What CD brand do you burn to?

Right now I use lightscribe disks. The cheapest ones I can find. Both DVD and CD.

Hi John :)

Lightscribe isn't a BRAND

http://www.lightscribe.com/products/index.aspx?id=106

I think its clear in my post that I did not say they are a brand rather a type. Hence the cheapest I can find part.

Mitsui or Tayo Yuden.

All the best,
Harry

I also use Tayo Yuden.

Mike

I used to work in the National Library in Canberra Australia. They are transferring all their Oral history recordings over to CD. I was in charge of testing error rates on blank CD's using a very special machine. One thing I found was that blank CD's are all NOT created equal. We used to do a test on a blank CD and then measure its error rates. Then we exposed it to light equivelent to the sun for 20 days! Then I used to test for error rates again. Some brands like Verbatum lost all its dye and there was nothing left! The best CD's in the world were Mitsui Gold (at the time) and they make a special one only for that Library in Australia. (All the data was intact and the error rates on slightly higher)

If you spend a year doing an album and you print it to a 30 cent CD to send off to a duplicator then you are NUTS!!! Check with your local CD duplicators and you will find they offer mastering grade CD's for extra but they will be of the sort of quality I mentioned above. Only use cheap CD's for the ongoing dubs we do for clients along the way during a project. Use master grade for important data storage and duplication masters. It is well worth it.

By the way here is something else. The National Library only allow a 1x burn speed. (and on a burner worth many thousands!) Not even 2x. If you are burning your CD's at 24x or 50x you are also NUTS!!! I know that some programs wont go down to 1x any more but select the slowest speed possible. Error rates go up BIG TIME at high burn speeds. Think about it. You are spinning the drive very fast and also reading the data very fast too. What's the hurry folks!

They also copy everything to special BASF analog reel to reel tape that has a 150 year life span. (as well as the CD's)

And here is the most important bit of information of all. Before you burn a CD (and put any CD into your drive) you should puff it with an airspray. You can get this airspary in cans in various shops. (Photographers used it for cleaning negs etc) Check out how much dust there is on a CD just before you put into a drive under a bright light. You will be horrified. The air puff gets rid of all of it. One tiny spec of dust deflects the laser (especially at high speed ) and you can get a large number of errors just from that one tiny spec of dust. Never touch the bottom of the CD either.

whatever 50 count pack that is on sale.


Josephusmusic.com

Josephus MySpace Page

Yep, Taiyo Yuden are pretty much the best...

* Taiyo Yuden CD-R Packs

* Taiyo Yuden DVD-R Packs

Scott

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Generally, I am also a Taiyo Yuden user/advocate but the cost of that brand has skyrocketed recently (at least it seemed so to me). It used to be they weren't much more expensive than the garden variety brands but now they are like 3 times more expensive. I don't mind paying a little extra but it got ridiculous to buy expensive CD-R's for daily rough mixes which end up in the can anyway. Is TY an actual brand? I've never seen any TY branded discs. They all tend to be marketed under other brand names. If you have a source for that please share.

I use TY's for long term DVD-R data storage only. Now I buy reasonable quality brands of whatever is on sale for CD-R. I don't understand why anyone would recommend Lightscribe discs as they are even more expensive than normal brands. The only good reason to buy Lightscribe is if you are planning on printing something on them and even then, I think Lightscribe is a poorer choice for that kind of stuff than your inkjet imprintable types and a decent inkjet CD-R printer.

Jeff I agree with your analysis and if I were archiving important stuff for long term storage I'd do what you are doing too. But my opinion is to use reasonably priced discs for your normal day-day stuff. You can buy three times as many compared to TY (that's like an extra 2 months of inventory for me as I tend to go through a stack of a hundred per month).

As far as sending discs off for duplication and error rates etc, I've been sending all manner of brand of discs to duplicators for years and never had a problem. So while I agree it's best to err on the side of caution, I wouldn't spend a lot of time agonizing over this for daily generic use. Other viewpoints welcome.

Verbatim - it went like this

Me: What have you got?
Asst: Verbatim
Me: I'll take some

ORIGINAL: krizrox

Generally, I am also a Taiyo Yuden user/advocate but the cost of that brand has skyrocketed recently (at least it seemed so to me).

I buy TY printable (inkjet) CD-R's from supermedia.com for $29.99/100 pack.

I don't understand why anyone would recommend Lightscribe discs as they are even more expensive than normal brands. The only good reason to buy Lightscribe is if you are planning on printing something on them and even then, I think Lightscribe is a poorer choice for that kind of stuff than your inkjet imprintable types and a decent inkjet CD-R printer.

I have used LightScribe CD's for what I consider "throwaway" tests for a very select client list. Even though the method is inferior to inkjet print technology, it "looks" more professional than a Sharpie labeled disc. I paid nearly $250 for my Epson printer...I believe it's close to being discontinued (if it hasn't already been) and the print cartridges are somewhat expensive. Therefore, I only use it to print "semi-final" or "final" master discs.

Jeff I agree with your analysis and if I were archiving important stuff for long term storage I'd do what you are doing too. But my opinion is to use reasonably priced discs for your normal day-day stuff. You can buy three times as many compared to TY (that's like an extra 2 months of inventory for me as I tend to go through a stack of a hundred per month).

Occasionally I'll find a "super deal" at a BestBuy or some other store (I recently purchased a 50-Pack of "Dynex" DVD-R blanks for $11.99)...I've burned several video projects to them and saved a few large SONAR projects to them (as a test only--Other discs were used as backups) and haven't had a problem with playing thm back on any of the several DVD players I own or importing the SONAR files into a new project.

Basically what I've found is this: Shop around for good deals...Know the media you're using...Make backups as you see fit...and, by all means, don't rely on a single source for backups of important stuff...A corrupted digital file isn't the same as a "scratched" vinyl LP...The LP can still be played on a decent turntable but a corrupt digital Data file is, at best, a "hit or miss" proposition.

My local supplier got me a spindle of 100 hub-printable Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs for $40. They're just down the street so no shipping costs. I don't recall seeing the hub-printable discs for cheaper anywhere else. But even if they were cheaper somewhere else, I'd still get the local ones since they're such great people to work with.

This is a good resource of information:

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_quality.shtml

All the best,
Harry

Unfortunately, brand does not tell you everything you might want to know about the CD. Branding has a lot more to do with marketing than with quality or manufacturing. There are many well known brands that have no associated manufacturing capability, and just buy, rename and distribute products. For sending a CD to grandma, it probably does not matter what you use. If you are thinking of using the CD for long term storage (archiving) it may be worth it to investigate further. Regardless of quality, a CD in a drawer is not an archival copy. You will need to periodically re-record copies if the data is critical. This is a good article on the CD quality issue.

ORIGINAL: Honest_Al
Lightscribe isn't a BRAND

Sure, it is, Al. Just not a brand of CD/DVD MEDIA!

I've read bad things online about Memorex. Nevertheless, Memorex CD-Rs have been working fine for me. They play in car players and pretty much everywhere, and they were quite cheap.