Ritek DL DVD+R now available....

[code65536]

Wow! so it's more or less utterly useless

Not quite.

[dolphinius_rex]

okay okay, I think the BenQ can burn it...

[code65536]

In all fairness to Ritek, though, it's not their fault that the manufacturers do not yet support this disc, much like the case with Optodisc...

[Kennyshin]

yeah, I'm not trying to say that higher prices always mean high quality standards, my experiences with Plextor contradict that on a daily basis! I'm just saying that with optical media, this is what is happening, and what will continue to happen

Actually, given the way things are going, I'm expecting more then one major player in the media business to go under, and hopefully a good chunk of the smaller guys.

The fact is, things are insane right now. It's like a freaking mafia trying to get retail stores to carry your product. You need to have an inside to the business, and provide MAJOR kickbacks to purchasers. I'm *NOT* kidding! Prices have to be bloody low, and it's not uncommon to quote below cost in the hopes of upping your own production quantities to the point of breaking even, or maybe making .1 of a penny per disc. This is what is considered *NORMAL* at this point. And with new media types and speeds just blazing through the market, especially with drives being brought out WAY before the media is available, no company can even recoup their R&D costs for the new media types. I expect that dual layer media will either save or destroy the industry, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Ritek fall apart and take a good chunk of the industry with it.

You don't understand Taiwan. They need their industry to pay for the defense.

I predict the DVD media price could be lowered to one fifth of the current market average and even then none of the largest manufacturers would go out of business. Not in Taiwan.

Once in the 1990s, the Sony CEO said it'll be months if South Korea opens the door for the Japanese makers before all South Korean makers go out of business. Things have changed so much since then. It'll be Sony rather than any of the South Korean makers to be out if both countries accept the other at once. It's not necessarily because Sony is making bad strategies.

Quoting under the total cost is nothing new either. South Korean companies still do that in order to export. Without export, the whole country disappears. In the long run, that's necessary for both survival and growth.

In the media industry as a whole, profitability has much increased in the last one year. The total number of units produced has not increased much. The average unit selling price has increased very much and will still go up due to Blu-ray, DVD-RAM, DVD+R DL, and probably more. Though a lot of manufacturers and resellers complain about competition and price wars in general every time, there are always new entries to the competition and existing ones reap more profits. Ritek couldn't ever dream 50% profitability could be possible when they were only making CD-R disks. For the first time in their history, they can now invest multi-billion USD in R&D if they want to. This is a recent report from DigiTimes, a local Taiwanese newspaper for the greatest benefits to the Taiwanese industry.

Lead Data, a second-tier manufacturer of optical discs in Taiwan, expects to cease reducing its CD-R stock volume by the end of this month and hopes to raise its OEM quotation next month, according to the company.

CD-R prices have hit bottom, forcing many makers in China to shut down their operations while others have reduced production. Lead Data is adjusting its inventory levels to help stabilize CD-R price levels and help the market rebound, the company indicated. Although Lead Data is unable to push up CD-R OEM price levels alone, the company is optimistic about the CD-R pricing outlook.

Lead Data’s current domestic monthly capacity is 30 million CD-R discs and five million DVD-R discs. The company also has a Hong Kong factory with a monthly capacity of five million CD-R discs. Sony is Lead Data’s largest customer, receiving 80% of the company’s output.

So many users on the most popular web forums criticize Lead Data quality. Yet even Lead Data enjoys such a growth. Five million DVD-R a month is 60 million each year. Since they like to double production every few months, it's likely the company will have produced more than one billion DVD recordable media by 2006.

[dolphinius_rex]

In all fairness to Ritek, though, it's not their fault that the manufacturers do not yet support this disc, much like the case with Optodisc...

Actually it kinda is their fault, since they already had the agreements with Ricoh, and could have easily had a joint venture, and cheaper R&D. They decided to go it on their own, and now are paying the consequences. Maybe if they hadn't pissed off the drive makers by requiring constant updates all the time in their firmwares it wouldn't have been an issue for them to make the media on their own.

With Optodisc, no one ever took them seriously until they rebuilt themselves just recently... so now they are working on building a reputation. Ironically, Optodisc would have zero chance of breaking into the market if it weren't for Ritek.

[Kennyshin]

In all fairness to Ritek, though, it's not their fault that the manufacturers do not yet support this disc, much like the case with Optodisc...

Actually it kinda is their fault, since they already had the agreements with Ricoh, and could have easily had a joint venture, and cheaper R&D. They decided to go it on their own, and now are paying the consequences. Maybe if they hadn't pissed off the drive makers by requiring constant updates all the time in their firmwares it wouldn't have been an issue for them to make the media on their own.

With Optodisc, no one ever took them seriously until they rebuilt themselves just recently... so now they are working on building a reputation. Ironically, Optodisc would have zero chance of breaking into the market if it weren't for Ritek.

How could it be cheaper for Ritek to make a joint venture with Ricoh? When a Taiwanese or a South Korean company does that with a Japanese company, most of the most profitable parts belong to the latter. Ricoh and Sony can make money without having to manufacture themselves and still can make more money working with Ritek and Lite-On. Perhaps Ricoh was too greedy for Ritek.

