Anyone know Innovera DVD-R media?

[dpalomaki]

I will be burning some video DVD-R for a school music program. They are providing the media - Innovera 16x DVD-R single layer.

Has anyone ever heard of the brand? Used it? Experience?

Its not what I wanted them to provide but it is forced by a mandatory schedule of supplies.

[lingyi]

The best you can hope for is that it's second tier media. At worse is utter trash media.

Do yourself a favor and either decline the project or spring for Verbatim AZO. Not only will it save you time and frustration dealing with coasters during burning or people blaming you for discs that won't play or freeze.

[dpalomaki]

I mainly used TY/JVC/CMCPro Watershield media (both WS and WS2) for DVD-R and Verbatim DataLifePlus DVD+R DL for longer form material. They have given excellent results over the past several years.

This is pro bono so declining the job is not really an option, but my concerns about the media are clearly understood by those in charge. It becomes an issue of which money pot can be used to pay for the media - local government rules in action.

I will share what I find when the discs are received.

-- update --

The Innovera DVD-R Media ID reported by Nero 11 DiskSpeed is: CMC MAG. AM3
The package is labeled "Made in Taiwan".
16x/4.7 GB
Hub Printable
A rather generic looking matte surface.

Printing in an Epson R1900 printer looked so-so for a matte surface.

One of 20 burns at 8x failed compare (to the ISO file) in the burner tower.
The disc content was about 4380 MB
Nero 11 DiskSpeed' ScanDisc reported about 0.7% Damaged/ and/or Bad sectors, all in the last 3% of the scanned surface.

Close examination revealed funny looking area near the edge of the failed media. I suspect a possible poor glue joint.

While this is a small sample, it was not reassuring.

[lordsmurf]

No-name brand using CMC is not surprising.
Using fake CMC (doubly bad media) would also not be surprising.

On a good day, those are marginal discs, with the more common issue being edge burning. So you're best off not using the discs for more than 4gb worth of data. Every 100mb after it multiplies the odds it'll be a coaster.

The funny-looking areas are either bad dye or failed bonding/glue. An attach photo would help.

Nope, not reassuring. Some discs are so terrible that you'd do better to stick a waffle in the drive. The odds of a successful burn are the same.

[dpalomaki]

Not a great photo (didn't have the macro lens handy) but is shows the edge of the bum DVD. Also a screen grab of DiskSpeed's disc scan results (up to the point I got tired of no progress, but the point is made).