Ugh ... so much misinformation. (That Verbatim phone rep is clueless.)
TDK's optical manufacturing operation no longer exists. In 2007, Imation acquired the TDK brand name (as it related to storage media), and began to use the TDK mark for outsourced products. In the realm of DVD recordable media, that meant re-branding CMC Magnetic discs under the TDK brand. TDK no longer manufactured any blank DVD media. Same for CD media. (Blu-ray discs are another story.)
TDK also had a lot of optical manufacturing technology (stampers, dyes, etc) that were licensed to other manufacturers. At the same time, a lot of shady manufacturers were faking the TDK ID, because of its once respected status similar to Taiyo Yuden or Mitsubishi. So it's sometimes hard to tell which brands were using licensed "fakes", as opposed to outright fakes. MAM-A, for example, used TDK IDs on some of their discs, and it's never been entirely clear whether that was condoned or not. It's also never been entirely clear if the licensees of the manufacturing tech were supposed to use TDK IDs that came default on the stampers, similar to how Anwell tech was misused. Anwell's media IDs were infamous in the early era of blank DVDs, even though Anwell didn't manufacturer any discs themselves, but simply provided stampers and related equipment.
The only company producing media in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is Falcon Technologies International, also known simply as FTI. As is the case with CMC, Moser Baer and Prodisc, FTI's facility is one location where authentic Mitsubishi media is manufactured, using MCC and MKM media IDs, with Mitsubishi materials and oversight. Mitsubishi does not personally own any facility in UAE; their only property is in Singapore, where DVD+R DL media is produced.
http://www.falconrak.com/falcon_tech...rnational.html
http://www.supermediastore.com/brand/show/fti
If memory serves correctly, FTI also licensed AZO tech from Mitsubishi, similar to Prodisc, CMC and Moser Baer. And when FTI first came out, it was advertised as "Falcon AZO" media. That was several years ago, at this point. I'd have to search Google (for old ads) and look in old research materials here, to verify it.
FTI has used TDK media IDs for its own media in the past. I've seen the discs personally, and I've seen it discussed online at several sites. Again, it's been a few years. Note that FTI media is quite good. It ranks up there with Fuji-dye Ritek discs, somewhere between
1st and 2nd Class media rankings.
I have UAE-made 16x Verbatim DVD-R here, and it's all MCC03RG20 media IDs. And it's good media.
Remember that Verbatim is a wholly-owned subsidiary and brand name owned by Mitsubishi.
If you're receiving Verbatim discs with TDK media IDs -- and it's not Life Series or Value Series -- then something is fubar. Because that's not right. That would suggest FTI media is being slipped into the MCC production lines. Or that something on the assembly line is not fully MCC, meaning you have some sort of FTI bastard disc, with "optical DNA" from both FTI and MCC.
Or worse yet, that Verbatim has outsourced their main DataLife/DataLifePlus/AZO sub-brand.
Indeed, update this with whatever response you receive.
I used to have more contacts in the optical media world, but M&A and the recession screwed up a number of those. Some people are gone -- some entire companies are gone! And then optical media has always been somewhat secretive, as brands and manufacturers don't like mere consumers to know what happens before the products hit shelves.