HP 8X DVD+R 50 pack for $20 at OfficeMax

[gozulin]

I'm not sure if this is hot but OfficeMax is selling 50 packs of HP 8X DVD+R for $20 bucks. Regular price is supposed to be $50 and you get a $30 Instant Rebate.

I bought a couple packs.

 

[speemam]

Originally posted by: gozulin
I'm not sure if this is hot but OfficeMax is selling 50 packs of HP 8X DVD+R for $20 bucks. Regular price is supposed to be $50 and you get a $30 Instant Rebate.

I bought a couple packs.

The $20 for 50-pack is a standard these days, so I'd rather to get the Sony, the Maxell, or the Fuji from either Staples or BB.

According to this, the HP media might be CMC :disgust:

 

[xtagenesis]

what is CMC? i have no idea what your talking about.. i checked reviews and they are all good on these disks.

 

[vegetation]

Good price but no need to stock up on a bunch of these unless you spit out discs daily. Prices will move down even lower during the year.

 

[KDKPSJ]

Originally posted by: xtagenesis
what is CMC? i have no idea what your talking about.. i checked reviews and they are all good on these disks.

AFAIK, CMC is Taiwan based company. Their media is not-bad quality, but not good either. (4 stars out of 10, if you ask me) Because of the quality of DVD blank media has not been standardized, the manufacture matters a lot.

Anyway, for the deal, since it is CMC, I would go for Fuji deal from BB. CMC is one of my NOT-TOUCH media based on my personal experience. I heard newer CMCs are gotten better, but still no way closer to the quality of top media, such as Ricoh, TY, MCC.

 

[jclark]

$17.94 at Staples B&M this week. In this week's ad.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

saw 50pack imation 8x+r at our local sams today for $15.95

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
saw 50pack imation 8x+r at our local sams today for $15.95

atip on those would be nice to know

 

[T2urtle]

reguarding all your bad quatily dvd's and what not. dispite all the reviews. i gotten the cheaper stuff always. the GQ and the platium stuff. everyone says they are crap and all coasters. I've gotten 3 coasters and 2 are from when i first started burning about 1 year ago. now about 600dvd's later. nothing has craped out on me.

 

[TipsyMcStagger]

How do you find out if something is CMC?

I mean, it says HP on the spindle, do other companies outsource DVD+R production to this CMC company and then slap their name on it?

 

[T2urtle]

you cant tell unless you use a computer. a lot of companys use CMC as well. Verbaitum uses a batch of CMC's i've gotten them a couple of times.

I've gotten a batch for $20 of HP. They are CMC's as well but i never tried those out yet. Just burn at lower speeds and it works like gold trust me my 600:3 ratio is pretty good. burn at 2.4x or 4x. and dont lag up the comp. SHould be fine. i think its more on your burner then anything. Plus how you treat the cd afterwords. Its all about the dye that the dvd uses really. now if it throw them around the dye is going to get scufed and its game over. Overall for me, look at the disc itself. See if you have a nice constant flow of purple all around the disc if it then its pretty good.

You never know what kinda of dvd's you get. The only brand that i've been constant with is Ritec on i only use those for my ps2 games. just because i've heard cheap stuff can hurt the laser.

 

[Ghettocowboy]

I am begining to see $0.40/disc for TY and other Japanese made discs, for a Taiwan made disc like HP (CMC), it is not a good deal

 

[toant103]

Originally posted by: TipsyMcStagger
How do you find out if something is CMC?

I mean, it says HP on the spindle, do other companies outsource DVD+R production to this CMC company and then slap their name on it?

you can use dvdinfo to find out who make it. THe only dvd media i buy are the one that's made in Japan.

You get a lower PI with disc that's made in Japan

 

[Glpster]

Originally posted by: toant103

you can use dvdinfo to find out who make it. THe only dvd media i buy are the one that's made in Japan.

You get a lower PI with disc that's made in Japan

Lower PI?

 

[speemam]

Originally posted by: T2urtle
reguarding all your bad quatily dvd's and what not. dispite all the reviews. i gotten the cheaper stuff always. the GQ and the platium stuff. everyone says they are crap and all coasters. I've gotten 3 coasters and 2 are from when i first started burning about 1 year ago. now about 600dvd's later. nothing has craped out on me.

