Verbatim DVD+R Blank, 100 Discs

The Verbatim 95098 media wasn't offered with Amazon Frustration-Free Shipping. Only the 97459 had that option. Reviewers who complained about how this media is packed, they were absolutely right. The disks are shipped like no one cares. There isn't any bubble-wrap, brown paper stuffing, nothing. Just a couple of air-bag strips. For obvious reasons, I would have preferred to order a factory-packed case. So why aren't 100-pks offered this way ? 50-pk spindles can be found as six in a factory-packed case. My order of (4) 100-pk spindles lay sideways in the box, to rattle and bang around until damaged. Glass merchandise would never be shipped this way. Why wouldn't a seller treat 100-pk spindles the same as glass ? Verbatim cares. The plastic cake box has the normal blue/purple retail wrapper that folds over the bottom of the cake box. Over this wrapper, Verbatim places an extremely heavy, clear plastic reinforcement. This additional wrapper covers the lower portion of the cake box, and folds over the bottom too, while extending upward about two inches. The reinforcement adds great strength to the retail packaging. Still, I could see the whitened areas where the reinforcement stressed during several impacts. Just think what the disks went thru. My simutaneous order of (4) 100-pks thru Newegg, came with brown paper stuffing and a stronger box. But the packing was not much better than Amazon. On the outside, the Newegg box read, "May Contain Awesome". Perhaps they meant, "May Contain Damaged". Both orders turned out to be MIT media, and not MII. The current reviews were for Indie disks, and that is actually what I hoped to receive. However, these are MCC 004 disks, and Made-In-Taiwan. Though all (4) 100 packs remained intact, the first three disks in each spindle had wear spots, visible in bright light. I looked 20 to 30 disks further into the spindle, and to the naked eye, no damage was present. Looking closer with a magnifying glass, still no damage. Expect to lose the first three disks in every 100-pk. The separator ring at the center of each of the uppermost disks, won't be able to keep the surfaces apart. The cake box will be in a horizontal position and rattling. Unfortunately, I'm getting a high PI error count with these disks. However, many of them appear to have a low PI failure rate, and the quality score is often very high. Unlike the Indie media, the very last and final firmware written for my dvd-writer, gives the best results. A later dvd-writer with a more recent firmware may burn the Taiwan media beautifully (with some exceptions). The Indie media was quite different. The PI errors dropped from 250,000 to 4000 with the correct firmware and burn control. The correct firmware for the MII media was an old one, but not the final one. With no better firmware to use with the Taiwan media, I could only reduce the PI errors a little (by one-half), and that's all. A high-error count with this media will not cause coasters, and except for the first three disks, there is not much chance of burning one. I suppose these disks are as good as any, except for some of the TY media. My problem is, I'm archiving files, and the media should be burned expertly, with very low errors. A burner that doesn't read well, might scan with high errors, but I have many burners to judge the problem with. There was some burn consistency within a spindle. But, in 25 disks, I did hit a few that kicked the PI failures up to 2500. Also, the burn consistency between each spindle wasn't too good, and that is another reason to purchase these by the case. One spindle may burn with reasonable PI errors and failures, but the next will have such high errors that you will be thinking about changing the dvd-writer's firmware. If your burner and firmware aren't especially compatible with Verbatim DVD+R media, PI errors may jump to over a million. Know what you are purchasing, the kind of shipping/handling to expect, and don't be too disappointed. This is probably as good a media as you are going to get, and these disks are AZO. BTW, the DOM on the MIT media is 2010, and the MII media I have, was manufactured in 2008. I have no reason to knock Verbatim. If not for Verbatim, all (4) 100-pk spindles would have been torn open during shipping, and the disks scattered inside the box. You may not get a very pretty scan with these disks, but many of them will score very high. FYI, Verbatim AZO is/was a very high quality, long-lasting media. 95098 and 97459 (100 pks), are a branded media with a matte-silver finish and four lines for writing. Use an ultra-fine-point Sanford Sharpie on these, and ordinary rubbing alcohol will remove the ink. For your dvd-recorder, use DVD-R or DVD-RW media. When burning a DVD+R disk in a PC, set the burner firmware (or the burning software) to book-type the disk as DVD-ROM. Use a software tool, such as Nero CD-DVD Speed, and check the quality of the burned disk after data verification is completed. Be sure to use any burn control software that may have come with the burner. Or, if laser control is part of a 3rd party CD-DVD writing software, apply that feature to the burn. Many dvd-writers fail at write speeds below 12x, but slower is better, and a write speed of 4x should produce the highest quality score. I should point out, that media has been changing, and the quality of a 12x burn, may now be as good as it gets. Burning at 4x or 8x may no longer help. Find out what versions of firmware are considered best for the dvd-writer in use, and be sure to try those firmwares. I rated this media a 3, because the media was not what I expected, but can most likely be used (with some aggravation). Fast or slow, the shipping rates one star, and not just on Amazon. :( ------------------------------------------------------------ UPDATE: I have now burned about 35 test disks. One spindle has hidden surface damage on every disk. To see the damage, disks must be held under a magnifying glass at various angles (and under dim light), so that the plastic surface is reflecting a shaded area of the room. There are small friction points all over the plastic layer on the writing-side of the disks. No scratches, just hundreds of tiny rub marks on the plastic surface, of each and every disk. The wear is similiar to what might be found on a lightly-used disk after being placed in a dvd-tray, a dozen times. These lightly-damaged disks will burn with good quality scores in an older, but expensive dvd-writer. The disks will fail to complete (or refuse to verify) in a more recent, cheaper dvd-writer (at the writer's minimum burn speed of 12x). Burners and firmware must be matched to the media used, and this rule also applies to Verbatim. If a combination of mis-fortunes; wear marks, the wrong burner/firmware (and/or cheap dvd-writer), then Verbatim DVD+R disks might appear to be as bad as Memorex. This could explain the extremely negative reviews posted by a few individuals. I'm not happy with this particular spindle, but the quality scans (90+) will do for video, and there were no coasters in the 10 or more, test disks of this spindle, that I burned.