic 8x.

Disk 1 (size: 4.36GB)
For the first test, I used a DVD movie (Ricky Gervais: Politics) that I ripped to the hard drive using DVD Decrypter. The

movie was already on a DVD-r, but the contents of the disc would be taken from the files I had put onto my hard drive. I

burned this using Nero. After setting speed to 8x, I went ahead with the burning. The burning took 9mins 36secs. I then ran a

speed test using Nero CD-DVD Speed, the results of which are shown below.




The graph shows the odd hiccup at the 1x mark, but other than that, it’s an almost perfect burn.

I played the disc firstly in my Sony DAV S400 and then in my Playstation 2. The S400 is a great player, and isn’t too picky

with media. Most media can be read by the laser, provided it’s in the right format. Suffice to say, this didn’t have any

problems. Chapter skipping was very smooth, and searching was done with minimum hassle by the player. Although the PS2 is

very picky about DVD media (especially where films/movies are concerned), it played this back superbly. The chapter skipping

was as good as the S400, and there were no signs of pixilation near the end. Definitely the sign of a good disc.

Disk 2 (size: 4.09GB)
For the first test, I used another DVD movie that had already been backed up on DVD-r so did not need any sort of

modification. The difference in this test to the previous one, is that the burning will be done on the fly. This time I used

Sonic RecordNow! The disc took 13mins 48secs to copy at 8x. Once again, I scanned the disc in Nero CD-DVD speed.




The graph once again shows a very good burn, with a little problem at 3x.

Once again, I played the disc in both my PS2 and Sony DAV S400. Both times, the movie was good at chapter skipping and

searching, and at no time showed signs of any pixilation. However, I did notice it took slightly longer on this disc to

change menus, something that didn’t happen on the original source. Obviously, this disc was smaller in size compared to the

one used in the first test, so gives less accurate results compared to that for testing the outer sectors of the disc.

Disk 3 (size: 4.36GB)
For the third test, I decided to burn a game onto the disc for testing in my PS2. I chose to copy the game from an image I

had ripped to the hard drive. Using DVD Decrypter to both extract and burn the image, I managed to burn the at 4x (lower

speed for PS2 games is recommended). I chose not to do a speed graph for this in Nero.

Playing my game in the PS2, I found that there were no major problems. Mostly the game played fine, but at a cut scene, there

was a skip in the fmv. Still nothing major, and I did notice this once, so could just be a pure coincidence. Overall, very

good for backing up games.

EDIT: pjclark1 informs me that the reason my fmv may have skipped is due to the fact that I may have burned the image too

slowly. I will be following this up with another burn of the same game, at 8x. Hopefully, we will find out by the end of it

whether that was the reason for the skip. If anyone else can perhaps test this theory out, it would give a greater insight

into this.

UPDATE: as explained above, I was recommended to try burning the game at the recommended media speed of 8x, rather than

slower (4x). After putting this theory to the test, I tried the game once again in my PS2. After playing through to the part

that had orginally skipped during fmv, to my surprise I noticed that this time the fmv played back smoothly. To test the

validation of pjclark1's theory against these latest results, I once again burned the game on 4x for use in my PS2. This time

however, the game did not skip at the fmv either. This may suggest that the initial burn might have had an unexplainable

inconsistency. Incidentlly, I played both games through for about 30 mins each, alternating at each save point. Both gave

good loading times, and there was no evidence of skipping anywhere else.


________________________________________________________________________________



paul_nugent01


HARDWARE SETUP:
Windows XP Home SP2
P4 2.0
RAM: 512Mb DDR
HDD: 120Gb
Pioneer 104 F/W 1.40 - internal
Pioneer 108 F/W 1.14 - external USB
DVD Player: Philips DVR80


Using Pioneer 108

Disk 1) File size = 4.11Gb. Failed burning at x8
Disk 2) File size = 4.11Gb. Failed burning at x4