[dolphinius_rex]

Or maybe Ritek's quality couldn't meet Ricoh's specifications

[Kennyshin]

Or maybe Ritek's quality couldn't meet Ricoh's specifications

Either way, it's Ricoh who loses, but then Ricoh without any revenue from optical media is still far bigger than Ritek while Ritek relies on media production for most of their revenues and profits.

[code65536]

Here's my post in the CD Freaks media tests forum...
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=101326
(my post at CDF has more detailed information about this burn)


Here's my disc...




Here's my KProbe scan...



Here's my reading curve...



I set the booktype to -ROM. Both layers of the disc (I was especially worried about that second layer, after seeing the KProbe scan) played back fine without any problems on the two standalones that I tried the disc on. The disc also successfully passed disc verification. So I guess this qualifies as a successful burn.

[dolphinius_rex]

would have been nice if the disc had been full

[code65536]

would have been nice if the disc had been full

This was one of my all-time favorite movies. Most of my other top movies are even shorter--most are SL. And the few that I had that were longer were movies that I didn't think were remotely worthy of sacrificing a +R DL for (I have a very limited movie collection--most of my DVDs are actually data discs). But it would've been more of the same, I guess. There does seem to be a bit of a trend of the errors being a bit better closer to the outer edges of the disc (center of graph).

[thegdog]

I set the booktype to -ROM. Both layers of the disc (I was especially worried about that second layer, after seeing the KProbe scan) played back fine without any problems on the two standalones that I tried the disc on. The disc also successfully passed disc verification. So I guess this qualifies as a successful burn.

Code,

What write strategy was used by the burn? Did it use some default or did you hack the firmware to assign it a write strategy?

[thegdog]

But it is an intriguing offer, so I ordered a 50 pack as well. Although white inkjet printable, since there are no silver left. I hope it has a standard clear large center ring, not that smaller 20mm ring.

In case anyone needs to know, the Ritek ink jet printable has the standard large center ring, not the "full face" 20mm ring.

Phew.

[Doctor_T]

Duplicate

[Doctor_T]

For those who care about the 8x +R that they will get with their $40 purchase of a single +DL disc the Ritek R03 White Inkjet Media tests very well in Kprobe on a Liteon 812S.

Testing at max speed, with 8ecc, I get averages of <5 PI / <0.2 PO on about 10 discs that I burnt. Its a little lower when I use 2x scans. The best scan was 0.9 PI avg, 0.01 PO avg. These are just about the best scans I've had of any media including Verbatim Data Life Plus, burnt at any speed.

I haven't got around to burning the +DL disc because I can't decide on what I want to put on it.

[code65536]

Are your good Ritek R03 burns with the stock firmware? 'cuz I can't get the Ritek R03 that I got from getting the +R DL to burn well at all using the stock firmware. The discs do burn flawlessly when I switch to another write strategy.

Just remember to upgrade to VS0A and not VS08 before burning that +R DL.

[thegdog]

Are your good Ritek R03 burns with the stock firmware? 'cuz I can't get the Ritek R03 that I got from getting the +R DL to burn well at all using the stock firmware. The discs do burn flawlessly when I switch to another write strategy.

What write strategy are you burning the R03 with now? And did you get the silver? Or the white inkjet printable?

I have to say that the 3 I burned with my NEC drive were surprisingly low in errors. With all the Ritek bashing, I was expecting worse. I guess I got a good batch ...

... or a batch with 3 good discs on top.

[code65536]

Oh sorry, that was aimed at Doctor_T. My Ritek burns perfectly, with the right adjustments to the firmware. Mine was a LiteOn question, not a NEC question.

[thegdog]

Oh sorry, that was aimed at Doctor_T. My Ritek burns perfectly, with the right adjustments to the firmware. Mine was a LiteOn question, not a NEC question.

I know. I was wondering what write strat you are using on the Lite-On firmware for the Ritek R03. Just in case I decide to burn mine on my Sony DW-U18A instead. (Since it is a little faster and all.)

[pchilson]

Just in case I decide to burn mine on my Sony DW-U18A instead. (Since it is a little faster and all.)

Double Layer media... Can't believe you're talking about them in "onesies"...

"Whata ya gonna do with your's? I know what I'm gonna do with mine..."

[Wesociety]

haha!
At $10 per disc, one must contemplate and scrutinize the use of a DVD+R DL disc.

[alexnoe]

The DVD+R DL specs are a bit b0rked btw.

They only require 16% reflectivity. DVD-ROM9 require 18%, and Verbatim DVD+R DL discs also have 18% (those numbers are according to the C'T).

In other words: even if a disc is DVD+R DL compliant, it's reflexivity might be too low to read in DVD-ROMs, even if the same drive can read Verbatim DVD+R DL discs.
So have fun with discs so bad that they are NOT compliant to DVD+R DL

LOL

I rather pay 14 Euro for a Verbatim disc instead of 10 Euro for one of doubtful quality and even lower replay compatibility ...