Unfortunately, I have to agree with the many other negative reviews here, especially in regard to the long-term reliability of Memorex. I have burned many Memorex disks over the last 5-8 years and the ones that are 3-5 years old or more are now showing a high rate of failure. This makes them useless for long-term storage. If you check the discussion forums on the web and various blogs you will see Memorex's discussed time and time again in regard to their poor long-term reliability.
On the other hand, the Verbatims and the Taiyo Yudens are quite reliable, although even the Verbatims are said to have slipped in recent years because they have licensed their technology to so many substandard off shore producers. If you can still find real Japanese made Verbatims they are probably okay. But if not, beware!
So even if you don't experience a high initial burn failure rate, Memorex is highly questionable for long-term archiving, which is what I need, or at least 3-5 years. But they aren't even reliable for that, based on my experience and other people's experience which I have seen reported in various discussion groups.
Mitsui Advanced Media's dual gold/silver disks and also the Century disk, which is similar and developed by a partnership between Mitsubishi and Kodak, are quite good, but at over 2 bucks apiece they ought to be. For most purposes Taiyo Yuden is fine and theirs are around 36 cents a disk in packs of 100.
The Century disks are the most expensive of all, but also, they are guaranteed to be from runs of less than 25,000 from the original glass master. Most companies don't replace the master until 500,000 presses. This also causes problems because the master after the first couple of hundred thousand isn't that accurate.
Whichever media you decide to buy, caveat emptor because it's a mine field out there when it comes to purchasing decent media these days, one reason being because of all the fake brand name disks. I would just go with Taiyo Yuden. They are only made in Japan, but make sure you have real T-Y because of all the fakes. The real ones have a visible ring in the dye layer near the hub of the disks, which is said to be more expensive to manufacture and is harder to fake. Also, make sure the label on the package says it's from Japan, although that's not a certain criterion, but the extra little ring should be. Whichever media you choose, good luck! Memorex 4.7Gb/16x DVD-R (50-Pack Spindle)
Since I got my first DVD burner with my G4 Mac, I've been buying Memorex for creating video DVDs, as they were readily available. In the last 6 years, I think I've had maybe 10 coasters. And only recently have I come across my first DVD player that wouldn't play these discs. I wish I could remeber the brand, but it escapes me at the moment. I'll continue to buy them as they have performed great for me.
I've used them for backup as well asnd have seen a couple of verification errors when done. Unfortunately I haven't had other brands of DVDs on hand to test, but I still hold the Memorex brand in high regards.
It's not always the best idea to burn at the highest speed anyway since this can introduce errors, no matter what brand you use. Many repilcation companies will tell you that they burn at no higher speeds than 4x.
To start off with, I have to let everybody know that I'm using a very basic, budget computer (Dell Inspiron 530, Intel dual-core, 1 GB RAM, integrated graphics). Also, to give the most honestly possible review, I only used these for movies.
I had absolutely no problems when I backed up some movies that I have using Roxio Creator 10, and burning the dvds at nearly 16X most of the time. The reason this media gets all those bad reviews is because those people that are trying to burn movies, dont even know how to do it right.
To effectively back up a movie you need additionall free software on the net to do it. I'm not going to go into details about how to decrypt and shrink a dual layer movie onto a regular 4.7GB dvd, but I just have to tell you that you gotta know what you're doing or otherwise you'll get nothing but worthless coasters. As far as qulaity goes, you wouldnt be able to tell the difference between the actual movie and my copy. So for me, they worked flawlessly, quality was greatm and so was the price. I'm actually looking forward to buying them again.
And one last thing people, when you burn a movie you have to first create and ISO image of the file, not just copy and put the files and folders on the dvd. You'll get a nice little coaster and the dvd wont play. That's why I only had that 98% success rate instead of 100. Enjoy!
I see a lot of negative reviews here, but I've been using these discs for a couple months now with my PowerBook G4's Superdrive, and I've had no problems, at least none that I would attribute to the discs themselves. One review laments Toast Titanium 7, which in my experience is a very finnicky, buggy program. I too had a number of failed burns with that program, but I was able to remedy the situation by saving my dvd projects as disc images, and then burning them later with disc utility after I had a chance to mount them and check them out. For the price I payed for these discs, if I remember right, almost half the price of a 25 pack from other companies for a 50 pack from memorex, I am very very pleased. If you're looking to play around with dvd burning, and I guarantee you you will make a few mistakes and have to throw away a few discs before you get it right, this is the best deal you'll find anywhere.'
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