Sorry for the delay in my response - I had topic notifications going to an email address I had not used in a couple years.
That would be my poor writing skills showing through. I would be happy with any writing speed my drive will do, which I believe is 2x to 16x. I would prefer to have the speed of 4x or higher, which is what I was trying to say.

I have a Samsung drive, TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S182M.
firmware is SB02

I have been reading about firmware upgrades a bit. There seems to be the SB03 "cd freaks edition", with a lead-in bug fixed. There is also SB04 and SB05, but it
is not clear if they also fix the lead-in bug. So I am thinking I should upgrade the firmware, but I haven't figured out the best choice.

I am also a Linux user, so upgrading the firmware is not extremely simple. I also can't make quality scans of my written discs on this machine. (I could take the discs to another machine to do quality scans, but it would not be a convenient thing to do on a regular basis.)

I make a relatively small number of data backups, which I would like to be readable for two years. I also make a small number of video DVDs when I want to share a show with a friend. My friends like to save their TV, so I would like DVDs that are likely to be usable in five years. I only mention the small numbers bit (50-100 a year) to make it clear that saving a few cents per disc isn't a big motivation for me in this case.

DVD-Rs written in DAO mode give me the best compatibility with others' DVD drives, so I want to stick with the -R discs. I don't care about the surface being printable or lightscribe, or anything similar.

Thank you both for the help thus far.

-Ben

Your Sammy will love the MCC004s. I have the non-LightScribe version (SH-S182D), and it burns them right up to 18x with excellent results.

I tend to burn them at 8x or 12x though usually.

Even though you say you tend to go for -R as a rule, you might be pleasantly surprised what the Sammy can do with the +R Verbs

Edit: I'm actually in the process of testing some Taiyo Yuden -Rs on my Sammy (16x ones), and so far the results are good, just to give an -R option

They may burn well, but some of the players I want them to work in don't like the +R discs. :-)

I was asking in this thread because of longevity issues - and verbatims were recommended. I thought the Taiyo Yudens were starting to have questionable track records when it came to longevity?

-Ben

Regarding TY's 16x media longevity, I haven't had it long enough to tell , but maybe the Verbatim 16x -R is an option for you?

Only reason I didn't mention it is I don't use it too often, only for reviews, but I do have a couple of strays that I burned sometime back in my archive set that have stood up well.

Edit: Plus I just realised this is the DVD-R thread. Ooops.

In order to have a disc that lasts a long time, there are several critical criteria that must be met:
1) a good quality recording. This is dependent on the compatibility of the drive and medium and on the quality of both. Mentioning MID codes is insufficient information if the code is not included in the drive's firmware memory.

2) a stable dye, reflector, and bonding agent. Although some have dissed Prodisc's media or Fuji media, they use Fuji's Oxonol dye. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest this dye is more environmentally stable than azo-cyanine dyes. Gold is not a good reflector for DVDs. It is fine for CD-Rs, but the reflectivity is lacking as far as DVD specs go.

3) proper storage. This includes handling as well as absence of light and heat/humidity. Humidity is particularly harmful for DVDs because of the sandwich construction.

Environmental tests suggest that a well recorded DVD will last 40 years before the increase in errors overcomes error correction capabilities. CD-Rs will last 120 years under the identical conditions.

Thanks for the information!
Now for the questions...

In *this* context, how would you define a good burn, and how would you test for it? From my understanding, scan results are not (entirely) consistent between software packages, nor between one brand drive and another.

How would one know if the MID code is in the firmware? And is it important if the disc tests well after burning?

Where could one read more about this research?

Thank you for the information so far.

