Taiyo Yuden to end optical disc business

[ignatzatsonic]

Found this blurb yesterday.

You might want to stock up if you like to use Taiyo Yuden blanks for your CD burns.

What's generally thought of as the best replacement? Verbatim?

I don't have further details.

Taiyo Yuden to end optical disc business

 

[carwiz]

You'll have to dig deeper than that.

Rebranded Taiyo Yuden products can be found under Fujifilm, Maxell,
Panasonic, Plextor, TDK, Verbatim and other brands.

Goes to show you there's not much difference between brands.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Carwiz:

Have you kept up on this stuff? I have not.

Six or eight years ago, SOME Fuji packages were known to be Taiyo, but other Fujis were not. I think you had to get out a magnifying glass and look for "made in Japan" rather than "made in Malaysia" on the outer package to be sure of Taiyos. Something like that.

I don't burn much anymore, so I don't know the current situation.

I may have to buy discs in the future and am wondering if you have current knowledge. For all I know, 100% of some brands are Taiyo--or not.

Regardless, by next year, nothing will be re-branded Taiyo--if I read that blurb correctly.

 

[carwiz]

Box makers make boxes. It doesn't matter to them what's printed on them. The same goes for any major manufacturer. I think the industry is down to two or three disk manufactures. The same goes for memory chips. Practically everything gets rebranded these days. I expect one or more of the major brands will buy the production line (equipment). There's not much choice for them if they want to continue selling discs. It's hard to tell where the quality will go though. Some major investor will pick up the slack or the disc will be like DDR and DDR2 memory modules. The prices will skyrocket on the little demand that remains.

 

[carwiz]

To answer your question, no. I don't know but I would suspect that because the major brands have different quality levels, the different levels are made by other manufacturers. I think we'll all end up with lower quality at a higher price.

 

[fireberd]

Imgburn will identify who made the Disc.

I use JVC/Taiyo Yuden Ink Jet printable discs in my recording studio. Imgburn identifies them correctly, and not the China OEM.

I've bought some Verbatim and some other house brand that I use for test mixes, etc and most are made in China and are mostly made by the same OEM.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You can download Taiyo's official announcement here:

News: Victor/JVC/Taiyo Yuden Exiting Recordable Media Market - Club Myce

It's brief, dated June 11.

4 named companies affected.

Their stock is off 10% since the May 28 peak on the Tokyo Exchange. It had been doing quite well until that time.

 

[fireberd]

Too bad. I'll have to find another "premium" CD-R blank to use. Many recording studios use the JVC/Taiyo Yuden discs.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Too bad. I'll have to find another "premium" CD-R blank to use. Many recording studios use the JVC/Taiyo Yuden discs.

Let us know what your research and experimentation leads to, Fireberd.

 

[fireberd]

I've still got almost 200 CD-R's. But, I'll see what others are using or contemplating using.

 

[fireberd]

I have some Verbatim ink jet printable CD-R's that I bought at Costco. I've had good luck in the past with Verbatim before I found Taiyo Yuden. The Verbatim's I have now are made by CMC Magnetics China. I've had some no name's that I used for utility and they too were made by CMC Magnetic China but not as good a quality as the Verbatim's. Obviously different grades.

 

[carwiz]

I have a Sony Optiarc burner and never had any problems with any discs I've used. And I use Windows burning software. At present, I've got a few batches of Memorex DVD+R and CD-R in printable and non-printable. I still have some Imation DVD+R. If TY is better than that, I don't know why. Perhaps it depends on the burner and software you use.

 

[fireberd]

Just about any brand of disc will burn. However, the physical makeup of the discs can be significantly different, including the dye used. Taiyo Yuden has been accepted as the "best" brand.

I worked the Dell forums for over ten years (I had over 37,000 posts) and Memorex was one of the biggest problem brand that we saw.

Its not the burner drive that is the problem, its the physical (material) makeup of the discs.

Just for clarity on burning Audio Discs (not data or MP3 or DVD), the burn speed can be an issue, especially with older Audio CD players. My Burn Speed "Standard" is 8X, which is compatible with almost any Audio CD Player. Discs burned at higher speeds and played on older Audio CD players can skip or not play at all. I have a bank of 5 USB connected CD/DVD burner drives that I use and with Nero BurningRom I can burn 5 discs at a time (Nero is the only burning program I've found that will burn to multiple discs at the same time). I do a lot of Audio CD burning for my recording studio clients that sell their CD's at concerts and having buyers come back because the disc skips or won't play is a major concern. I go through a lot of ink jet printable CD-R's (I made a 50 CD order this past Saturday). I have a Primera Bravo SE CD Printer that will automatically print 20 CD/DVD's at a time.

 

[carwiz]

I'll leave all the high-tech stuff to you guys. I can burn an audio disc with Windows Media Player and play it in a 8YO car player so that's about the extent of my needs.

 

[fireberd]

If it will play in a 8 year old car CD player you are lucky. Most in that age, that will not play an MP3, required the slow burned discs.

 

[carwiz]

It does have an in-dash 6-CD Bose system, if that makes a difference. I have a 20YO (going on 3) car also but it's on vacation for a while so I can't try CDs in that one. It would be nice if that one worked too. It also has a 6-CD changer. I'm in the market for a new shop CD player so I'll probably take a disc with me to "try before buying".

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'm in the market for a new shop CD player so I'll probably take a disc with me to "try before buying".

You might shop for a unit that can play directly from a USB stick.

No burning, much higher capacity (maybe 250 songs per GB, depending on bit rate). Looks like that's the trend. I got one for the car a year ago (Pioneer), no regrets yet. It also has CD capability, but I haven't used it.

 

[carwiz]

Yeah, that may be the way to go. I thought about building a speaker box with a power supply and plug in a auto setup. I've got a cheap Pyle in my "fetching parts" car that will take USB or SD cards. That thing will blow the windows out. I was really surprised for price. It would work for a shop and blend right in. Thanks for idea!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Be careful in choosing a brand, depending on how you want to play back from USB.

Brands vary in (among other things):

How many folders are allowed, often limited to 255.

How many songs in any given folder, often limited to 255.

How many total songs will be recognized on the stick; can be as few as 15,000, regardless of the stick's actual GB capacity.

I got a Pioneer primarily because although it is limited to 15,000 songs total, they could all be in one folder if you prefer.

If you had 300 "albums" and all had a "folder", some brands will balk due to the 255 folder limit.

I've got my Pioneer set up with about 10 folders (all "genres" like blues, country, etc; no "albums", no "artists") containing about 14,600 individual songs on a 64 GB Kingston mini-USB drive that sticks out about like a jelly bean from the head unit--just enough to grab easily, so you aren't likely to accidentally whack it. About $40 for the drive. The head unit was around 120. Plus speakers of your choice. I just let it random play across all 14,600 songs so I never know what's coming. It indexes and starts playing within about 15 seconds of starting the car, picking up where it left off when I last turned off the ignition.

Takes 4 hours to load that many songs onto the drive, but I only re-format and reload it about once every 6 months---just to get my latest song acquisitions into the mix.

 

[fireberd]

I'm still getting orders for Audio CD's, so even though they may be "on the way out" they are not in my area. I finished a recording session today for a singer using backup tracks (Karaoke) and they ordered 50 copies.