Just ordered Panasonic e50 - advice please re best RAM -R disks to buy or avoid

[phmc]

Just ordered Panasonic e50 - advice please re best RAM -R disks to buy or avoid? Many thanks to all for previous advice helping me to make up my mind on the recorder.

[Fozzybear]

My personal recommendations for the E50 are:

DVD-RAM discs: I tend to stick with Panasonic ones, they aren't much different in price to other makes but I have a lot more confidence in them. Try 7dayshop, the panasonic.co.uk eshop (although they rarely have stock) or AVland. About £18 for a pack of 5 4.7gig bare discs, or a few more quid each for caddied ones.

DVD-R: Had pretty good results with Nan-Ya 2 speed discs from blankdiscshop.co.uk, also Memorex 2x/4x and Verbatim 2x discs. My particular E50 doesn't seem to like discs with Ritek dye (a shame as they are supposed to be very good), but you could try a pack of the Datasafe Ritek G03 discs, which are only £6.70 for 10 (I've used loads on my PC DVD RAM/-R/-RW drive and they work well on that) as you may have better luck than me.

If you're buying from blankdiscshop (a good company, used to sponsor these forums) then look for:

{DV 329** DATASAFE RITEK 1x-2x (Same Ritek dye as Traxdata) 4.7GB DVD-R disc in Packs of 10
{DV 343** Nan-ya (1x-2x) 4.7Gb DVD-R in Packs of 25
{DV 356** 4x MEMOREX 4.7GB DVD-R in tubs of 10

The DV 329 may work for you, or you could find that they are incompatible (it depends on the drive Panasonic use now, I think - my E50 was a very early one). £6.70 isn't too much to spend to try them though. If they work for you then I doubt you'll find a better disc for the price.

I'd advise you to avoid the really cheap discs (like princo dye) unless you really only want throwaway recordings, their life and reliability is pretty poor.

[phmc]

Many thanks for that Fozzy - very helpful.

[Fozzybear]

No prob. If you want more info on discs try avforums.com or disqworld.net (you'll need to register on the disqworld forums if you want to look at the blank media discussions though).

[AdulteratedJedi]

I reccomend 4X RITEK G04's .. or anything with the G04 die. Ive used Ritek for years ... never had any problems.

You can pick em up for cheap now aswell, SVP (Blank Disc Shop) had them on sale last time i checked.

AJ

[mbuckhurst]

So far the dvd-rams which have worked fine in my machine are:

panasonic bare disks £3.50
mirror bare disks £3
unbranded svp bare disks £3

optodisc 9.4GB cartridge approx £10
maxell 9.4GB cartridge approx £9
maxell 4.7GB cartridge approx £5
tdk 9.4GB cartridge approx £12
optidisc 4.7GB cartridges £2.47 (£247 for 100)

dvd-rams which haven't worked fine:

..... yep 100% reliability from all brands I've tried. Pretty much the only difference between the brands has been the number and quality of supplied labels (optidisc don't come with them).

I haven't used dvd-r disks in it yet, except for playback and for this it's played every disk I've tried.

mike

[TP2K]

Well, I have just got an HS2, and it refuses to reliably play Bulkpaq Yellow (well... what did I expect!?).

Said discs were written in my Pio A03 drive, and have previously played back flawlessly on my Pio 444 and my former DVR7000... :oh-hum:

Something's telling me a lot of my exiting created DVD-R's ain't gonna be like by the Panny! :cry:

[ixi]

Sorry to jump into this thread,

TP2K you said in your other thread you'd found a HS2 for £450.

I've asked where? in that thread, but you don't seem to have come back.

any chance you could tell us, its a bargain :thumbs:

Cheers

Ian

[Howdy]

Originally posted by mbuckhurst

..... yep 100% reliability from all brands I've tried. Pretty much the only difference between the brands has been the number and quality of supplied labels (optidisc don't come with them).


mike
Same here, you can also add Imation 9.4GB cartridges and these:
http://www.ketta.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=34 MediR brand (which are "strangely" identical to the Imation "branded" cartridges) for only £6 each. I normally use Ritek G03 DVD-Rs which seem to work just fine on my machine, either the DataSafes as mentioned above or the FWS or traxdatas from SVP. I've only had one FWS disk not work out of about 40 so far.

[nwgarratt]

I have used JVC DVD-R's from blankdiscshop in my E50.

I stick with Panasonic RAM. I have used single sided non cartridge RAM and a double sided cartridge RAM. All have work well.

The non cartidge RAM cost me £4 and the cartrdige RAM was £10.

[nictry]

Well just got my E50 and used Memorex 4x from SVP and no joy, they won't read at all, got a couple of cheap Mirror x2 and they work fine, seems each player has its own mind on whether it plays DVD-R or not :(

[nwgarratt]

There isn't any point in putting 4x media in the machine. Just stick with 1x or 2x media.

I have bought Mirror discs from Poundland and they work fine as well.

[Fozzybear]

The drives used in the E50 seem to change, which means it's hard to pinpoint good discs to use. I've heard of people having problems with verbatim and memorex discs, but I've not had any trouble with them. Likewise I cannot record to 2x Riteks.

It's a real pain. :(

[marky_h]

ixi - looks to be £499 here (http://www.kingdom88.com/futuretronic/listings/141.html). Anyone used these folks?

[ixi]

Thanks Marky_h :)