Verbatim clarified that these discs were advancements. The technical changes resulted in a different appearance and the ability for higher burning speeds, the changed media-ID was due to an adaptation with regard to other Verbatim products. Verbatim had already shipped the first modified media in early 2022. The data security of the new discs is not inferior to that of the old discs: Data should also last 1000 years, according to the manufacturer.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Verbatim just slaps their brand on other people's discs". Verbatim used to be owned by Mitsubishi Chemical Media, and was sold to CMC Magnetics in 2020. The only two manufacturers I see on that page for Verbatim discs are Mitsubishi Chemical Media and CMC Magnetics.
Even verbatim's own website no longer makes the thousand year claim. Saying instead "several hundred years".
However their website also claims that the disc's use "etched" stone-like data layers, which is also demonstrably not true. Their own marketing says titanium in other places (on the spindle insert).
I think that Verbatim (or their shambling post-buyout animated corpse) just lies a lot or is filled with confusion about their own product.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Verbatim just slaps their brand on other people's discs".
I wasn't aware of the chain of ownership. That said, they literally sell the same disc identifier as both m-disc and non m-disc.
I don't think it's just a reused ID either. If you put them next each other they're identical, and they use the same media label. The old disc's were both visually distinct and had a unique ID.
The only difference zeems to be packaging. I don't doubt that it's the same quality.
They stopped selling the much worse LTH discs and all the disc's are good now.
M-disc buyers get what they pay for (if they expect 100 years rather than 1000), it's just that everyone else also gets that for less money.
Yeah in general the value proposition of Blu-Ray M-Discs makes less sense vs. DVDs because the standard BD-Rs are also inorganic. One thing the random person on Reddit (and the people parroting his/her claims) don't seem to have realized is that the Blu-Ray M-Discs have always been visually identical to standard BD-Rs. Here's a review from 2015 that mentions this: https://goughlui.com/2015/10/16/review-tested-verbatim-lifet...
The disc itself does have a printable white top, but also features branding in the centre consisting of areas of clear hub. The underside looks pretty much the same as a normal BD-R, being metallic chocolate brown in colour. It is visually indistinguishable.
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This bought me to a realization – unlike DVD’s, almost all regular BD-R discs do not use organic dye recording layers. Only BD-R LTH type discs do, and they have been shown to have poor longevity. With one of the main reasons for causing disc failure no longer an issue, it seems possible that this disc is not materially special compared to a regular BD-R.
The review also mentions that the text on the disc packaging quotes a lifetime of several hundred years, so that hasn't changed either. The actual M-Disc testing certification mentioned in the review quotes a 95% CI expected lifetime of 530 years and a mean expected lifetime of 1,000 years (meaning only half the discs can be expected to last that long).
M-Disc isn't an open standard, so the criteria for what is and isn't an M-Disc aren't publicly known. I think it's entirely possible that standard inorganic BD-Rs pass whatever criteria are necessary to call something an "M-Disc", and that there's never been any real difference between a high quality BD-R and an M-Disc BD-R.
Comments
A German news site reached out to Verbatim about this and got the response that the discs are still M-Discs and will still last 1,000 years: https://www.heise.de/news/Langzeitarchivierung-Verwirrung-um...
I'm not sure what you mean by "Verbatim just slaps their brand on other people's discs". Verbatim used to be owned by Mitsubishi Chemical Media, and was sold to CMC Magnetics in 2020. The only two manufacturers I see on that page for Verbatim discs are Mitsubishi Chemical Media and CMC Magnetics.
That's truly a strange article.
Even verbatim's own website no longer makes the thousand year claim. Saying instead "several hundred years".
However their website also claims that the disc's use "etched" stone-like data layers, which is also demonstrably not true. Their own marketing says titanium in other places (on the spindle insert).
I think that Verbatim (or their shambling post-buyout animated corpse) just lies a lot or is filled with confusion about their own product.
https://www.verbatim.com/en/m-disc/products/43847-m-disc-bd-...
I wasn't aware of the chain of ownership. That said, they literally sell the same disc identifier as both m-disc and non m-disc.
I don't think it's just a reused ID either. If you put them next each other they're identical, and they use the same media label. The old disc's were both visually distinct and had a unique ID.
The only difference zeems to be packaging. I don't doubt that it's the same quality.
They stopped selling the much worse LTH discs and all the disc's are good now.
M-disc buyers get what they pay for (if they expect 100 years rather than 1000), it's just that everyone else also gets that for less money.
Yeah in general the value proposition of Blu-Ray M-Discs makes less sense vs. DVDs because the standard BD-Rs are also inorganic. One thing the random person on Reddit (and the people parroting his/her claims) don't seem to have realized is that the Blu-Ray M-Discs have always been visually identical to standard BD-Rs. Here's a review from 2015 that mentions this: https://goughlui.com/2015/10/16/review-tested-verbatim-lifet...
...
The review also mentions that the text on the disc packaging quotes a lifetime of several hundred years, so that hasn't changed either. The actual M-Disc testing certification mentioned in the review quotes a 95% CI expected lifetime of 530 years and a mean expected lifetime of 1,000 years (meaning only half the discs can be expected to last that long).
M-Disc isn't an open standard, so the criteria for what is and isn't an M-Disc aren't publicly known. I think it's entirely possible that standard inorganic BD-Rs pass whatever criteria are necessary to call something an "M-Disc", and that there's never been any real difference between a high quality BD-R and an M-Disc BD-R.
They are all HTL now. There are no remaining manufacturers who produce LTH or use organic dyes in blu ray. That said, I agree.