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[Mehdi-]

I welcome any constructive criticism. I acknowledge I may be *extremely* lucky, as some have suggested in the past. However, I am only interested in facts, not theories.

I think there is a rather large misconception in the scene... or more precisely, the "leecher scene", if you will, in regards to backup media.

Back in the day... in a nutshell
Since the dawn of 360 backups, the general recommendation has generally been to use quality media. This almost always translated to using Verbatim DL disks, which are by far the best media I have used to date. However, it was also very beneficial to have a *good* DL Burner. The two items went hand in hand in avoiding coasters. Additionally, better media would put less strain on the laser.

However, that was before the NXE update.

Today
Today, the 360 dashboard allows you to copy the contents of an entire disk to a HDD. As such, a disk must successfully do two things:

A. Have it's entire contents readable once, for the initial copy to the hdd
B. Be briefly readable when the 360 launches the game

In other words, the work required is much less demanding on these disks, and visa-vi, the laser. As such, using quality media is now not a necessity for everyone anymore.

If you are like me, and you:
1. Lose disks often
2. Throw them around with very little regard
3. Throw them away after you're done with them
4. Rather re-burn the game months down the line, rather then shelving them.

In a nutshell, if your disks have a short lifespan... NXE has inadvertently made using cheap disks more practical.

My Experience
Since NXE, I have used the cheapest of cheap disks. Saving me 3x the cost at least. Yes, this means I even use Staples-branded DL Media. At least dozens burns later... via different batches and brands... I have had no problems what so ever. Heck... I even burn at full speed. ( Much of this is due to Pioneer's fantastic 1112D drive )

The only thing I have ever experienced twice, was having my 'copying to hdd' process fail. However, after re-starting the copy-to-hdd process, the second time worked like charm.

Conclusion
If you are like me, and want to save money in the long run, cheap media makes sense. Especially, if you have a quality burner.

Is it worth the nail biting over $100. For folks like myself, every dollar counts.

This post has been edited by Mehdi-: Sep 15 2009, 09:28 PM

[rwcottrell]

agreed.i always use sonys dl disks but i might switch to a cheaper media if i find one i like.verbatims are not mandatory.

[Mehdi-]

QUOTE(rwcottrell @ Sep 17 2009, 03:28 AM)

agreed.i always use sonys dl disks but i might switch to a cheaper media if i find one i like.verbatims are not mandatory.

That's what I am talking about. Just bought me a 25 pack of some crap for $5 w/ shipping. I can't complain at all.

[Frog_Racer]

ive used crappy media even before the nxe, never had an issue

[Mr.RedRing]

Just because you have a good burner doesn't mean the cheaper media you use will burn fine.  Also, keep in mind that if you use cheap media and it burns a few sectors incorrectly or something, then copy it to the hdd in the NXE, you would be copying bad game data over and MS would see that.

I just stick with Verbatim.  I have always had terrible luck with Memorex, Sony, TDK, WinData, etc.  I wasted alot of money trying to take the cheap route.  It'll save you alot of headaches if you just get Verbatim.

Don't get me wrong, if Sony or Memorex discs work for you then awesome, but there is a greater chance they won't work.

If your drive has trouble reading them in the first place, it's going to have that same trouble saving it to the harddrive...

[MoebiusX]

How would you know if you have a bad disk/bad sectors?

I'm a n00b and have yet to burn my first disk. Mostly because everywhere I go it says "OMG VERBATIM ONLY IF ANYTHING ELSE INSTA-BAN" and I can't seem to find any of them locally. I wanted to try getting a Sony, but then I just couldn't.

Unfortunately, they are expensive as heck and my burner, though DL capable, is generic.

Again, how would I know if I have a bad burn?

[Morning Call]

there is software out there that will check your media.

i believe theres even software out there that will show the quality in %.

this is where you can visually see why cheap media sucks.

i used to use memorex dvds back in the day, until %90 of my burns stopped working after about a week. memorex is like the madcatz of the burning industry.

cheaping out on quality almost always costs you more money in the end.

[MoebiusX]

So if you were to rank the leading brands, how would they go?

[McGetMoney]

I use Aone DL Printable media 100% not fails never had any problem with them and they are only 40p a disc

[Donkeypuncher]

Personally, I use memorex DL discs with zero problems so far. I have the benq drive though, the other drives seem to be more picky about discs. Not sure how important a top quality burner is, I'm using an old NEC 3550a burner and it has only made 1 coaster due to my own fault. I'm also using an old PC, it can't play HD video or run any quality PC games.

[Mehdi-]

QUOTE(Mr.RedRing @ Oct 12 2009, 12:42 AM)

Just because you have a good burner doesn't mean the cheaper media you use will burn fine.  Also, keep in mind that if you use cheap media and it burns a few sectors incorrectly or something, then copy it to the hdd in the NXE, you would be copying bad game data over and MS would see that.

I just stick with Verbatim.  I have always had terrible luck with Memorex, Sony, TDK, WinData, etc.  I wasted alot of money trying to take the cheap route.  It'll save you alot of headaches if you just get Verbatim.

Don't get me wrong, if Sony or Memorex discs work for you then awesome, but there is a greater chance they won't work.

If your drive has trouble reading them in the first place, it's going to have that same trouble saving it to the harddrive...

Do you have any proof that NXE will ignore bad sectors? Just about every software program out there by default will error out if bad sectors are found.

From experience, if NXE has a problem reading the disk, the copy process will itself error out.

Even if NXE does surprisingly skip over bad sectors, which I doubt, how would they know the difference between a bad sector caused by poor copying, and a scratched disk?

[Evi1d33d]

Most of the dual layers are around $25 for 20 discs so might as well spend an extra $3 for the Verbs.

[AllzLoZT]

I've always used Verbatim DL's however I ran across FTI FalconMedia DL's, far less expensive. A couple forums had good things to say about them but I trust the opinions on this board far more.

Anyone have any experiences with these DVD+R's?

[Fishtank]

If you install the game with a retail disc, then put it away and just use the backups to boot the game... would it really matter what media you used?

I've never done it, I'm just getting into this after a few games have been destroyed.

Can you boot a retail hdd install with the backed up copy?

[majinsoftware]

Well that would help the dvd drives life alot but you have to remember it still checks the disk every so often to make sure its valid. And using poor quality media means the drive could get read errors while cheking the disk is valid and you might still get a dirty disk read error and it is still doing more strain to the dvd drive then if you used good quality while doing the same and installing the game.