Customer Reviews

Memorex 4.7GB 4x DVD+R Media (25-Pack Spindle)

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

I've owned burners for years and years, and I'm well-acquainted with coasters and bad media and bad drives. My latest incarnation of a Frankenmachine has a Sony internal DVD read/CD burner and an external Sony DRX-500ULX DVD/CD burner. I kicked Roxio's s/w to the curb awhile back and now use Nero's suite of tools almost exclusively.

I turned to dvdrhelp.com for some DVD media advice, which led me to some generic DVD-R Optodiscs. Wow, huge waste of money despite reviews saying they burn at 4x with my burner. So, after that spindle of coasters was burnt, I looked again at media, this time for a name brand.

Memorex had a run of cheap CDRWs a year ago that were 50% awful, 50% fast. I was reluctant to try them again, but Amazon had a great deal on DVD+Rs and the return policy is generous. Plus, I heard +Rs were generally more compatible... so I ordered the 25-pack.

I was burning at 4x, and every disc played in every DVD reader in the house (all Sony equipment). I can safely recommend this media to anyone with Sony equipment, at the very least. It's a joy to be able to burn DVDs at 4x, and not make coasters. Best of all, nobody sells these cheaper than Amazon. A terrific deal.

Fred

I have used the Memorex DVD+R discs for quite a lomg time now. I have probably burned over 100 movies using DVD X-Copy Express and Memorex DVD media without one failure. Can't get any better than that!

My experience with my first two spindles of these discs was very satisfactory. Actually I had not a single coaster, and I was able to burn all my DVDs at 4x with my NEC 1100A burner. I went ahead and bought 3 more spindles. What a mistake! Even though the package seems identical to that of the first spindles I bought, the discs looked physically different. And to my surprise, they were actually different media. My burner can only roast them at 2.4x. I made a bit research about it by using DVDIdentifier and I found that the last discs I bought have manufacturer id = CMC.MAG.F01 whereas the first ones I bought have manufacturer id = RICOHJPN.R01. Most probably my burner's firmware doesn't support this id, so that's why it uses its default speed of 2.4x. I knew I can flash my drive to correct this problem, but this is risky. In conclusion, I cannot recommend this product to anyone since I wouldn't know if other burners had this same issue. I am giving two stars to this product for the first two spindles I bought, but I got very very disappointed with my last purchase. I really think Memorex should use different labels for these spindles, so that customers can choose the media that suits them best. I think that's care for customers, and it would be fair.

Although I just started using this media, it burns at 8x (actually 6x for first 750MB and 8x thereafter) on my Plextor 708A drive without any errors. The manufacturer id for this media is CMC MAG F01 which is listed on the Plextor media compatibility chart which means they have specific write parameters in their firmware for this media.. a good thing.
Culled from the plextor compatibility table found on their website.

CMC 2.4x/4x 4.7G 4x CMC MAG F01 0

CMC Magnetics, the OEM of this media is a major media manufacturer in Taiwan. There website is:

http://www.cmcdisc.com/index.htm

Burned over 100 of these, they work great in every player so far.

I used a 25 pack of these doing DVD backups, and the last 5 or so failed. I thought it was my software, so I got new software. Guess what? My first disc out of the new package of 25 that I bought failed, too. It's not my burner (as another reviewer suggested, implying that people should learn to read), as it's brand new and doesn't require the firmware upgrade they mention. They just suck and have a high failure rate. So the consensus seems to be that TDK or Sony are best. I'm buying some now and save myself the frustration.

Memorex DVD+R 4x media works perfectly with NEC ND-1300A DVD+-R/RW Drive.

These Memorex 4x DVD+R's are the best way to burn at 8x with a Plextor 708A drive. I have burnt many at 8x with no problems. No other 4x disks will do 8x, not even Ritek. These are also much cheaper than the $1.65 a disk for real 8x Riteks.

Purchased this 25 spindle after many getting several high quality Memorex DVD+4 - 4 X media manufactured by Richoh (media id RICOHJPNR01) from Amazon at the lowest prices available anywhere. Unfortunately Amazon has no control on when Memorex sends them inferior bad media made by various sub contractors. Memorex merely puts their label on media mfg by their many subs. My Feb 2003 purchase of this item turned out to be badly made CMC MAG F01 and not Richoh. Most discs in lot I got have minute cracks, and you can see it was badly pressed all along the rims of the discs. Those CMC which did burn are so poorly manufactured that they can be expected to have very short life due to air and heat easily getting in and causing deterioration of dye. I might as well purchased 80 cent CMC from wholesalers if I wanted junk. Eight coasters out of 25 discs, whereas I have not had one coaster from the Amazon Richoh stuff out of hundreds burned. Moral, if you are going to buy repackaged DVD media from companies which only repackage media, buy small quantities, test and id media mfg of initial purchase with DVDINFOPRO or some other media identifier before you buy in quantity in any given Amazon lot.

I'm afraid I have to agree with the other previously happy Memorex users in noting that Memorex quality/success rate has gone downhill. I was skeptical when I read the other reviews and I stuck with Memorex, but I have seen the light now. For a year I was very successful with the DVD+R Memorex disks. In the 25 pack spindles I would buy, they would all work....so in Aug '04 I bought 2 25 packs at Circuit City (a mistake?). That appears to have been a waste of money. I just tried to burn a copy of something and I ended up trashing 4 disks in a row. I was convincing myself it was my hardware or program or something else. Then I remembered someone had given me a blank Sony DVD-R disk, so I thought what the heck, let me try that one. Into the SONY drive it went and it copied without a hitch. That was the final straw for my Memorex loyalty. Out of a pack of 25, I have about 10 left, but have had to trash 6 of the 15 I used. Not a good success ratio. Bye Memorex.