Ritek 8x DVD+R Media Screwup

[dolphinius_rex]

As far as I understand it, it was never intended to happen. As orders go, Ritek is shipping real 8x DVD+Rs now for sure.

[Ian]

Meritline made good on their promise to straighten this stuff out. Here's the email Ritek sent them:

December 17, 2003

Dear Valuable Customer:

It has been brought to our attention that we may have a mix-up in one of our recent shipments of 8X DVD+R disc. A small batch of our 4X DVD+R discs (Ricoh coded) may have been delivered to you as Ritek 8X discs.

If you have received the above mentioned product(s), we apologize for any inconveniences it may have caused you. If you are affected by this incident, please contact us and we will provide you with a prompt solution.

Ritek stands by our commitment to delivering the best quality products and services. That said, errors may occur as in any businesses. Again, we apologize for any troubles or misunderstandings and we appreciate your continuous support in our business.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Yeh
VP, Sales & Marketing
Advanced Media / Ritek America

If you got the wrong discs, contact Meritline. They'll give you the difference between the Ritek 8x media and 4x media plus another 10% off.

[BurninMan921]

Faith in Meritline restored! (hopefully not misplaced faith!)

I'm glad they're taking care of it; now, the big question is:
Are they still shipping the 4x discs they have as 8x?
If I order 8x again will I get 8x or the 4x's again?

I'll post in their forum as soon as I can actually ACCESS it...

[Ian]

Yeah, I'm going to wait for my refund before ordering any more.

[Ian]

It looks like Meritline finally updated their website:

http://www.meritline.com/dvd-plus-r-8x-blank-media.html

As you can see, the 8x DVD writers from BTC and Sony have been removed from the list of compatible drives. Makes me wonder what the story is now.

If anyone is wondering, I did get a refund.

[dolphinius_rex]

That makes me think they have decided to prey on the uninformed... the worst kind of vendor

[Ian]

It looks like Ritek USA is still shipping the R02 discs. Someone reported in Meritline's forum that the max speed they're seeing is still 4x.

[dolphinius_rex]

Ritek shipped the 4x DVD+Rs to www.blankmedia.ca too... grr!

[Narbo]

Yeah thats a pisser, I was all excited when blankmedia.ca put up they were going to be getting some 8x in stock but I guess ill have to wait a bit longer.

[dolphinius_rex]

Don't worry, I'll make sure the situation is rectified properly

I have good connections with both the owner of blankmedia.ca, and the salesrep that sold him the wrong stuff by mistake...

[RJW]

The supposed date of deliverance for the Traxdata Ritek R03 media is being moved and moved. I wonder what's going on at Ritek & Primedisc.

So far only Verbatim has 8x media out there. I have seen them but I didn't buy them because of to high prices and the question of how good this will be supported in my Pioneer A06 without a firmware upgrade.
At the current price level I won't take the risk !

[RJW]

Just came straight back from the philips licenscing page and the following is listed for 8x approved disc's.

DVD+R 4.7Gbytes speed 8x "Provisional Approval"
17 MID code MCC type 003
Verbatim/Mitsubishi branded DVD+R media
18 MID code RICOHJPN type R02
Produced by Ricoh Co., Ltd.
19 MID code PHILIPS type 081
Philips branded DVD+R media

MCC is up there for 2 months.
As you can see RICOHJPN R02 is listed as a real 8x disc !

So Ian if you say that it really is Ricoh R02 you typed in

It looks like Ritek USA is still shipping the R02 discs. Someone reported in Meritline's forum that the max speed they're seeing is still 4x.

Then you should have the corect disc's if it's Ritek R02 then it isn't.
In the case of Ricoh R02 it would mean drive manufacturers are to slow with supporting media. Which would be quite bad because first releasing so called drives and blaiming the media manufacturers that the media is not there and then where there is actually the media on the market then do not support it.

As you can see R03 is not there and that makes me wonder. It allready made me wonder when Ritek had a big mouth that they would be the first and while they still had no code listed at philips licenscing while MCC allready had and was quite silent at the moment about the availability.
It took MCC arround 2 months befor they got the disc's out so if this is the same for Ricoh ritek media I won't expect the real media to be there any earlier as over 2 weeks. So like I said it makes me wonder will the final ritek media be unapproved or will it finally show up as Ricoh R02 and will we see the Ritek R03 much later. And were we so far fooled by Ritek with there own statements and info about Ritek R03.
Let me clear after to many doubtfull comments I really do not trust Ritek anymore !
Incase of Primedisc manufactured disc's like Traxdata they could have also used the Philips stamper which makes it even more confuseing !

