Really, this is only a rant about the last. So the other week, I bought myself a couple of DVD+R Dual Layer discs. $5 a piece at Fry's. They were the cheapest, and, being made by Sony, I figured they'd be halfway decent. So I bring them home. A few days later, I get around to burning the latest Mac OS X Leopard disk image (not a pirated copy; I get it legitimately). The Burn dialog offers to burn at 4x. I'm cautious - the media's only rated for 2.4x. So I burn 5.7 GB at a very slow speed. Seems to be going just fine. Then, it's done, and starts verifying... and that goes great. I take it out, and, having nowhere to put the disc, wrap it up in a piece of paper. Just plain old, clean copier paper. Couple days go by, I decide I want to install it on one of my external drives for my laptop, and I've meanwhile found the stash of proper CD sleeves. I put it in one, and put that in an interior pocket in my backpack, where of course, I forget about it for a few days. Today, I find it, still secure in its pocket and sleeve, and I get it out... and it's cloudy and scratched. I try an LCD wipe (wet/dry type)and no improvement. I cross my fingers and put it in the drive... and I've got a coaster. The damn thing refuses to be read. I'm pissed. Doubly so because Sunday, I was at an Apple Retail Store (helping my sister pick an iPod), and I found they sell Double Layer media as well... Memorex, no less, for $2/disc. Who'd have ever imagined the Apple Store could be cheaper than Fry's for, well, anything? Certainly not me. So I'm pissed. Pissed at myself, for spending $10 on 2 DL discs, pissed at Fry's for letting me down on this, and especially pissed at Sony for making optical media with a useful life of a week. [/rant]
Did you leave your backpack out in the hot sun or anything? I find CDs tend to warp easily with temperature.
I use Sony DVD-R's all the time with no issue. My problem is with Memorex. Junk. And usually expensive. -J.
One would think that Sony would want to protect their brand by not buying and branding such craptacular media.
You scratched it imo. Bad media doesn't just develop scratches and clouds on the surface... the interior burning medium doesn't keep its correct current state.
The actual medium that holds the data is extremely thin. A cloudy appearance throughout the plastic suggests bending or heat exposure to me. Might not have happened while you were in possession of the product. Could've occured during shipping or storage. Have you tried to return them?
FWIW, Sony brand Betacam tapes weren't the best, either. The best analog tapes were always 3M brand. Their "formula" was both high quality and durable. It was a real shame when they quit making them. We no longer use SonySX digital tapes, either. Maxell's quality is just as good and they're cheaper.
The only thing Sony gives a shit about is making enough money to swim in like Scrooge McDuck in "Ducktales."
Oh, God. I bought DVD discs from Sony, and they have been nothing but trouble. One of them froze up after I'd copied over eight goddamn hours of video. I wasn't too surprised when, come April, my local Target had all Sony's DVD products on clearance. I've heard form a few places that certain DVD recorders act better with certain DVD -/+ R's. It's just a matter of playing around with a few brands. I use Memorex and TDK with no problems.
It wasn't cloudy before I burned it. I suppose it's possible it got hot in my backpack since my computer had been on for quite a while before I put it to sleep. I buy stuff at Fry's because I know it's (supposed to be) cheap, not for the return policy. Having returned something to Fry's before, I know it's not worth my $10 to try, even if I succeed.
I haven't messed with dual layer discs too much, but generally I buy as cheap as I can find when it comes to disc media. I buy a big spool of 50 or so. The way I figure it is, the cost of throwing out a few 40c disks is a still cheaper than paying 2 bucks per DVD in a 5 pack or a single. Granted, I don't use DVDs for longterm backup of important data. I just set my burning app to check the data after a write, so I know right away whether or not it went ok. The main thing about CDs & DVDs is that the same brand has so many different manufacturers it is really very difficult to tell whether they suck or are good. So, I just buy on the cheap. I've never come across failure rate of more than a few discs from a 25 or 50 pack.
I've had nothing but problems with DL discs. I stopped even bothering to buy them, since they cost so damn much. I wanted to try and use them to copy movies that were DL in the first place. Well, none of them ever worked right, so I just stopped bothering and condensed them to fit on a SL disc instead. Don't copy movies anymore nowadays... I always found that I never ended up watching 75% of what I'd copy.
