Delkin archival grade media - Best blanks or just marketing speak?
 

Just ran across this company. They claim to sell archival media that will last a really long time... for a really high price. I wonder if they produce the media in-house or farm it out to another company. WARNING: More ZOMG Gold is the greatest thing in the world marketing ahead.

http://delkin.com/products/archivalgold/index.html

Delkin is like Memorex. They're essentially "lying" to the customer by way of misleading consumers as to the true manufacturer of the product. From all available information, they are using the "private label" outsource model. (Verbatim, by comparison, uses a variation of the CM model. Fuji uses both the CM and ODM models -- RITEKF1, for example, as Fuji or TDK branded.) Neither Delkin nor Memorex have their own manufacturing facilities -- they purchase media and re-brand it. Company brand names like TDK/Imation don't make such pretenses. In fact, they actually issue press releases and make available other information stating their ties to other facilities (i.e., ODM model, using CMC for production).

For your added reading:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origina...n_manufacturer
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_manufacturer
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_label

This is re-branded MAM-A media.

It's nothing special -- all marketing BS, and no independent tests to back up their claims.

All indy tests that I've seen to date had MAM-A media starting off with 2x-4x as many problems (high PIE PIF, POF, jitter, TRT roller coasters, basic player/reader fails/retries), and tanking pretty quickly thereafter. It wasn't the worst disc, but it didn't even make the top-5 list. Maybe the bottom of a top-10 list?

Sputtered gold at this particular thickness range carries about a 5-10% reflectivity loss as compared to silver alloys, meaning the disc is harder to read. Even at higher thicknesses, it's about a 5% less. Reinforced silver alloys are among the most reflective surfaces possible at this nanometer range (~650nm).

The "secret sauce" DVD dye is most likely the Mitsui-patented dipyrromethene metal chelate (metallic dipyrromethene dye), which I'm not yet convinced is any better than cyanine or oxonol compounds, and not even close to the quality of azo dyes. Researching is pending on that bit, as there's not a lot of public information out there, with most of it written in Asian languages. What I do have, however, is VERY authoritative, and at least one source lists "pyromethene" as the dye base. MAM-A puts up this asinine claim in their online and print documentation that they cannot reveal the name of their dye, for fear that competitors will steal it. Ridiculous.

Based on Mitsui's own patent documents, media made with this dye compound has barely-passing jitter and reflectivity % ratings, to fully fall within DVD spec standards. I would more likely trust a CMC disc.

Although a number of DVD-R/DVD+R organic dyes are patented and tested, the only truly viable ones seem to be these four: cyanine, azo, a cyanine/azo mix (which isn't really a separate dye in my mind), dipyrromethene and oxonol. The Fuji oxonol dye probably falls a close second behind azo, in some ways (longevity tests).

Yes, I've named a lot of companies. So follow the trail of money ...
Mitsui is a Japanese chemical company that used to own an optical CD/DVD manufacturing facility. Mitsui sold it to a French company (CSI) in the early/mid 2000s, with CSI renaming it to "MAM" (either standing for "Mitsui Advanced Manufacturing" or "Manufacturing Advanced Media"). There was a MAM-A (America) and a MAM-E (Europe). That company failed, MAM-E went away, the American plant went independent but kept the MAM-A name. Mitsui still exists, and likely continues to supply the raw dye materials.

During their entire process of playing "musical names", from old Mitsui to CSI MAM-A to new MAM-A, brands like Delkin and Kodak have been a private label re-brander of their blank CD-R and DVD-R/DVD+R.

Much like Taiyo Yuden, MAM-A also sells direct to media outlets like Gotmedia and Mediamegamall. Curiously, neither Meritline nor Supermediastore (probably two of the largest online media stores) carry these discs. Unwilling to carry crap? That would be my educated guess. It's hard to be a merchant/retailer of a product that makes such lofty promises.

If Delkin was wise, they would switch to Falcon/FTI media (which uses the Verbatim model), or simply use Verbatim Archival Gold (assuming Mitsubishi is willing to outsource it). Of course, profits tend to be a motivator these days, as opposed to the desire to provide the truly best product.

MAM-A has claimed a few times that they're different now, since becoming an indy operation, but I've not seen any proof of this via tested media. Discs from several years ago perform relatively the same in 2010. It doesn't help that MAM-A has used so many spoofed media IDs (fake IDs), including licensed codes from TDK that were created for other media (TTG/TTH codes). In my mind, a legitimate company shouldn't have to borrow, fake or license codes. The media ID directly impacts how the disc will burn.

So there you go. :)

Complaints with this "bestest ever!" media have been around for years now, since the Delkin MAM-A media hit the market.

