While the rumor that Optodisc is going out of the optical media business is circulating for a few months, I have heard (from some distributors and industry insiders) that also Princo and Prodisc are going to stop optical media production in a short time. Could anybody confirm it??

Prodisc?! That would seem unlikely, but I guess anything's possible.

I too would be interested if anyone can confirm what pepst has heard.

Having said that, I also speak to a person who's well-informed about that stuff, and can honestly say I haven't heard anything.

I have access to Samsung Plomax OPTODISC media although OPTODISC was declared out of business monthes ago

More and more MIC Pleomax with UME MID are starting to show up replacing the good old OPTODISC

I think I need to stock up OPTODISC (thousands of them I mean)

Hehe...my local Morrison's supermarket has a ton of the 16x Optodisc Sammy discs, both -r and +R...keep meaning to grab a few more (5-packs in DVD cases).

I am seeing Princo 16x -R show up on eBay, didn't realize they even made 16x until I found "pepst's" post

sold as "Princo 16× DVD-R"
MID: PRINCORGM1

I might get some free samples lol should be fun to try..

http://www.cdrlabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=158408
"The story of the Princo 16x DVD-R"

IMHO the 16x Princos are actually pretty decent media, I wouldn't hesitate to buy some if I have an opportunity again

They were available under the CompUSA-brand before the company was sold to Tiger Direct. See my first test scan here:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/f33/not-bad-princo-221407/

As I've said before, any Optodisc you're seeing is stuff that was already in the channel, but that is starting to dry up. Imation used to be the biggest user of Optodisc, but no more. Samsung Pleomax is overpriced and difficult to obtain in the states, and there's no way to know if you'll get MIT or MIC, because it's not in any retail stores, only online.

There's only one good and reliable source for Optodisc (unbranded) here, and that's from Shop4Tech:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/f58/optodis...p4tech-242009/

Who knows whether Optodisc continues to supply them, or if what they're selling is warehoused stock that will eventually dry up.

As the BenQ learns, the burns get a little better:

Do you still have some of those CompUSA media? Could you burn some of them with MCC 03RG20, TYG03, OPTODISCR016 or MXL RG04 writing strategy? Thanks.

I'm not sure that doing a strat-swap would work better than SolidBurn for this kind of media.

Strategy swap can do wonders

Next week I am travelling to Cairo (the capital) and buy ALL the MIT Pleomax OPTODISC that I can find , it is an excellent media at half the price of legendary Panasonic TYG03

http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20080819PD202.html

Damn. Prodisc made some nice CD-Rs

i was gunna say i thought prodisc were going tits up or doing some retstructuring or something

It was obvious that Prodisc was going to hell, just by observing the quality drop in the DVDs they were making for Verbatim.

And by Prodisc's financial results in last years
http://www.prodisc.com.tw/English/html/investment.htm

I'm going to miss those Optodisc DVDs and Prodisc CDs... relatively good media for what it was priced at... as for Princo Never had any good experience with their media... their 16x is a bit too late to bring them out of their slump...

Me too. I hope that at least Optodisc will survive (Prodisc is in too deep problems).

My favourite Prodisc CDs are already gone from SVP
I just checked out what I think is Prodisc Technology's website:
http://www.productpilot.com/en/suppl...echnology-inc/
No mention of current optical media products anywhere.

The moral of the story: If there's anything you like made by any of those 3 companies still available, stock up now.

R.I.P. Prodisc

As far as I know, this is Prodiscs main website:
http://www.prodisc.com.tw/English/index1.htm
Plenty of mentions of optical media there :-)

So should I stock up on those cheapo Smartbuy CDRs that have "Made by Prodisc" proudly stamped on the hub? Sooo cheap and sooo tempting to stock up if ever Prodisc ends belly up. As for Optodiscs... local stores have been dry for close to half a year... And I'm only a few hundred miles away from Taiwan.

I hope they all survive the recent trend of businesses closing down. Variety is always fun, and the bad batches (like winning the lottery!) certainly keeps me on my feet.