Maxell 16x DVD+R media review

Conclusion

At the time of sourcing this media I had a good idea of what I was getting. The Ricoh dye used for the Maxell 16x DVD+R 50 spindle has certaintly been around since the very early days of 16x recording. It's been a source of many a debate as well as one of the most used DVD+R dyes for OEM redistrubution. Many companies all over the world have used this dye as it has a good reputation, but at the same time many different grades of this dye can exist. So what did I think of about this particular batch of maxell media? It's clear to see that overall, the recording devices used for this review handled the Maxell media within set specifications for good recording, with more active logic available in the Philips DVDR1660P1 and Plextor PX-760A drives producing very good, if slower recordings.

But it's not always about recording speed as the afore mentioned recording devices have hopefully proofed. Very good recordings but slower recordings are much more pallatable than poor yet fast burns. The Samsung Sh-182M produced the best speed vs quality recording in this reviewers eyes and it is my own personal experience that this recording device seems to behave very neutrally with the Ricoh dye used by the Maxell 16x DVD+R media. That is, it seems to produce very good recordings regardless of which batch of Ricoh dye is inserted. The Optiarc AD-7173A drive however, seems to produce less favourable recordings with this particular batch. As mentioned earlier in the Disc Quality overview, I have had much nicer recordings with other batches of media using this dye code. The recordings are still very much within set specifications and do play without any major issue.

So it seems that the combination of Maxell and Ricoh has worked very well on this batch of the Maxell 16x DVD+R 50 spindle media and if all batches produced are similar in quality to these then I can quite happily recomend them for short term archiving for both DVD Video and DVD Data with the results I have shown during this review. But I will also add that this was not the best batch of Ricoh dye based media I have ever used from a disc quality point of view - much more pleasing results have been obtained on a lot of the recording devices used in this review with Ricoh's own version of this dye for example. That said, this is also a lot cheaper than the Ricoh branded version and that has to be taken into account too!

As to long term archiving, many factors can impede this process that I am not able to show in this review, but as always, proper storage of this media in a jewel case away from bright light and proper handling should help greatly increase its chances of long term usability.

As always I look forward to hearing your comments and results with this media in the Media forum.

About Maxell

"Hitachi Maxell or Maxell, is a Japanese company which manufactures consumer electronics. The company's most notable products are batteries ( the company's name is a contraction of "maximum capacity dry cell ) and recording media, including audio cassettes and video tapes, and recordable optical discs like CD-R/RW and DVD±RW. The company also sells electronics accessories, like CD and DVD laser cleaners.

Maxell was formed in 1960 when a dry cell manufacturing plant was created at the company's Osaka registered headquarters. In 1961, Maxell Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. was created out of the dry battery and magnetic tape divisions of Nitto Electric lndustrial Co.,Ltd. (now Nitto Denko Corp.)."

Taken from the Wikipedea database. A great knowledge base!

Sponsors of this review

• Dvdshoponline for providing Pioneer DVR 111D DVD writer and Maxell 16x DVD+R recordable media used in this review.
• SVP communications for providing the Optiarc AD-7173A and Samsung SH-S182m writers used in this review.
• Plextor Europe for providing the Plextor PX-760A Premium DVD writer used in this review.
• Philips For providing the Philips DVDR 1660P1 DVD writer used in this review.

I would like to take this moment to thank the companies who provided the media as well as most of the hardware for this review. Without the generous and ongoing support of these companies this review would not of been possible in such detail - Thank you!