[dolphinius_rex]

This is VERY weird, there shouldn't have even BEEN any RITEKR02 media in North America... and I've seen screenshots of the RITEKR03 DVD+Rs sitting in Ritek USA! (I'll see if I can post that later, but it's at my work e-mail, and I've been sick all week ).

Why is all this still happening?

[RJW]

Hmm I got a theory.

Facts
- Images of Ritek R03
- The Philips licenscing info
- The difference in dates that the disc should be there !
- The Wrong media out there

NOTE THIS IS A THEORY based on the above facts:

Ritek has the R03 media but they don't have the approval withouh the approval they may not put it on the market or Philips will sue them !
Ritek will not take the risc since they know it might mean that they may no longer may manufactur +R media including media for third parties (ricoh)

So what can they do to safe there but. Ship out 4x media as 8x media some people can burn them fine with some recorders and won't complain. These people just pay Ritek some extra profits. Then the other people who will complain give them a rebate and say that they just screwed up Now the rebate can be payed by the extra profit they receive from the people who don't complain. All this poor tricks just for buying some time for getting the media approved.

Like I said this is just a theory and pure speculation.

[RJW]

romstore (CDFREAKS webstore) claim that the Ritek 8x media will work with all 8x burners according to there forum. Now someone allready asked a question about it being compatible with BTC and Sony drives and also asked if the could post the MID code !
While my experience is prety bad with romstore these guys wouldn't be as bas to sell 4x media as 8x. Since that is not there style !
(Some other things like hacked firmware promotion to burn there stuff and labeling all there media as great quality is ! (And MAM-E is really poor we all should know that by now !)

[dlathem]

That makes me think they have decided to prey on the uninformed... the worst kind of vendor

Well... I ordered these blanks from them on December 22 and they did not ship out until December 26 and I got the Ricoh 4x instead of the Ritek 8x. I did not receive them until January 5th (today) and discovered the problem.

I called and called and called and finally spoke with customer support. After considerable time pulling the order up and going over the information and making the customer service person understand that I knew I had been sent the WRONG disk I was told I could return them for a refund. I said I wanted them to pay for shipping back to them since it was their mistake. I was put on hold and never got to talk to a live person again. I tried calling back but all I got was a recording.

Since they shipped these to me after the Ritek notice I can only assume they intended to try and unload the rest of them. I can buy this same disk cheeper down the street from my office.

I have ordered from Meritline before, but never again!

[dolphinius_rex]

just to prove that the discs really *DO* exist:

[RJW]

So what ! It might exist. However it isn't approved (YET)! This might indicate why the media is not there yet in any store.
Or Rex are you selling them at your work allready ?

[dolphinius_rex]

So what ! It might exist. However it isn't approved (YET)! This might indicate why the media is not there yet in any store.
Or Rex are you selling them at your work allready ?

Well, I *could* be.... but there are more internal problems with that at the moment. If all goes well, I should at least have *access* to some in the next couple of days, but we shall see.

[jsl]

DVDrohlinge24 sells RITEK...R03 media (in stock): http://www.dvdrohlinge24.com/catalog/pr ... anguage/uk

[RJW]

Yeah just got mail that some local store has the R03 media tomorrow.
I will see.
Still I wouldn't take the plunge as long as it isn't approved by Philips yet.
This makes me think Ritek has sample test media since ealy september I think it was and still no approval. How is this possible ?
Infact Philips(very late but okay they could go for the easy way) and Ricoh made later anouncements and have approved media.

[RJW]

romstore/cdfreaks shop put there Ritek DVD+R R03 8x media on there site. They claim that it does work at 8x on all 8x recorders. So that seems to include the Sony DRU530 and the BTC 8x burner.

http://shop.cdfreaks.com/index/1/2/0/255

[dolphinius_rex]

romstore/cdfreaks shop put there Ritek DVD+R R03 8x media on there site. They claim that it does work at 8x on all 8x recorders. So that seems to include the Sony DRU530 and the BTC 8x burner.

http://shop.cdfreaks.com/index/1/2/0/255

Or they could just be listening to Ritek on that one... Ritek tests their media on several drives in house, and makes their assessment off of that, however I also know that they don't have a BTC DVD burner...

[RJW]

So to test that one out I just need to find someone with a BTC or SONY burner and some nice store which will sell me a small amount for a good price.