A few of the movies that I burned on the Great Quality (yeah right!) DVDs a few months ago are now unreadable anywhere :| Luckily, I have the BlockBuster's unlimited rental pass Now, I rather spend a bit more for well known good media just to have the assurance that I won't be loosing GIGS of data. If you're going to store home movies or data of any significant value to you, don't use GQ media from Fry!!!

 

[WooDaddy]

Originally posted by: TipsyMcStagger
How do you find out if something is CMC?

I mean, it says HP on the spindle, do other companies outsource DVD+R production to this CMC company and then slap their name on it?

TO ANSWER EVERYONE'S MEDIA CODE QUESTION (And I don't mean to yell.. just to get your attention)

The greatest website to go to is videohelp.com. Basically, go here and type in the brand name, select the speed and media type (-R, +R, -RW, +RW) and it will return the media code.

And yes, people slap their own label on these discs all the time. There are only a few manufacturers of DVD media and almost none of them actually sell their own discs save Fuji, Ritek and Optodisc.

Why is the media code so important?
Well, back in the infancy of DVD burners, disc compatibility was a BIG, HUGE issue, where certain players couldn't burn at the right speed or just not at all. It's a combination of quality control and DVD firmware/laser support.

The thing to understand is that DVD burners are not at all like your CD burners. CD burners basically could burn any blank CD. Back then the only thing to worry about was the color (blue, gold, silver, green). The manufacturer wasn't that big of an issue, but the color was. Silver was best, gold, blue then green was worst for reading and it was vice versa for burning (I worked tier 5 tech support for Philips CD-burners back in the day. I was the supervisor's, supervisor's supervisor that you had to wait 2 hrs to get to). DVD burners are much more complicated. Color of the disc doesn't matter (since they all look silvery, goldish) but the media code does.

Each burner has firmware (software inside the DVD burner that moves the laser, sets the power level and controls the motor) and the firmware has a huge table of manufacturers, media type (-/+RW) and their speeds. Every time you put in a blank DVD the burner cross-references the media code embedded in the blank DVD with the table in the DVD burner's firmware. What ever speed the manufacturer of the DVD burner suggests for the media type of the blank DVD inserted is used. So, if the firmware says burn a TTH002 media code (TDK 8X DVD+R) at 2x speed, it'll burn it at 2x EVEN if the TDK box says 8x.

So basically, go to videohelp.com and check out your burner and the type of media you want to get before you buy it. Asking the salesperson at bestbuy or OM or wherever is going to get you nowhere as they can't possibly know all that information.

Typically overall Fuji, TDK and Verbatim media is best. Also, CMC that are higher speed are much better than they used to be (8x or faster). But when in doubt, check the place of manufacture. If it says Made in Japan, you're probably going to be ok.

 

[WooDaddy]

For what it's worth, I have a NEC ND-3500A with the dangerous bros 2.18 firmware and I only use Taiyo Yuden (Fujifilm and TDK) DVD+Rs and Infodisc (Memorex) DVD+RWs. I can burn Fujis at 16x even though they're marked at 8x and I burn the DVD+RWs at 6x though they're marked at 4x.

 

[unclebud]

i have 1100a with hp fw 3.15
burns 2.4x philips CMC (i used up the hp discs already) @ 4x
if this was $15, i'd get it (and i have 200 imation ricoh r01-002 sitting behind me)

 

[drewstylz]

to the people who have no idea what everyone is talking about, just go to the cdfreaks forums and surf around for a couple hours =)

 

[Silex]

Agreed to above. Everyone here has good info. Now...my Sony DRU-510a crapped out on me when I kicked it today and probably misaligned the laser ~_~. So ghey lemme tell you.

 

[T2urtle]

my NEC 2500a 1.07 FW will burn any disc you throw at it error free to day so far. i'm still waiting for what you people call a " bad batch" thats all i got to say.

 

[Silex]

I think you mean 2510A cause the Mad Dog 1.07 firmware adds dual layer burning . Ask me how I know! (hint: I have 4 of these drives )

 

[T2urtle]

i'm using 1.07 2500a right now. i didn't wanna try to make it DL because there would be no point (currently $5 a DL disc)