from e-mail...
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Bought ATIVA printable discs from Office Depot -- 100 of them on closeout. Just beginning to use them. Please advise where they are positioned in blank media. Your site is great and I am donating.
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House brands are rarely a good product, typically using the cheapest junk they can find to stick under their own label. Honestly, it's a self-defeating purpose for these companies to sully their own name using somebody else's low-grade manufactured garbage -- from a corporate image stance, it's idiotic. It's a textbook case of what not to do, from a public relations standpoint.
Anyway, Ativa is really no different.
My most recent experience with these discs is that it is all CMC-manufactured media. CMC discs are not reliable discs, good only for duplication of something that is easily replaced. It is not video mastering quality or archival data quality. It falls into the
SECOND CLASS grade on our reviews, because it is variable in quality. Following ths information available in that guide, check the media ID to confirm these discs are from CMC.
Close-out prices at Office Depot are often a sham, just as high or higher than normal-priced items at other stores. A brand new spindle of
8x Taiyo Yuden can be bought online for only $23 with free shipping, and it's some of the best media made. To truly be "closeout priced", that Ativa spindle would need to be no more than $15 max.
The biggest issue with CMC is that it has seemingly loose quality control, with discs sometimes being okay, and sometimes being awful -- and beyond that your burner has to like it. Excellent FIRST CLASS media is not as picky in burners/recorders and players/readers, and is far more reliable in having constant and steady quality control.
While maybe not good news, hopefully this is helpful information. You can maybe use the discs, just not for the important data or videos.
And thanks very much for the donation, which helps support what we do for our readers and members.
Have a good day.