Using Pioneer 104

Disk 3) File size = 4.11Gb. Burned at x2 taking 27min39s. A few pixelation problems in the opening scenes. Apart from that

played perfectly.
Disk 4) File size = 4.36Gb. Burned at x2 taking 28min45s. Good playback
Disk 5) File size = 4.13Gb. Burned at x2 taking 28min21s. Good playback
Disk 6) File size = 4.36Gb. Burned at x2 taking 28min47s. Good playback
Disk 7) File size = 4.36Gb. Burned at x2 taking 28min47s. Good playback

Overall the disks seem fine and at 19p from SVP, excellent value.
Thanks to Disqworld and SVP

________________________________________________________________________________



Tattooed Freak


Hardware & Software Used
Windows XP Pro
Alcohol 120%
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
Pioneer 108 with V1.8
Cyberhome DVD Player
PS2


Disc 1.

Type: 4.21gb .mds image of a PS2 DVD game, burnt at 4x.
Time taken: 14:55.
Result: Tested working in 2 PS2's, faultless video footage and very smooth during gameplay. Read back to my PC via my Pioneer

108 to take an image in 9 minutes.
Performance Attachment: (Yes)

[img]www.tattooedfreak.co.uk/images/wod.bmp[/img]


Disc 2.

Type: 3.84gb .mds image of a movie, burnt at 4x.
Time taken: 13:23.
Result: Tested working in Cyberhome DVD player and Pioneer 108. Movie jump's twice for a split second during play in both. I

examined the original movie I took an image of and this is not the case. Read back to my PC via my Pioneer 108 in 10 minutes.

Re-burnt image in 13:25 and it is flawless. Played back on my 108 and Cyberhome DVD player to test this. 1 iffy disc, I would

be as fussy as to say it was damaged.
Performance Attachment: (No - doh!)


Disc 3.

Type: 4.25gb .mds image of a movie, burnt at 4x.
Time taken: 15:02.
Result: Tested working in Cyberhome DVD player and Pioneer 108. Completely flawless, no problems whatsoever. Read back to my

PC via my Pioneer 108 in 9 minutes.
Performance Attachment: (Yes)

[img]www.tattooedfreak.co.uk/images/the_village.bmp[/img]


Disc 4.

Type: 4.31gb .mds image of a PS2 game. I chose to burn at 2x as my PS2 is very picky and will only play disc's burnt at this

speed.
Time taken: 30:02.
Result: Tested working in 2 PS2's. Gameplay and Video scenes are again completely flawless, no problems whatsoever. Read back

to my PC via my Pioneer 108 in 19 minutes.
Performance Attachment: (No, I have exceeded my bandwidth)


Disc 5.

Type: 4.32gb .mds image of a PS2 game. Again, I chose to burn at 2x as my PS2 is an ass and will only play disc's burnt at

this speed.
Time taken: 30:17.
Result: Tested working in 2 PS2's. Gameplay and Video scenes are again completely flawless, no problems whatsoever. Read back

to my PC via my Pioneer 108 in 19 minutes.
Performance Attachment: (No, I have exceeded my bandwidth)

Overall

I am very pleased with the overall performance of these disc's. They look great and I cannot see any problems with dye. Only

1 slight issue noticed during my 5 test burn's, this was only a minor issue. I was very pleased at the performance of the

disc's in my PS2, superb...no probems whatsoever.


________________________________________________________________________________

Jmax


PC Set-up :-
Athlon 64 3200+
1024mmb ram
12x dual layer DVD writer built in (unknown make)
Pioneer 108 external (which I usually use for burning)

Disc 1 - copied film "King Arthur" using DVD Shrink. No problems. Burnt at 12x in Pioneer 108 and played flawlessly in LG DVD

player.

Disc 2 - copied film "Troy" - DVD Shrink had problems with this so I used DVD Decrypter to copy files to hard drive, then

used DVD Shrink to compress and burn. Successfully burnt at 12x in Pioneer 108, and, again, played with no problems in LG DVD

player

Disc 3 - copied about 3gb of jpeg files using Nero. No problems.

Overall, I am pleased with the quality of these discs so far. They seem to be a bargain price and burn at 12x - what more

could you ask ?

Added:  Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Reviewer:  Ed

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