-Ben

A good burn is one in which parity inner errors are well below 50 as tested on several drives using scanning tools. These tools are not ideal; but if the distribution of errors is similar on multipe drives, the correlation with calibrated Pulstech drives increases rather well. Parity inner failures should remain low (no more than an average of 4 ideally) under the same conditions; and jitter should also be low. There should be no suspicious spikes in the profiles that might indicate debris or contamination in the coating such as dye comets or oil marks. These contaminants never help in decreasing the growth of errors. If the recording shows low errors and an even distribution of error rates, one can assume that the MID code is in the firmware or the default strategy is satisfactory. (If the drive tells you the disc is not there or that it is an "invalid" disc, that's a definite sign that the code is not in the drive.) If the error rates are very high or show a "tsunami" type of error distribution not supported by physical flaws, the disc by not be compatible, the write strategy may not be the best, or (the only conclusion AfterDawn posters accept..) the disc may be poor quality. Check for physical flaws on the dye side under a halogen light, and try the disc on a different drive from a different manufacturer. If no flaws are found and the second drive shows superior results with discs from the same batch, then incompatibility is the more likely cause.

The closest one will get to the research is NIST's work on archivability. Although much of this work is naive compared to lab research, it is the most publicly available work and led to OSTA's work on developing a specification for environmental testing of DVD media (similar to Ecma's CD-R standard. In fact, Ecma has recently approved work on the OSTA standard.) The NIST, OSTA, and Ecma sites are a start in understanding environmental testing and the limits of predicatability.

Tricky. Tell me if GOld is a bad reflector for dvd's then how come that Emtec MPO hispace gold did perform so good in the overall test results I have seen.
The truth is like with CD-R's gold is a less good reflector but can be used under the right conditions.
What do you mean with azo-cyanine dyes ?
Just so I can give the correct feedback on the FUJI oxolife.

I guess that azo-cyanine are the DVD dyes that are used by Mitsubishi, Taiyo Yuden, CMC, Moser Baer etc.

Gold has sufficient reflectivity for CD-R because it was the first reflector material used in those discs, and the specs are built around that material. However, by the time the DVD-R and DVD-RAM were being designed, silver alloy had replaced gold for both advanced media and CD-Rs. Since gold is less reflective than silver alloy, it is less than ideal for DVD discs; and thorough testing with sophisticated equipment bears that out. I have not seen the MPO test reports, but I have seen reports on other gold-based DVD media.

As for unsophisticated tests, the link above to the boiling of DVDs is rather bizarre example of unsophistication. Now heat becomes a factor even in the stability of the polycarbonate, and direct contact with the bonding adhesive in the sandwich layer has all sorts of chemical implications. Real environmental testing is in chambers that reach 90 degrees centigrade and 85% relative humidity--not boiling water--because temperatures beyond that level damage the polycarbonate.

Metal stabilized azo-cyanine, also sometimes referred to as "metal chelate," is the most common dye used for DVD+/-R media. Cyanine is also used when cost considerations are critical, but I don't know if any name brand has approved the use of that dye. I doubt it. Oxonol dye is Fuji's invention. It is less expensive on the market than the other dyes (This may not be a reflection of cost, but rather Fuji's desire to break into the market.), and appears to be more stable in preliminary environmental testing than its competitors. However, Oxononol requires more laser power for good jitter values; and that is a problem for aging laser diodes or diodes with insufficient "over-engineering." 8X DL media require a great deal of laser power, too; and those drives have diodes that have no problem with Oxonol dye.

Probably MAM stuff :-). I was surprised myself how the MPO actually lift up some of MPO claims.(tests done on a audiodev CATS analyzer and consumer drives) Looking back at older info of the cd-r days suggest. Gold is possible for both but harder to get the reflectivity right. In fact in the old cd-r days there actually public tests available were the media that uses a gold reflector actually has the best reflectivity which was surprising. )

COmments on the oxonol dye will follow later.

No MCC 004 in the poll I got some pretty impressive results with MCC 004 Verbies. Definately my choice for consumer-level DVD archiving.

Ths is the DVD-R (DVD dash R) thread; you'll find MCC004 in the DVD+R (DVD plus R) thread.

oops. Of course.

I`m confused...nobody likes TDK? I`m using mostly TDK CD/DVD (10/8) and never had problems with it. I have several TDK Reflex X (white surface /blue back) from 1999 and still working fine...
this is Nero test for 1999 TDK reflex X:

[IMG] [/IMG]

@quazar912 - I think the thing is these days, TDK branded DVD media can be almost anything, and people also seem to have mixed opinions about TDK's own MIDs

CDR isn't really relevant in this thread as the tile says, DVD-R media.

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