For example, in photography forums: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...9&changemode=1

Photographers tend to be an easy target -- I don't know why. Good photographers do diligent research before spending mortgage-rivaling amounts on bodies, lenses and related gear. However, they fall for marketing phooey when it comes to storage. Same for "Mac is best!" baloney. I don't get it. More often, I think it's the wanna-be photographers that do such things, and not the actual seasoned pros.

Some 10 years ago, Ritek manufactured RITEKG01 with gold reflectives, but that was quickly replaced with better-performing silver alloys. I have some of these early blanks, which have aged decently, but could have been better. Even same-era lower-graded media from Princo reads better now -- even with its sewer slime dye and poor construction.

"ZOMG! GOLD RULES! THOUSAND YEAR DVD-RS! BESTEST EVAR!" -- Don't believe it.

Did you have the leftover Princo 4x discs? Maybe you should sell them as "rare Pink dye archival media" with a "faux pearl protection layer". I'm sure some sucker would confuse it with some special breast cancer product, and pay idiotic sums of money to have it. Nevermind that it's all a bunch of bull$hit. P.T. Barnum's "quote" (which he actually never said) isn't wrong: "There's a sucker born every minute." Some of them probably buy gold DVD-R.

They do have a nice purplish hue to them. The tops are pure white, I'm sure I could spin that with marketing somehow. :) The misconception of gold is better likely comes from early CD-Rs. Problem is, they used gold back then because of the reflectivity of the dye formulations. When the dye formulations matured, the industry went almost entirely to silver discs.

Nothing wrong with Macs, they have their uses. For a while, Apple did have a pretty sweet DV work flow setup with FCP and DVD Studio Pro. The rest of the industry caught up though, particularly with HD video work. FCP IIRC still can't work directly with AVCHD video.

I do run across a lot of folks that claim to be great photographers when they buy a dSLR though. When asked basic questions about depth of field I got blank stares back... busted. I won't even go into the reactions I got when I tell them the steps required to develop B&W film. :rolleyes:

It was actually more of an issue of instability of the dye/aluminum combinations. Cyanine was highly corrosive to aluminum (Al). I believe high cost of silver at the time caused them to look at corrosive-resistant gold (Au), which was excellent for reflectivity in the IR range (780nm). Silver (Ag) can tarnish, but the eventual creation of tarnish resistant silver alloys (Ag+), at a lower cost than gold, took over. In the IR range, silver and gold are similar in reflective abilities. Remember that DVD's 650nm is in the visible red spectrum, not IR, at which point gold has a significant increase in light absorption as it moves towards UV. Early reflective application may have also been performed with evaporation, not sputtering, which could cause some price differences. My information in this area is unavailable at the moment.

Most of that was history anyway, even when I started back in 1995. Some related info is at MScience: http://www.mscience.com/faq54.html

Yep, great DV-to-DVD workflow. Not so good with other video workflows, however. Macs are task-oriented machines, and anything that falls outside those specific tasks makes for a pretty miserable experience. A number of things are on par with Windows machines, such as photo editing, making the whole "Mac is better" little more than propaganda and fanboyism. Understand that I say all of this as a long-time Mac user, and having purchased a new Mac mini not 24 hours ago. But Windows XP machines make up the majority of my equipment, because they do things Macs cannot.

And it's always the $500 intro SLR with a cheap kit lens, too. Most of them are nothing more than point-and-shoots on steroids, with a number of limitations that will hold a skilled photographer back. My Nikon D3s eats those for breakfast and craps them out by lunchtime. I'll admit to being a bit of a camera snob. The gear doesn't make the photographer, but photographers also don't use crap gear.

If I close my eyes and slip into memories of days gone by, I can still smell the stench of Dektol, D-76 and fixer burning my nostrils, and clinging to my breath like day-old rotten fish. Can't say I miss those days too much, in terms of my own health. And I still don't think Photoshop filters have mastered the quality of Tri-X and TMAX 400 just yet.

Only $500? I still use my circa 2001 Olympus Camedia C-3040Z (review: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0011/00...40z_c2040z.asp ), it cost me $700 back then! It still takes great pictures, and its hard to find a prosumer camera these days that has a f1.8 lens. I'll replace it eventually, but the quality easily surpasses most point and shoots released since then, even if its only 3.3 megapixels.

Also it seems Samsung is trying to rewrite history: http://www.samsung.com/hk_en/news/ne...type=localnews

Sorry for taking this thread off track. :o

Well, since f-stop is a variable number, and the focal distance of non-SLR planes vary, it might well be the first camera at this specific focal plane to achieve f/1.8. But yes, misleading marketing, no doubt!

