Quality of "gold" JVC DVDs
 

Hi. I wanted to order a whole load of JVC (TY) DVDs from DVD Shop On Line in the U.K., but the photos of the discs indicate that they have a gold rather than silver surface. From what I read in your excellent columns, the former is an inferior surface. Does anyone know what the story is on this? I find it bizarre that Taiyo Yuden should choose to go with a second-rate surface. And does anyone have experience dealing with dvdshoponline.co.uk? Take my word for it, buying quality discs at an acceptable price in Paris in no simple affair.

all the best,
David

What would you consider to be an acceptable price?
Aside from simply answering the question, I may be able to suggest alternative stores, in addition to specific disc suggestions.

Let me know. :)

Hey. Thanks for the quick reply. Okay, so the deal is that dvdshoponline.co is offering three different JVC DVD (all TYG03), two of which are at about $0.28, and the other around $0.70. The more expensive one is labelled archive quality. All three seem to be gold colored in the photograph. So the first question is why gold and what effect will that color have on the recording? The second question is about the price difference. Isn't the essential factor the identification? Why so much more expensive? Are the cheaper DVDs faulty? If the discs are going to be recorded at the running speed of the film I'm taking off the HD am I going to see a difference in quality? I used to buy TY-made Verbatims from a very good supplier in England at around the same price as the cheaper JVCs, but SVP Online no longer ships to France, which is the same story for Amazon U.K. I'd like to cop the discs for around that cost, if possible.

Anyway, thanks again, and I'm looking forward to your comments.

all the best,
D

Hey. I just thought I'd let you know that I found a German distributor who offers Verbatims MCC 03RG20 for 0.22€ and the JVC TYG03 for 0.25€. Do you believe that the Verbatim is a better disc. The photos of the JVCs still look gold colored. Is it possible that only the "label" side is gold and the recording side is silver? I'm eager to hear your thoughts.

Thanks again for all the bother.

D

Gold media has these properties:

• Higher costs for the gold materials.
• Gold will technically last longer than other metals, but that's HIGHLY MISLEADING* and completely unimportant, given how media is built.
• Although it should theoretically reflect light better, it tends to have worse reflectivity than silver alloy media.

Given those three points, you're paying more money for media that is harder to read, with a guarantee to "last longer" in a way that doesn't matter.

* The dye of a disc will break down faster than either silver alloy or gold. The foil reflector does not hold the data on recordable media, the dye does. Most gold discs are also manufactured by Mitsui/MAM-A, which uses a hard-to-read/hard-to-burn dye, as compared to other dyes. So while the dye and foil may not age as badly as silver in 100 years, it's going to be just as hard to read as a silver-based and/or AZO-dye media. It started off harder to read, and it gets worse as it ages -- even if it ages more gracefully. It's also worth mentioning that the sandwiched nature of DVD media prevents quick decay of the internal materials, as compared to CD media.

It's all marketing. All bark, no bite.

The facts and truth ARE facts and truth, but presented in a way so as to be completely misleading in regards to what should be considered the most important aspects of blank optical media. As mentioned in other threads recently, glues/bonding is just as important, and almost always overlooked, even by archivists (big mistake!).

Verbatim "gold" discs use a silver reflective. Those discs are, as far as I'm concerned, only sold because people are dumb enough to buy them. What's the point of having extra gold in a disc, simply for the sake of gold? (Because there are so many dummies out there who insist you must have gold for it to be the best! That's why! The point is Verbatim wants money from that market, too, even if it is really silly.)

I want to double-check, but I'm pretty sure the JVC TY "gold" media refers to the gold lacquer, which is again (like Verbatim) not related to the reflective foil surface. It's just a gold-color glop that is painted onto the media as added upper surface material for printing. Remember that "shiny silver" (and apparently "shiny gold") media was created for printing after duplication, not one-by-one consumer use. So I'd say that's more a designer color than anything else. But again, I'll re-verify.

I have more to say, but not enough time to do it. Helping on the current server upgrades, which is why the site was down for about 35 hours. Back soon with more, when I get some extra minutes between tasks.

Thanks. Hope that helps. :)

Continued from email...

In response to the "normal speed (1x)" comment...

I'd like to know why you'd be using a 1x recording speed. Most current burners won't even allow for that, because it's simply far too slow compared to the optimal speed (and rating) of the media. And it's been that way for several years now.

Ideally you want to burn media at its rated speed, or a half or full step below that. On 16x media, for example, a half speed step would be 12x, with a full speed step would be to burn it at 8x. Anything below that tends to be just as bad as burning too fast. A 18x-22x burn on 16x media is going to be just as lousy as 1x-2x-4x burning on the same disc.

Note that realtime packet method burning (i.e., DVD recorders) is not a 1x speed.

Verbatim media is technically rated as "1x-16x" media, but I'd still advise against using it at anything other than realtime (in a DVD recorder), 8x, 12x or 16x. I would begrudgingly okay use at 4x, but never 1x-2x, or 18x+ speeds. The media fails far more often at those speeds, as it's technically being used outside the speed range it was designed for.

Don't make the mistake of burning "as slow as possible". That's just another bad myth.

Thanks for the once again rapid response. I further checked out the "gold issue" and learned that only the label side was painted with the glowing glop. The reflective recording side is still "silver" or grey. I apologize for confusing 1x with realtime packet burning. As I use a DVD recorder, that's the method I'm stuck with. So the essential question remains: On the DVD recorder (that's proven quite acceptable using TYG03 discs) would I wind up with a better end product using the Verbatim or the JVC (TYG03) disc?

all the best,
David

From the new DVD media guides (unreleased, but coming soon). Here's a list of suggested media for France, from Amazon.fr:

I'd go for the Verbatim media, personally. It should work quite well in your DVD recorder. The Sony discs should be pretty good, too, assuming those are made in Taiwan (not Malaysia), which is probably the case.

Then again, if the TYG03 media is working well, why change? Those discs are also excellent, and if the recordings are good, I'd just continue with what you know works.

Glad to help. :)

Hello,

I know my situation isn't scientific at all, but still worth sharing: I've burned more than 600 of those gold JVC/TY discs so far. All on my 2009 Mac Pro with the built-in DVD burner (Hitachi HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GH41N), all at 8X.

Not a single bad burn, and none of those I've tried to read have given me any problem. In fact, they've fared better on my set-up than the good Verbatims (2 bad burns for 100 burns).

Nisaea