Datawrite Yellow CMC Mini-review

[MI5]

OK, well I reciently had the oppertunity to review some Datawrite Yellows and here are my results. First impressions are of a reasonably nice looking disk, with an even looking dye layer. The disks are reported as being CMC MAG. AE1 dye, rated at 4X, 6X, 8X and 12X in my Pioneer 108. I have tried the first two disks out using a couple of 4Gb+ data files I had available at 8X in my Pioneer 108 and the results speak for themselves. Both disks took around 7:30 to burn which is spot on for an 8X burn, and 6:00 to verify in Nero which is about right for the 108. One thing to note when looking at the PI/PO graphs is that the pioneer 108 isn't properly supported for this test and as such anything below 280 is aparantly a good reading. I then tried a few movies onto these disks filling the disks by burning 4460Mb img files to the disks at 12X speed. All 5 of the movie disks give very similar graphs so i'll only post one graph here otherwise this post will get much too large . The movies were tested in 3 different DVD players (inc 1 very picky model) and played back to the end of the disk with no problem whatsoever, no pixelisation, no jumping, chapter skip perfectly smooth ect...... all in all I can say that this tub of disks with this specific dye lot is an excellent quality disk.

[SirQUK]

Another good post. Any chance of some boxshots so thta the readers here can now what they are dealing with? A pic says a 1000 words. These do look like one of the better datawrite range of media I have seen.

[MI5]

You mean something like this?

[SirQUK]

Yup thats spot on. Thanks, now I know what we dealing with LOL

[Mr_Fixer]

[SirQUK]

CMCMAG.AE1 is rebranded by many manufacturers. Some are better than the other. If you look Here you will see I have tested quite a few other brands of CMCMAG.AE1 for our readers to compare. It does seem that the NEC 3500 with Liggy and Dees firmware is the way to go when recording CMCMAG.AE1 media for maximum quality although my BenQ 1620 under firmware B7T9 and Pioneer 108 with firmware 1.18 are doing a good job too - I have not yet tested the ones MI5 has used for his mini review. Due to its huge production rate, the media can vary. I would say a version of this dye such as the RICOH version is the way to go if you want the most consistent recordings. I have had 2 different batches and both have been good.

[MI5]

Mr Fixer, I can only comment on the single tub of these disks I was sent for reviewing, but out of that tub of 25 I had only 1 failure, and that was down to operator error, plus ever disk that was used to test movies played back without incident, however as SirQ as mentioned, these disks are from large company and quality & even dye types are likely to vary/change, so it may well be a case of quality will change in a different batch.

[normalgeezer]

Hi i must say i got some of these yellow they are great is was going to try titanium but im waiting until my mate does instead, for the time being im using yellow, im on a pioneer drive i also have an NEC drive in my pc just in case i cant do my skating videos and need to knock on out. i got mine here i bought 50 and had NO failures i hope you have the smae luck as i did, ive ordered some more!! http://www.tcstrade.biz/acatalog/DvD__R.html#a240

[SirQUK]

Thanks for the news of another successful batch normalgeezer. Just be careful to make sure you can source them with the same dye code in future if they work well in your writer. Not all datawrite yellows have the same dye code and vary quite alot. Its a case of 'if it works buy a few just incase' I had great success with the titaniums considering the price they where in comparison to other media but i'm as yet unable to test any other batches of them due to other review media to test. Good luck with your skating! Another budding Tony Hawke on our hands?

[CDR-Zone.COM]