Our friends at disQworld have kindly given us permission to reproduce an independent review by their members of the new Datawrite 4x Red and Yellow discs:


SP4M:
What a lovely surprise this morning, not only 2 x Datawrite Red 4 speed (batch code H04) but 2 x Datawrite Yellow 4 speed (batch code starting 4XB)
All 4 discs arrived reasonably clean in plastic sleeves and were free from imperfections and scratches. (i always preferred the DVD cases myself though!! )

My test rig is an Athlon 1800+ with 1gig of RAM, 120gig HD (pri master), WinXP SP1, ASPI 4.71a. Sony DRU-500A on secondary master, LiteOn 165 on secondary slave.

First impression of the Yellow 4x was as good as the initial reaction to the Yellow 1x, the writable surface looking no different to its predecessor and the overall build quality also similar, in my opinion fairly average. The Top surface differed slightly from most of the Yellow 1x i have seen, changing the lettering from white to black. The new 4x disc has a shinier finish to it with the 1x media looking a little more matt in comparison.

Started the first of the Datawrite Red with a 4.3 gig image of a movie in STOMP Record Now Max 4.5. Using my Sony DRU-500 (f/w 2.0e) writing the image from HD. OMG!! the disc took 15 minutes to complete, thats 4x by my reckoning. Tested the film in my Pioneer 454, Panasonic E50, Sony 336S, Xbox, PS2. All worked falawlessly, Fantastic.

Second Disc i tried a Yellow 4x. Quite keen after having the first Red disc burn @4x, in it went. Another movie image, 4.3 gig total size, was readied to be burned in STOMP. This time, another perfect burn which played back flawlessly on all my players but took 31 minutes to complete (2x *sigh* great)

For the 2nd disc of each color i decided to copy an Xbox image to test compatibility and loading times. The image burned flawlessly on both discs (albeit 4x on the H06 coded RED and 2x on the 4XB coded YELLOW) The Xbox played intro movie perfectly and loading times between sections was brisk, as good as the Yellow 1x or RITEK G03/G04. There was no difference in performance between the Yellow and the RED 4x discs.

All the discs displayed a perfect curve from 4x to 9.2x when analysed in the Nero CD Speed Test in my LiteOn 165. There were mere seconds of difference in the read time. There were also no errors when tested in STOMP.

Silence to all my critics who think i'm a rabid RITEK fan, but its just i want a disc which writes at the advertised speed and IS consistantly good quality. They are my criteria. But 80p for 4x media IS VERY exciting. It was also nice to receive 2 different discs with 2 different batch codes to compare. Once again thanks a lot to Datasafe for the chance to try out new(ish) media.

I conclude that, in my experince only , it would seem the RED is the better disc because it actually burned at true 4x in my DRU-500. Shock, horror!! Performance and compatibility were pretty much exactly the same, both types of media working flawlessly.


Foolish:
Well I got in from work to find a suspecting brown envelope on the door mat. I opened it to see two 4x Datawrite Red and two 4x Datawrite yellow. They arrived in plastic sleeves and under inspection had no scratches or imperfections.

First impressions were that these disks looked very colourful and would probably be ok for burning the odd data file or two for your mates or maybe the odd kiddie’s movie such as Monsters Inc to keep with all the fun but I couldn’t really see these as a serious disk for burning movies.
So I set about the task of testing these babies

Datawrite Red 4 speed (batch code H04)
Datawrite Yellow 4 speed (batch code 4XB)

Advdinfo

Red
00 42 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 87 0E 13 .B...@....R.....
66 78 80 00 03 50 52 49 4E 43 4F 00 04 00 00 00 FX...PRINCO.....

Yellow
00 42 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 F7 0E 0B .B...@....R.....
77 88 70 00 03 50 52 49 4E 43 4F 00 04 00 00 00 W.P..PRINCO.....


My Hardware

Athlon XP 1600+, 256meg, 60gig HD, Samsung SD-616T DVD-Rom, Pioneer 104 DVD burner 2xfor all V1.31 firmware. Win2k SP3 APSI 4.71a.

