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-   -   Blank Media Brands In Israel Of Questionable Quality (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/media/3072-blank-media-brands.html)

Boris_yo 04-22-2011 06:21 AM

Blank Media Brands In Israel Of Questionable Quality
 
I live in Israel and need advice about the following blank media brands:
  1. Fortis
  2. Etion
  3. Silver Line
  4. TDK
  5. SKY
  6. Teac

There are others, but local store dealers don't have them.
First 3 brands are cheapest:

‏Fortis DVD-R 4.7GB x16 25-Pack‎ = $5
‏Fortis DVD+R 8.5GB x8 Double Layer 25-Pack = $17.60

DVD Etion 4.7GB X16 25-Pack = $5
DVD Etion 4.7GB X16 Cake 50-Pack = $9.98

Silver Line DVD+R Dual Layer 8.5GB X8 Cake 10-Pack = $14.10
Silver Line DVD-R 4.7GB X16 Cake 50-Pack= $14.69


I did not see reviews of above brands on this website. Would appreciate your advice or opinion.

Thanks.

lordsmurf 04-23-2011 11:50 AM

Fortis is historically a low-grade brand, using media for garbage-quality manufacturers, including faked media IDs.
Given that DVD+R DL media is available from this brand, I would bet on it being UmeDisc blank DVDs.
Not suggested.

Etion is a brand that I see resold on eBay. That's generally a bad thing, too. Likely just another low-quality blank.
Not suggested.

Silver Line is another brand known for primary using junk or fakes.
Not suggested.

TDK is the best choice from the available list.
Suggested!

Sky is historically low-quality budget manufacturing junk.
Not suggested.

Teac is often fakes.
Not suggested.

A number of consumers and businesses located in the Middle East have contact me in past years, and this is always the situation. Your market has been saturated with lots of low-quality Asian crap media, generally fake media from China and Taiwan. It's the garbage that Europe and North America would never buy. Your markets are the worldwide dumping ground for bad optical media, which is really unfortunate.

I would bet the TDK media is made in India, hence the reason it's sold "locally" to your area. I'm betting it's also the most expensive of the available discs, too? Yes/No?

I see some Verbatim media here: http://www.zap.co.il/models.aspx?sog...b139901=140091
Highly suggested!

By using those other low quality brands, you're basically be gambling on data loss.

I see Silverline brand has good reviews at that link above, but NONE of them are verified in any way. I would bet many of those people have bad burns and don't realize it, because they've never tested the media with anything. Most discs will "burn ok" (meaning the disc is not kicked out of the drive with an error when burned), but will later exhibit problems in the drives -- hanging up, glitches in the audio/video, unable to read data, causes a drive to "thrash" (which eventually kills a drive) because the burn is weak and error correction (ECC) is kicking in.

Forum member Pepst may have more comments on this -- he lives closer to your area, in Eastern Europe. His market is also heavily saturated in trash media, because of slower economies in that geography.

Boris_yo 04-24-2011 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf
Fortis is historically a low-grade brand, using media for garbage-quality manufacturers, including faked media IDs.
Given that DVD+R DL media is available from this brand, I would bet on it being UmeDisc blank DVDs.
Not suggested.

"You get what you pay for" is really appropriate here i guess.

You mentioned UmeDisc - they also manufacture Ricoh which is considered 2nd level blank media in this website's review. So are UmeDisc still bad?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf
I would bet the TDK media is made in India, hence the reason it's sold "locally" to your area. I'm betting it's also the most expensive of the available discs, too? Yes/No?

I don't know where they are made, but they are expensive. I local doubt dealer will tell me this or truth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf
I see some Verbatim media here: http://www.zap.co.il/models.aspx?sog...b139901=140091
Highly suggested!

How you know this website? You know hebrew? :confused:

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf (Post 15432)
By using those other low quality brands, you're basically be gambling on data loss.

I see Silverline brand has good reviews at that link above, but NONE of them are verified in any way. I would bet many of those people have bad burns and don't realize it, because they've never tested the media with anything. Most discs will "burn ok" (meaning the disc is not kicked out of the drive with an error when burned), but will later exhibit problems in the drives -- hanging up, glitches in the audio/video, unable to read data, causes a drive to "thrash" (which eventually kills a drive) because the burn is weak and error correction (ECC) is kicking in.

