The new Ridisc Silver Printable Surface




I received these discs later than expected so the review is a little late. The discs arrived in tubs of 25 and the surface is indeed unusual in that instead of the expected matt white finish to the printed surface it is a matt metallic silver/gold and the dye layer is the unmistakeable Ritek deep purple.

Checking the leadin code it is a RITEKG04 4x speed dye

00 6C 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 96 0E 14 .L...@....R.....
88 9A 80 00 03 52 49 54 45 4B 47 00 04 30 34 00 .....RITEKG..04.
00 00 00 00 05 88 80 00 00 00 02 00 06 08 12 11 ................
86 67 80 00 07 88 80 00 00 00 00 00 08 06 19 0A .G..............
0B 09 01 00 09 99 05 0C 0B 80 00 00 0A 00 00 00 ................
00 00 10 00 0B 04 1D 18 A8 88 85 00 0C 89 AC 88 ................
80 00 00 00 0D 00 00 D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

Eager to check out the quality of the printing. I asked my sponsors for a disc printer and was provided with an Epson R300 and proceeded to burn a few movies and print the labels on them. The colours are not a bright as with a white surface print but this is compensated for by the metallic finish giving differing patterns from the reflected light. I especially like the way the contrast is enhanced by the reflective surface giving a kind of 3D effect especially on the darker prints.

These prints give an expensive professional look to the finished disc and I would like to think I can enhance all my collection this way.

Well now that the printing surface has been reviewed, how do the discs perform?

I burnt the discs at 4x speed which is its maximum rated speed in my Pioneer drives 105,106,107 & 108 and they performed equally as well in all the drives. Playback was faultless as I have come to expect from the RITEKG04 media

Here is a scan from one burnt at 4x speed in my Pioneer DVR-108 f/w 1.14

The PIE peaked at under 50 with an average of 18 which is very good. Jitter averages 10.5% and is fairly constant throughout the entire scan, and the PIF peak was 1 which again is excellent

And here is a speed read graph in my Toshiba drive

Nothing much to report here, just a plain smooth graph. A Perfect Curve!

Conclusion

This disc is a good quality Ritek 4x speed media with excellent burn qualities with the Pioneer range of DVD writers and very good player compatibility with smooth consistent playback. The silver surface gives the printed disc an expensive printed look not easily distinguished from commercial pressed DVD's. The only drawback I can find is the speed rating which is slow at 4x speed compared with the current range of media but good things are worth waiting for. So RiDisc if you have any of these surplus then send them my way so I can enhance my collection by replacing my discs with these Silver pintables

Added:  Sunday, October 03, 2004
Reviewer:  Flash

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