Good sale on blank CDs

Colleagues,I know some of you have an aversion to Memorex products, but I have never experienced difficulty with their CDs, though their cassettes, both audo & video, left a lot to be desired.Office Depot has another twofer this week, in which you can buy 100 Memorex CDs on a spindle for $39.97+tax, and get another 100 free. This works out to $.20-$.22 each depending on tax. Given that I back up my under development route as often as twice a day at times, to CD, and seldom longer than every 3 days, with snapshots of the World, Tile, & Rootfiles to another hardrive (on another PC in my workspace) every hour or less, I burn a bunch of CDs.Not advertising, just letting you know.J. H. Sullivan

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RE: Good sale on blank CDs, calr, May-03-04, 02:37 PM, (1) RE: Good sale on blank CDs, rpicardi1, May-03-04, 03:42 PM, (2) RE: Good sale on blank CDs, calr, May-03-04, 03:53 PM, (3) RE: Good sale on blank CDs, rpicardi1, May-03-04, 04:43 PM, (4) RE: Good sale on blank CDs, heffed, May-03-04, 07:10 PM, (5) RE: Good sale on blank CDs, sd70mac666, May-05-04, 10:00 AM, (6) RE: Good sale on blank CDs, Baldwinbob, May-05-04, 08:07 PM, (7)

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A good price is not always a good deal! Do you want to trust your valuable data to media that MANY people, myself included, have found to be unreliable? I know I don't.When I go into CompUSA and look at their media display, it is overwhelming. About 1/3 of it is Memorex. For DVD media, I have been using CompUSA's store brand with no problems. I will use just about any brand BUT Memorex.Incidentally, for CD-R, I have been using audio CD-R. They are slightly more expensive but I think they are better disks. Additionally, I can record music on them if I have a need.Cal Rasmussen
Beaverton, OR
(My email is in my profile)Columbia Gorge Route (Phase 2-- Started)

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I've been using Verbatium in the 100pk spindle. Price is right at the warehouse store and so far, no problem burning CDs. They have a heavy coating suitable for marking with a felt tip marker.Note on CD-R, the coated surface, the one that you place a label or write on, is the surface that the data is burned to. Damage that with a ball point pen, sticky label, scratch, etc... and you just have a coaster.Most of the better brands have better coatings then the older batch. They are also rated for different burn in speeds. Therefore, buy disks rated for the speed of your burner or don't burn faster then the rating on the disk.I won't buy CDs labeled for audio. You are just paying the copyright holders in the music industry a royality for the privilage of saving your data to those CD. That's why they cost more. SRV Ron

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If that is true, Ron, why is it that audio burned to a data CD will not play on an audio CD player. Some of what you say may be true but I still think the quality is better. The price is only about 15-20% higher than data CDs.Cal Rasmussen
Beaverton, OR
(My email is in my profile)Columbia Gorge Route (Phase 2-- Started)

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Data CDs are formatted much like the hard drive as track and sectors. There are several formats out there and if burned in the proper format, the CD data can be accessed by PC, Macs, and Amigas. If not burned in the proper format, such CDs can only be accessed by drives using the software that created the CDs and sometimes, only by the drive it was burned in. That may be why it works on the burner, but not in an audio player.Example, I have a DVD burner that can encode the raw data to a "Drag and Drop" format. It takes a few minutes to burn data to it. If I close the DVD to play on any player, the process may take 1 to 2 hours. But, the DVD will work on any DVD drive. If I don't, it will only be usable on the drive it was burned to. It won't work on my internal DVD even though "Drag and Drop" software is on the computer.When 3.5 floppys were $5 each, we used to do things to them that they weren't designed for such as modifing SD DD disks for use as DD DD disks. It didn't always work, or did at first. It was very brand dependent if it would work at all.Since I haven't created any "music CDs" for an audio player, it's a totally different way that data is written to one, I don't know the reason for the difference, other then perhaps better quality, between the two packages of a given brand.As always, use whatever gives you the most reliable results.Time to ditch the tech end of this subject if I want to get back to modeling. I will be starting a megapack of old farm houses soon. I now have old brick textures and photos of apex designs on the 100 year old ones.SRV Ron

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>I won't buy CDs labeled for audio. You are just paying the
>copyright holders in the music industry a royality for the
>privilage of saving your data to those CD. That's why they
>cost more. The difference in price due to the royalty is pennies per spindle. Nothing worth even being concerned about.The main reason for the difference in price is because audio rated CDs have a different dye formulation than data disks. In general, burning an audio CD results in longer "on" times in regards to the laser, than burning a data disk.The spec that the audio blanks are manufactured to was originally intended for the standalone CD recorders utilizing analog signal inputs. The recording format was limited to 1x speed, and the laser burn cycle is for the duration of the recording.The cheaper dye formulation common in data blanks, isn't very well suited to this type of use. The "stoutness" of the dye formulae also has the net effect of higher tolerance to UV degredation.The dye in audio blanks also has a higher reflectivity rating than data disks. CDRom drives in PCs are a lot less finicky than the standalone audio burners. The end result is higher drive compatibility with an audio blank. CDRWs have the lowest reflectivity of the lot.And the reason audio recorded on a data disk isn't read in most audio players, is that the blanks themselves have a "flag" encoded on them. This is a copy protection procedure to try and limit home users ability to record copy protected music. It's a fairly weak concept from any serious security standpoint, but since most home users buy data CDRs, it does work. At work, I've been using CDRs since they were $50-$75 a blank. I've done exhaustive tests on media.Personally, even for data, I only use professional grade audio blanks. Preferably Emtec, (formerly BASF) or TDK. Mitsui Golds in a pinch. -Jeff

Union Pacific fan.

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LAST EDITED ON May-05-04 AT 10:02 AM (EDT)

I use Memorex, Pacific Digital and Sony (in a pinch) and I have not had problems with either of them. Memorex works fine in my 2 computers, my 2 DVD players, hell even in my PlayStation 2, (if I used it to burn audio tracks).I have Nero and Roxio on disc but I use Nero cause it's far better but I'm not starting a holy war hereIf you need answers on media, heffed is the person to ask.
I only know it somewhat.
Dr. SatanI'm otherwise known as the SatanTrain

High on the roof,
Thin the blood,
Another one on the waves tonight,
Comin' in, you're home
Orange Crush: R.E.M.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4908081/

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