I had previously Silver Line and i did not have problems burning it, but i did not verify discs after burning. I thought they are mediocre...

I burned on SKY and a few years later got trouble reading them. I also had trouble burning discs, but what i did was clean laser lens and then it succeeded in reading and burning.

pepst 04-24-2011 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boris_yo (Post 15439)
You mentioned UmeDisc - they also manufacture Ricoh which is considered 2nd level blank media in this website's review. So are UmeDisc still bad?

They do not manufacture Ricoh media (they are actually made by Ritek & MBIL). Nowadays Umedisc's media, especially their DVD+Rs, are of OK quality.

lordsmurf 04-26-2011 01:26 AM

Quote:

How you know this website? You know hebrew?
I don't know Hebrew, no. But I have something that's almost as good: the Google Chrome browser! As far as knowing about that site, I do keep a good watch over the blank media industry. I'm partially aware of what is available there, and who sells it. Again, most of what you find is junk.

Quote:

UmeDisc - they also manufacture Ricoh
Actually, no, they do not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pepst (Post 15441)
They do not manufacture Ricoh media (they are actually made by Ritek & MBIL).

Correct.

Quote:

Nowadays Umedisc's media, especially their DVD+Rs, are of OK quality.
I don't know that I'd call their media "OK" in quality. Their media still burns really lousy a large portion of the time. I wish it was better, but it's not.

Is this a trend you've noticed online discussions in various communities, or something observed from your own burning/testing of discs?

I'd love nothing more than for all discs to actually be reliable high quality. Sadly, due to greed, I doubt that will ever happen. Nobody wants to pay for media to be made with quality, and those that make discs want to horde revenue as profit more than reinvested capital.

pepst 04-26-2011 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf (Post 15464)
Is this a trend you've noticed online discussions in various communities, or something observed from your own burning/testing of discs?

I have burned hundreds of Umedisc made DVDs (sold under Kodak, Tesco, EuroShopper, Novaline and Samsung brands) and the quality of their 8x and newest 16x (with serial numbers, older Umedisc's media were not serial numbered) DVD+Rs is surprisingly good. The quality of Umedisc's DVD-Rs is usually on the edge of usability, though.
I wonder what the quality of their BD-Rs is like.

kpmedia 04-27-2011 07:31 AM

Their DVD+R DL are pretty rotten.
These UmeDisc blank DVDs are sold for pennies on the dollar at Microcenter stores in USA. WinData, I believe. (I have it written down somewhere.)

Even CMC or MBI is a better disc, and those can be variable quality.

You may just have a burner that works exceptionally well with UmeDisc media. That happens. I remember when NEC burners worked beautifully with CMC discs, at a time when CMC was failing in burners regularly (2x or 4x era, I forget -- that was so long ago). What model(s) and brand(s) and firmware(s) of drive are you using to burn? That may be good information for others.

Thanks for the posts. :)

highlander11 04-27-2011 09:59 AM

well I am from that area and asked that question here before so what I learned is : that most of the israeli dvds are poor qulity but the price I see in stores like 60 + well thats too much for junk dvds but verbatim in 90-95 its better qulity espicially for unique data like family photos and so on...

I had a nec driver that died- his burning eye or something died at him he can only read legit dvds .. lol but I changed my burner so nvm that.

ethion,silver line ,fortis,teac are all foor qulity they are good for stuff you dont mind to lose like gmaes, music a dvd you just want to see on dvd and throw away stuff like that.

about TDK the ones in israel .. I am not sure they are the same qulity like uk or us I dont know.

pepst 04-27-2011 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kpmedia (Post 15484)
What model(s) and brand(s) and firmware(s) of drive are you using to burn? That may be good information for others.

Benq DW1655 BCIB
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T20 WP03
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H12L VL01
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H20L 1.00
Matsushita DVD-RAM UJ-850S 1.21
Matsushita DVD-RAM UJ890 1.00
Lite-On ATAPI DVD A DH16AASH

Umedisc's DVD+Rs are usually much better & more compatible than their DVD-Rs. :mad:


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