Test Review Bulkpaq 40x CD-R Media.

Rules of engagement: 10 Free samples of Bulkpaq 80 min cd-r where offered to Members of mediaforums.net Here are 50 independent reviews of the discs.

For a list of other products manufactured by Bulkpaq please visit their website bulkpaq.co.uk

Blade
Hi,

Have just recieved mine thank you very much...
Have used six so far..

Written on my Plextor using C_Dex + WinonCd 3.8
Discs, look good (IMHO) and play back great..
Have tried them in my Yelo DVD800's + Marantz CD Player+Aiwa MiniCD system + PC CD/DVD Rom drive.

Great !!!


bigpops
I've now recieved my test discs. They look pretty good, burn at 2x - 40x speed, and hold 700MB or 80 minutes of audio. All the CD's will be burned at 12x, as thats as high as i can go.

Disc one
I burned an SVCD to the first disc, with Nero on my TEAC writer. It works great in my DVD player, alot better than an unbranded one that i tried it on yesterday.

Disc 2
Done 79 mins 53 seconds of audio, taken from some mp3's onto the second disc. Burned the compilation with Nero. It plays fine on all CD players in the house, heres a short list. Sega Dreamcast, Sony PS2, Pioneer DVD player, a 10 year old philips CD player. The only thing it doesn't play on, is my Toshiba SD-2109 DVD player. The only disc this plays is the Princo with the Phthalocyanine (type pale blue dye.

Disc 3
Backed up a cd based PS2 game. Plays perfect.

Discs 4/5/6

A three disc SVCD was copied to discs 4,5 and 6. Great playback on my Pioneer DV-340 standalone. No glitches at all.

Discs 7 and 8

Copied a 2 disc VCD, perfect playback once more.

Disc's 9 and 10

More SVCD happiness, watch them all the way through, with not one glitch on my Pioneer DV-444.

Overall

Damn fine discs, especially considering the cheap price.


Maximus
These disks are as good as any ive tried for burning at 24x.....pc/audio/psx and ps2 all burned and read fine....brought it down to 12x for the psx ...you know how farty the lasers are getting.

Cheers for the disks!!

p.s. Just did some DC stuff using Discjuggler.....All worked fine :0)


Nextdoorscat
Received mine this morning thanks.

Up to now have burned a vcd on two cd's
I've got a Ricoh MP7200A 20x10x40 and I used Nero 5.5.8.2
They were only recognised as 12x so I burnt the first cd at that then turned off the Justspeed option in Nero and burnt the second at 20x. Both cd's burnt ok and played in my standalone dvd player without any problems.

Will try different programs and post the results as soon as I have done so

Update 8th June 2002, 2.35pm

Just tried burning mp3's to audio using Adaptec Easy CD Creator version 5.02b and the cd's were recognised as 20x and burnt ok. Tried them in my hi fi and personal cd player and they played perfectly.

Update 9th June 2002, 10.35am

Just used CloneCD 4 Beta 9 to clone a vcd. Cloned it to image first and then burnt it. It burnt at 12x with the same excellent result


Servo
Got Mine Saturday morning. White top Surface with Gold Text..

Bulkpaq 40 Speed.

I'm using Nero 5.5.8.2 and testing on 3 writers

Plextor 12x4x32 Scsi
LG 24x10x40 on a Firewire port
Pioneer 104

I'm going to burn 3 audio cd's, 1 on each drive. (these are mp3's converted within nero)

1) I burnt the first on a plextor and tested in My car's cd player which is a Kenwood kdc 4070r. the wife's sony and my home player which is a Aiwa Nsx999. The disk worked fine on all three and was burnt at 12x.

2) The same music burn't at 8x on the dvd writer worked on all three again no problems...

3) Lg firewire writer, burnt at 24x and again worked on all three..

All the writers above defaulted to their highest writing speed in nero, all I did was to change the writer from the pull down menu.


Bob
Kind_of_magic
Got mine this morning & all have been used . My cd-writer is a sony 24x10x40
I must say I have tested at 12x upto 24x using clone & nero -- burning & playback was excellent & I will be buying these disks


B-Master
10 BLANKS arrived this morning in shrink wrap

will be testign them on a 40x PLEXTOR as soon as i get back from work i will test out a few VCDS and SVCD at max SPEED

Purple Patch
Received mine yesterday morning. Burned 3 SVCDs @ 8x, 2 VCDs @ 8x (on copybox) and 3 audios @ 24x on a 24/10/40 Plextor. All excellent results. If they can keep the quality up to this level (unlike some manufacturers) then Bulkpaq are onto a winner especially at that price.


Aymo
blitzed all of mine at 24x with ease - no problems on this side. Nice matt finish to them as well - fingermarks don't show up too easily!


Spook
Dye is extremely light yellow colour - is almost exactly the same in colour as the Memorex GL59228 24x CDRs but ever so slightly lighter.

Printing on disc isn't brilliant - there are what look like little paint dots on the unprinted part around the spindle, though fortunately none on the recording side of the discs. The edges seem smooth in all cases, and no dye faults in evidence.

Overburning is nothing spectacular, at 81m 57s. They make a fair amount on noise at the fastest speeds, but not much more than other types I have tried.

I've tested all the discs now, a combination of original audio compilations, (image) copied audio CDs, PSX backups, VideoCD, and data CD compilations. I have written them at 24x and 4x in a Yamaha CRW-3200, and at 8x in a Pioneer DVR-104.

