Tested: Quality Variation in Blank DVDs & “Bad Batches”

While doing some prior research on optical media, I came across the Digital FAQ’s post which discussed the concept of “bad batches” as a cop-out for when someone’s DVD quality scans don’t match the expected high-quality exhibited by others using the same combination, although peppered with a grain of truth where production issues and sub-par media arrived to the market. While I do agree with some of the premise, I think that the truth is a bit more nuanced than this, so I decided to put my equipment to good use and help shine some light on the issue. After all, we’ve already seen just how a “batch” of drives can differ quite a bit on recording quality using discs from the same spindle, in this post, I’ll be looking at the media side of the equation. Production Truths If you have a spindle of discs, how do you imagine they came about? Perhaps you might imagine a single machine, making discs one by one, each of which go into the spindle sequentially. So, let’s say you buy two spindles,…