Microcenter Windata 10 pk- $9.99

Is this a bargain? Not really, unless you need something to put under the potted plants. I would have posted this in the "Education- What Not To Buy" thread, but there is not one.
May or may not work in your dvd player, may or may not last longer than 24 months, and may or may not get a Quality score of 75 on a scan.

I wonder what these are.
If they are CMC, you have luck.
If they are Ricoh, ok.
If they are Ritek, uhh, they still can be used.
If they are fake Ricoh, kthx.

Based on reports of Windata media. I'd say they are crappy whatever they are. SL Windata is often fake TY (made in Hong Kong).

doesn't look good, no hits for DL on videohelp, but 3/5 windata SL are fake TY.

my guess: a toss up between ritek QC rejects and fake ricoh/mcc


doh! larc919 beat me to it

gotta be ritek, no?

It could be any one of the things listed above. At $1 a disc though, I would just get a quality single layer disc at 1/3 the price or spend an extra 50 cents per disc and get Verbatim D/L discs. That being said it is good to see such things since it could help the overall D/L market price drop (thereby ensuring cheaper Verbatims).

the surface does look like Verbatim, I am heading down there to check them out on Sunday, if they are Taiwanese made, then no thanks, I dont buy any DL media that are not made by Japanese or the singaporeeeeeeees

I took a look at them the last time i was at Microcenter they are made in Hong Kong,.

I have bought some of these. Turns out there's two lot numbers, and lot 021206 is actually RICOHJPND01, which overburns to 4X reliably in my NEC 4550A; I must have put 10 movies on these with no problems. The other lot number is only RICOHJPND00, which none of my drives like at all.

But which country are they made in? After all the Ricoh media ID code is the most widely faked one out there (at least for D/L DVD+R).

(Well, I personally couldn't care less where they're made when they play in all my players) but the paper label in the cakebox says "Made in Hong Kong" and imported by a local distributor here in Southern California (UmeDisc Ltd.).

Fake
Just like the Playo DVD+R DL...

UmeDisc Ltd. couldn't manage to reproduce Yuden T02 with their clones by a long shot, scary to think they are trying to manufacture dual layer now.

Surprised they are still even using the windata name.

I bought 200 of their yuden T02's for 25 cents a disk, bad mistake

My LG was the only drive that could burn them at 4x with any luck

When one skips in one of my players (like the Ritek D01 did), I'll be sure to yet y'all know. 'Till then, the 4550A burns 'em just fine at 4X.

You will if they quit working on you in a few months. As for where they are made that is a pretty good indication of quality. HK or China have a long history of nasty media. Not saying that they are all 100% worthless or won't burn good on any burners but they are really hard to predict results from with any kind of accuracy.

I Burned 20 of these disks and every one of them are unwatchable at some point in the movie I burned!!

Well, I've been lately burning (the -D01 versions of these- remember to look at the lot number as I'd mentioned above, that's important) at 8X in my NEC 4550A (running a Liggy-modified MadDog 1.F3 firmware) and they play flawlessly in everywhere I put them. Don't know what your issue is.

I also do a linear verify read in another burner for every DL disc I make (regardless of brand) and these complete at higher transfer rates than even MKM001s do.

As has been mentioned above the issue is that all authentic Ricoh coded media is produced in Taiwan. So that means that if it is made in Hong Kong then they are clearly fake discs. I can't speak for the others here on this forum, but for my own part the issue is that I refuse to support a company that has to lie about it's own product (stealing Ricoh's media ID code). I would have more respect for them if they acurately listed who made them instead of trying to pass them off as something that they are not. Combine that with the fact that these run $1 a disc and so far you are the only one here who has reported solid success with these discs. Now factor that in with the fact that you can purchase D/L Verbatim for $1.50 to $1.60 a disc if you keep an eye out on sales and it just doesn't make it worth it for the average person here to bother with questionable media that runs $1 a disc.

The bottom line is that the aforementioned manufacturer has no integrity whatsoever, so how does a person trust them to maintain any kind of a decent quality standard?

Except for Verbatim brand I would not buy DL disc from any other brands.

That is the general consensus. Although, I might be willing to give Ritek or Ricoh a shot if I could get them for under 70 cents a disc.

I am not endorsing Ume/Windata, but I wouldn't call their attempt at cloning mids or disks, fakes. According to my limited research some time ago on the yuden t02's they produced, they claim to buy their dye and raw material from the same suppliers and liscense the mid code from phillips.

The term fake is a little too strong. Now if the disks were labeled ricoh made in tawain
that would make them fakes.

I dont really recommend any other brands of DL media except verbatim. I got 5Ritek DL media, only 2 discs were able to play back, 1 disc got stucked in the middle due to errors writing, 2 other successful burning were able to play back. Good thing I got them for free. Imagine if some1 pays $1 for each, 40% successful rate, making it $5 for 2 usable disc. Translate into cost of each successful burn is $2.50 per disc, costs more than verbatim. They are Ridata in individual jewel cases.

I don't know whether or not their dye is from the same source, but in most cases the 'faking' of media codes is not to fool or lie to the customer, it's to increase compatibility and the likelyhood that the media will be able to be burned in a wider range of equipment. For example, MBI, FUJIFILM, INFOME, PRODISC all have media codes for DL, but how many drives actually have a write strategy for them? Not many. So a company like UmeDisc can either produce a disc with low support other than a generic write strategy, or they can put out a product that uses a write strategy that is very common within burner firmware and try to match some of the general characteristics of the media code being used. Keep in mind that probably 90%+ of the consumers that burn blank media don't even know what a media code is, and first and foremost they need a product that can even be burned on their drive. Using a media code with widespread support increases those odds over using a write strategy with very low support, which would put the media at the mercy of whatever default strategy the drive decides to use with the discs. The same goes for SL media to a lesser degree - for example, I have some of their fake MCC004 under the Playo brand, it burns pretty well. Now if they tried to sell it with their AML003 media code, you wouldn't have near the burner support and a lot more problems, even if it was the exact same media. Now if they were to fake the brand at the point of sale, such as we saw with counterfeit Verbatim packaging, that would be a much more serious issue (not that this company had anything to do with that). I'm not saying it's great that they use someone else's media codes, but they're doing what will give the consumer the greatest chance of being able to use the product.