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What's up with RITEK?

Written by Lasse Penttinen @ 17 Feb 2005 8:52 User comments (18)

What's up with RITEK?

The competition on the DVD recordable media market has driven media suppliers to use questionable methods in order to gain competitive advantage. Consumers are lured to low quality products with rock bottom pricing, or even faked media identifier codes. We started tackling this issue a short while ago in our article 'DVD-R market plagued by fake media and inconsistent quality' and we continue to dig deeper with a new editorial.
This time our focus is on RITEK, which definitely is one of the leading DVD media manufacturers in the world. For quite some time RITEKs has been considered as products of good price / quality ratio. The problem is that the quality seems to vary a lot. It goes as far as totally unusable discs carrying RITEK's media identifier are being sold to consumers -- discs that have visible defects, and simply will not play in any device. How can this be, and who is to blame?

Read the CD-RW.ORG editorial: The DVD recordable media market: What's up with RITEK?

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18 user comments

117.2.2005 11:20

what program do they use to make those graphs? I'd like to test my ritek discs.

217.2.2005 11:34

No kidding, I have very good luck with Ritek discs and recommend them to people. I have tried other inexpensive brands like prodisc and they seem to be pretty crappy. Ritek was the first inexpensive brand I came across that I was able to burn at least 99% of the discs without any errors writing or playing.

317.2.2005 12:11

The program used was KProbe2. You can do a google for it. It only works with a Lite-On burner You can use a Lite-On DVD-ROM, but the results won't be accurate. Nero CD Speed has a similar test if your burner supports PI/PO reading. Also, the latest version of DVD Identifier Pro has a similar test. It works with a wider range of burners.

417.2.2005 14:03

I like Ritek discs... so far, I've only had a few coasters from a couple of 100-pack spindles. At US$30/100, I can afford a coaster now and then!! Newegg.com practically gives these things away for free - twice now I've gotten them with a rebate that put them under $25/100.

517.2.2005 16:46

I like Ritek also but have had some bad burns whether using my LiteOn or Pioneer - both new models. I now mainly use Taiyos and have had no problems.

617.2.2005 17:15

For my DVD Player and PS2, the G05's work good. All of the movies play fine on my dvd player and the only game that didn't work was GTA: San Andreas. The problem was using the G05's on other stand alone dvd players. Most other players didn't play the discs at all. It didn't matter what speed it was burned. Personally, the only media that has worked on every dvd player that I can test on, is the TDK DVD-R 2x (TDK G02). That has been my media of choice. It's more expensive, but it's worth it.

717.2.2005 19:16

Have used lots of Ritek branded DVD+Rs 4x, burned on NEC ND-1300A and Pioneer DVR-107D, with excellent results. Still my favourite brand remains Verbatim... If you have a Sam's Club store in your neighborhood, check out their prices - quite often they will sell name brands (Verbatim, Sony, and Memorex, even though it's only sort of a name brand) for a price that makes me wonder why I shop on-line.

817.2.2005 19:42

Did you guys actually READ the article? The problem certainly is not RITEK itself, but the way that their low grade products are being sold and distributed. A good quality RITEK is a good quality product, such as Traxdata media.

917.2.2005 20:04

yes, i read it, but i have unbranded ritek.

1018.2.2005 03:54

i have used ritek and it is a very good cd by me i will get it any day but i have had failures and missing data with thoes cds, i just got a pack of imation DVD-R 4x and i am burning as i am typing this and it works fine either one is goood but i would go for imation but if the disk works it works.

1118.2.2005 11:26

last time i got some imation, they were made by cmc mag (not very good).

1218.2.2005 14:54

How do you check your disc for coasters? What program should i try also? Thanks to all.

1318.2.2005 20:31

hmn. well I was reasonably happy with riteks UNTIL the last batch of 100 I got from shop4tech.com...they sure SUCKED, and I am doubting they are in fact the ridata g04 they claim to be...

1418.2.2005 22:45

hey daimyo, were they the matte or shiny (thats where i get mine)?

1519.2.2005 11:14
aabbccdd
Inactive

guys not heard good things about shop4tech stick with ..supermediastore or meritline.com

1628.2.2005 11:13
jaggedjr
Inactive

Have not read article on RITEK but am going to NOW.Ritek was my media of choice as of last week until I purchased 2 boxes of 750.I had the highest rate of "coasters" EVER.Discs that i burned in my towers that completed "OK" but wouldnt play in stand alone players.Skips,freezes..you name it, this batch sucked.Now i must re-think.

172.3.2005 06:41

quality DOES vary greatly. i ordered 100 ritek dvd+r from supermedia store. they were trash, but they did take them back & refund my $ promptly. then i picked up a cakebox of memorex at walmart and they check out as riteks and not a single coaster. these were both supposed to be g03. my experience is you just have to buy them, then read them to know EXACTLY what disc you have & even then you may get a bad batch or your burner may not "like them"

1821.3.2007 04:18

i buy ritek DVD-R discs from ebay all the time and havent had any probs with them yet :D

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