Firstly I burnt a 4.3 gig movie image to a 4x Datawrite red using the latest DVD Decrypter. It burnt at 2x in a time of 25 mins. On inspection the burn seemed to be even and to the edge of the disk. I played it back in my Pioneer DV-444 and Sony DVP-PQ1 and both started the intro without any delays. No unusual noises were apparent. I did several tests including scan and search and all proved well on both players. Playback was very smooth.

Secondly another 4.3 gig image on a 4x Datawrite yellow. Again it burned in around 25 mins so there’s consistency there. Intros loaded quickly in both players and there were no unusual noises. Did various tests again putting the disk through its limits and there wasn’t no obvious flaws. Playback was smooth.

As I unfortunately don’t own any xbox/ps2 I could only repeat the test I did above with the remaining disks. And I’m glad to say the tests proved to be the same.

Nero CD Speed 1.02 gave a steady curve on both types of disk giving an average of about 2.5x. What was quite concerning though was that it was an negative curve. I’m not sure what that means maybe someone can shine a light on that.


So in conclusion,
I generally liked the way these disks performed on my stand alone DVD players and for just under £1 a disk, probably need more investigation than my 4 disk test. But, I am one who tends to go with you’re safe with what you know and trust, so for me a few more pennies are justified for the safety of RITEK. I do like the look of the disks, they are fun and colourful, but don’t send out professionalism. I need a little more convincing of the compatibility before I would change my mind and go for the plunge and order a bulk order of these babies. Having said that, I may buy a batch of the Reds (personal choice (Stoke City Fan)) if no RITEK were available.

I hope this review proves useful and would like to thank all involved for giving me the opportunity to carry out this test.

Peace Out
Foolish

Just to add:
I Tried all the disks at work on a Samsung DVD-709, a SCOTT 837 and a SUPRA SD50Z1 DVD players and they all played flawlessly. First impressions are encouraging.


Chefcop:
Got my discs this morning, 2 x Datawrite Red 4 speed and 2 x Datawrite Yellow 4 speed. The discs arrived clean with no damage in plastic sleeves.

My Hardware is
Athlon XP 2500+, 1 gb ram, 60gig HD, Pioneer 105 DVD burner Win XP prof.

I tested both the red and yellow discs by burning a movie on each and the other two i copied the contents of my hard drive, both completed their tasks flawlessly in approx 25 mins. First class, good enough for me to order some anyway.


MINTYFRESH:
Discs arrived this morning, quite well packaged in plastic sleeves with no damage or marks on the recording surface of each disc.

The hardware used was Athlon XP 2000+, 512Mb RAM, 80Gb Barracuda IV HD, Sony DRU-500A (1.0g firmware)

I decided to try out the yellow discs first, one with a movie and the other with an xbox game. Both were burnt from images from the HD and were approximately 4.3gb in size to enusre most of the disc is filled. These images were both burnt using DVD Decrypter. They both began writing at 4x without a problem, however, when it reached about 60% on one and about 75% on the other they failed with a sense error. I've never experienced this problem before with any discs that i've tried including princo 4x.

Next was the turn of the red discs, using the same images as previously. These both wrote fully at 4x without any problems (i've never had problems writing at 4x with the older datawrite reds). The recording surface of this discs were smooth, all of the same colour whereas with the older datawrite reds there were often patchs of discolouration. I tried the movie in a both a Pioneer 350 and a Panasonic DVD Player, which ran the film fine. Chapter skipping was quick and there was no breakup/freezing of the picture towards the end. With the older datawrite reds, the picture often broke up very early on in the disc when burnt at 4x, but no problems when i selected 2x. So definitely an improvement on the older dye. The disc also worked without any problems in an xbox with fairly quick loading times.

Overall i think that these red discs have a positive improvement over the older datawrite reds. I'm a bit disappointed with the yellows, i was hoping these to be even better than the reds but my drive doesn't seem to like them.

Added:  Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Reviewer:  Ed

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