My Nikon D1 from 1999, with it's 2.74MP CCD sensor, can surpass the optical quality of most points and shoots. It takes more than pixels to create image clarity. A piece of $1,500 glass makes a huge difference. The glass and sensor of your old Olympus might just be really good. I used Olympus P&S film cameras for personal stuff, back in mid 1990s -- good cameras.

The whole thread was really about marketing vs reality anyway. Just talking about cameras and computers now, instead of blank DVD media. It's sort of related, no?

We've not strayed too much. (Anyway, it's my site -- I can stray if I want to! :p )

Most of the quality issues I have seen on newer point and shoots tend to be the image sensor. CCDs were overtaken by CMOS in the low to mid range camera sector and some aren't the greatest (lots of posterizing, even without the flash). Some have pretty wacky color balance too, a lot of the cameras put out a warm picture by default.

The photos from my camera tend more towards the neutral side by default, even with manual white balancing. Seems to be an early Olympus thing as the D-600L (1MP SLR, I was floored at the quality) I shot with in 1999 has the same color balance. The newer models joined the party and put out a warmer picture.

AFAIK the evaporation was never used in mass CD-R production. The yield and the quality of deposited metal layer are extremely poor in comparison with the sputtering method.

I wouldn't be too surprised if they are using European-made cyanine dye. Wasn't the development of the DVDR dipyrromethene dyes completely ceased in 2003-04?

.... and the conversation gets back on track again!

Pepst of myce? If so, then welcome. :) ........... and if not, welcome anyway. ;)

That's why I used "may have" in my above discussion. I've seen evaporation mentioned in a number of really old CD-R documents from the early 1990s, some of which predates my foray into optical media as anything aside from a casual consumer/user. It's a mix of documents I pulled from old magazines, paten archives, IT zines, and various forgotten online research (Archie, anybody?)

What I've actually never is seen a document confirm it either way -- neither as assertion that it was used, nor assertion that it was NOT used. I doubt it was used, but it's not impossible. What I don't know is a comparison of the costs of the time. If sputtering was more expensive, then I can see where cheap CD-R production may have used it. If evaporation was more expensive AND less stable, then it was probably never a viably used method for manufacturing. Have any thoughts on costs at the time?

As far as the pyrromethene dyes go, the semi-secretive nature of DVD dye amongst manufacturers makes it hard to follow. I have information that shows it in use as recently as 2006-2007. But then again, there's potential that the information is tainted, by way of old-stock media or old processes that continue to use up the available materials. It's actually not unheard of for discontinued materials to continue to supply the manufacturing chains (in any industry, mind you, and not just optical production) for many months or even several more years, due to available stock. I had actually not heard of this dye combination ceasing production -- but again we're back to limited information issues. Is there something I could read to verify that? (Not necessarily a link -- a lot of this stuff isn't online, as you probably know, if you're the pepst I think you are.)

With manufacturing happening state-side, wouldn't European import costs be quite a bit more than Asian ones? The import costs have always been higher from the West than from the East, but especially now that the Euro is so high against the dollar. That could explain the higher costs, although I think it's just padded profits for MAM-A.

It's a shame these companies won't just say "we use X because we believe it's the best" (excluding the "gold" aspect). Love 'em or hate 'em, that's one thing you can respect about Apple products. They don't often hide their information that I'm aware of.

Good talk. :)

Yes - that's me, thanks for the warm welcome. ;)

I will ask my industry contacts on that. But I really doubt that this method has been ever used in mass production. The extremely poor yields would negate any cost advantage over the sputtering method.

For some reason, I have always thought that this kind of dye isn't produced for at least 6 years and it's totally unsuitable for >4x rated DVDR media production. Regarding this issue, I've tried to contact Mitsui Chemicals and MAM-A/MAM-E for several time, but with absolutely no success.

In your personal opinion - is there a chance that MAM-A can be using either Fujifilm Oxonol or even cheap Taiwanese dyes (Fortune International Tech Materials Inc., Must Tech, etc.)? In the of MAM-A, I wouldn't be surprised by anything.


They must be hiding something - especially the MAM-A. :cool:

I have just noticed that newer (16x rated) MAM-A media do have the MBI's MID codes. Perhaps they are outsourcing all important raw materials (including dye) from Moser Baer now.

Looks like MAM-A is pimping out this study from Canada about their gold media:

http://www.mam-a.com/library/documen...and%20DVDs.pdf

Its a shame its not decent media. They are one of the few (only?) companies left that makes media in the USA.

They are the only existing recordable media manufacturer in North America (after the bankrupt of CD-Recordable.com) and one of the very few outside of Asia. :(