Hi. I've been doing a lot of videocapturing of my old VHS videos, mostly old anime cartoons & have been converting the mpeg files to PAL VCD's. All of them have been done on my Asus 4012a at 4x speed,as I want to be sure of the best possible burn, using Nero 5.5.8.2.

Originally I'd been burning the files to Mitsui Gold's 74min (1-12x rated). This had been painless & the home made VCD disk's worked fine on both WinDVD on the PC,& my Toshiba SD2500 DVD player.

I've since been using Kodak Ultima 80min Silver & Gold's CD-R's (1-12x) , creating a 2nd backup set of VCD's,(using the original Mpegs),intending to use one set & keep the other as the original master VCD's in storage & enable me to delete the mpegs off the PC.

I've since been discovering that whilst there are no FILE errors under Nero's Scandisk & CD quality check utils, the Mitsui Gold's have come up worse than the Kodak Silver & Gold's for read errors & yellow blocks,(say 1-2%), versus Kodak's S&G Ultima's with 0 errors on CD Quality check & usually 0-0.5% yellow blocks on Scandisk.

At this stage I'll probably use the Kodak's Silver & Gold's as my master backups & use the Mitsui Gold's for when I want to watch VCD's on my PC or DVD player. My question is,are the Kodak Silver & Gold's long-lasting? How well do they fare compared to the Mitsui Gold's?

Sorry for the long-windedness of the question, but I want to delete the mpegs off my Harddisk,but not until I can be sure they're safe.

In my opinion Kodak made the best CD's ever. Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats them.
Too bad they aren't made anymore...

i agree.... i've had no bad experiences/erros with Kodaks.
i just bought another 10pack of Ultima 80 GOLDs....
u can get them here

but i got mine from APlus Computers for $9.99 while i picked up a pack of 20 24x HPs to try out.....u cant shop online with them tho.

I question the quality of Ireland-made KODAKS. Mexico Kodak Golds are without a doubt the best quality CD-R's ive seen, and their Silver/Golds give stiff competition to the likes of high-end RiTeK and Mitsubishi-made CD-Rs.

Kodak Silver/Golds seem to be quite well-lasting CD-R's in my experience - had a few since they first came out, burnt on a 4x burner and they are still perfect. They have fairly well-defined tracks too :|

i question the quality of kodaks gold cdrs. they were not very durable at all and lost their recording layer easily. the silver and golds might be alright but im not sure. i think it depends on where they are made, i might of got some ireland made ones. you should check where they are made just to be on the safe side.

You have always hated Kodak - there may be bad batches, or it seems people burning too fast or using crap/faulty writers with the media, but that's about it. Kodak and Mitsui are quality (the best quality?) you are likely to see - followed by TY (TY - Mitsui roughly equal for some).

I have 300+ Kodak 74min gold white-top - all perfect after many years, Mitsui gold white-top 74/80 min all fine . . . all going back 3-4 years maybe. I recently purchased over many months 800 Mitsui SG Ultra II 80min cd's - I have burnt 500 of them this year (movie + archive scan backups that I wish to store and get rid of tapes, dv, etc).

One batch of 100 gave me about 3% yellow sector in cdspeed tests - 20% and 90% in - a batch problem maybe. I always use scandisk / cdquality for testing and I never accept any yellow sectors or slowdowns (even the last sector is always grn). I have a plextor 241040a. So, on balance, I think Kodak / Mitsui are superb. Tdk / Verbatum, Princo, E-Proformance, and a few others give many yellow sectors or slowdowns in comparison - for half the price of the Mitsui's - for treasured archive stuff, I will pay the extra.

If your cd's start to come apart - simple, send them back to Koadk and get your money back - Kodak / Mitsui have a lifetime guarentee on media I believe. CDPirate - always saying Kodak are crap because you hate them is not balanced - you may of had problems, and the last of the Ultima's may be poor - but dissing the whole lifetime of Kodak is out of line and nonsense - Kodak gold are the best cd full stop - as many mods and users here have stated many times - which you always diss. My company (and many other broadcasters) only use Kodak or Mitsui gold (gold/silver) cdr's for arching for their audio libraries / video clips, etc, for themselves and for paying clients. I wonder why this is? Must be because they are crap compared to Verbatum / TDK / CMC, etc - dont think so, maybe it's due to their 100yr stated life (which we beleive compared to the cheaper brands) and because over many years they prove superb - after all, they cost alot more - and no one spends more money for nothing.

Ice'y

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've actually got two packs of the Kodak Silver & Gold's Ultima disk's. One says it's made in Ireland (the 1-12x),the other in Mexico,(1-24x).
Thus far the Ireland made 10 pack has proved more reliable,though one particular VCD compilation has proved very annoying.

The CD quality check has responded with multiple slow downs read errors,38 on one disk,then 130 odd, then 200 odd on disk 3. However,it also says 0.00%. A scan disk of the surface shows some yellow sectors,though the file check says ther's zero errors.
As I intend this set of VCD's to be my masters can I trust it if it says there's no file errors,despite the yellow sectors on the scandisk?

Whats the difference between the CD quality check,& the scandisk/filecheck in CD Speed?

One other question. I'm sure I had a util in Nero that listed the "real" CD media manufacturer,(& chemical type of the CDR), but I can't recall if this was an extra program or not, can anyone tell me what tool/program it was?
Thank you for all your info thus far guys,it's appreciated!

Use the drive check option in Nero CD Speed.

yes i hate kodak GOLD . they burn fine but get wrecked too easily. who cares if they last 100 years, its useless if they die from getting the recording layer scratched. the only reason lots of people use them is because it says gold on it and people get the stupid idea in their heads that it is good. if they work for you then thats good but Im not gonna pay $20 for 10 cdrs that wont last the distance.

@Darshanjog. Just tried the drive check tool in CD Speed.
Of the supported tests in both the Asus CDRW & Liteon CD-rom, I had the following...
Mode sense 10...ok
Seek 10...ok
Read CD....ok
Read 10...ok
Read 12....ok
Set CD speed...ok
Mode sense 6 & Read CDDA commands not supported.
I assume if it passes those main tests though, my VCD should be fine for any future copying, or changing back again to mpg form?

Yeah everything is fine.

The messages posted by you are normal.

Thank you darshanjog. Been getting fustrated & worried about that,I'd wasted 3 CD's already, yet according to that Drive check I needn't have-sigh!
Live & learn I guess! But your info's been appreciated!

Glad to have helped.