All have worked perfectly. Audio ones play back fine in my Denon DCD-695, and (15 year old) JVC XL-E300 CD players, Pioneer DVD-106 DVD-ROM, and in my (30003) PS2 and PSX. Similarly, the PSX backups, VideoCD and data CDs play flawlessly in every device that they should do.

To conclude, I would probably buy these discs, but they would have to be very cheap, or come with a data retention guarantee, as I'm a bit concerned about the lightness of the dye - I currently use Verbatim DataLife Plus and although they are expensive, I trust them to still be working in 5 or 10 years - I'm not so sure about these ones... It could well be that they are as good as the Kodak Gold Ultima discs.


Royalmale
thanks m8 received mine yesterday and so far have used 5 3 for some mp3s which sound great and 2 for an svcd film and works great in my panasonic dvd player....top quality cheers

tested at 40xon tdk


Silverbullet
1st cd = ps2 game, burnt at x24 with Liteon LTR-24102b & cdrwin v4.0a ps2 v5 failed to recognise the cd atall, very small marks on cd noticeable

2nd cd = diff ps2 game burnt at x8 (as above) again ps2 v5 failed to recognise the cd, marks visible on this cd aswell

3rd cd = diff ps2 game burnt at x24 (as above) plays ok on ps2 v5

4th & 5th cd = vcd burnt at x24 using Nero v5.5.2.4 plays back perfectly on Grundig GDV-620-HT & on pc

6th cd = Audio cd burnt at x24 with nero, plays ok in pc,dvd player & all stereos in this house

7th & 8th cd = 2 x ps2 games burnt at x24 with Burndrive 1.0.1.2, plays like a treat in v5 ps2

9th & 10th cd - 1 pc game burnt at x8 with cdrwin, installs & plays ok on pc x2

CONCLUSION...
They are good, but not good enough to make me change from the brand i am using at the mo
Thanks for letting me take part in the test
SB


Minge
Got mine the other day, heres what i did with em:)

Did a few music and a few vcds, all burnt at max speed with me plex 24x
they all play fine in me car stereo (pioneer) and house (jvc)
Me dvd player (sony dav300) wouldnt recognize em, but then again it doesnt recognize a lot...

Only thing I didnt like about em and its not much is that the surface seemed a bit to slippy for me cdr pen to write on properly. But apart from that, I would probably buy these if they were cheap enough:D


Mad Ass
I had mine through the door on saturday and have just fineshed burning the last one

data - no problems
audio - no problems
vcds - no problems

The only problem i had is the fact they would not burn any faster than 24x on my 32x liteon for some reason, I thought it might have been my burner but i poped in one of the discplanets that I normally use and is rated at 32x and the liteon recognised them as a 32x media, did anyone else have the same problem with the bulkpaq?


Boobeydoo
I tested mine on svcd's vcd's and psx games at varying speeds
using nero for the films and clone for the psx

All worked brill no probs

Psx's all play on my 9002 series psx

vcd's and svcd,s all play brill on my dansai 952 and on my liteon ltd 163d

I would definately buy these disks

Well impressed good price from what i've seen as well


Redmist
Got 10 Bulkpaq 2x-40x 80min cd-r, Sat morning.
Not a bad looking disk, overspray onto transparent area in
center of disk spoiled overall appearance.

Burnt svcd on plex 16\10\40 using Nero 5.5.7.8 @16x
No problem, playback perfect on pc, Alba 103 and Dansai 952

Burnt another svcd on Sony CRX175a1 using Nero 5.5.7.1 @ 24x
Again no problems with playback & quality on standalone DVD machines.

Created audio cd using Nero 5.5.7.1 @ 16x using Sony writer, plays fine in Technics & Sony hi-fi's.

Cloned vcd burnt at 12x, perfect copy.

Created data cd using Nero, burnt at 24x, No problem.

Excellent results from all the disks, Total score 9/10,
deducted 1 point for the dodgy print/spray job.


Wilbee
recieved the discs today and have burnt the following on them

1 + 2 + 3 svcd @ x12 with clonecd
4 + 5 vcd @ x12 with clonecd
6 mp3 @ x12 with clonecd
7 audio at x12 with nero
8 pc game @ x12 with clonecd
9 psx game @ x12 with clone
10 a load of photo's from my digital camera @ x12 with nero

i was using a plextor 1210a ide to burn with and had not 1 problem what so ever

i normally burn at x8 max but these discs might change that:)

very happy with them infact that happy are their anymore freebies:D ( well if i dont ask i wont get and us jocks are renouned for being tight when it comes to parting with cash, unless its for beer that is)


S3RVO
received my samples this morning

ok,tried 1st 2 on PS2 back-ups using my plextor 16x writer both played flawlessly,burned 1st disk using CDRWin and the 2nd using Burndrive with no problems at all.
3rd disk was a PC game test using Nero 5.5.2.4 ,backed up with no problems,works fine on install and play
will post more as i use them

so far so good ,im happy with them


Paul
cheers,
have used all the discs,
burn't a collection of divx, vcd, ps2 and psx and ps2 games.

All of the cds burn't ok at 12x in nero, clonecd and cdrwin

was using a creative labs 12x4x32. a creative labs 8432e and a phillips drive,

All fo them burnt fine :d


Digitalmusic
I used the discs for audio, data & vcd burned with the Plextor 24\10\40a & Nero 5.5.7.8. The audio & data were burned @ x24, the audio was perfect on all cd players (including the cars cd player) & the data verified 100% each time. The vcds I burned @ x12 & x24, there was no problems whatsoever on both the pc dvd-rom & the Wharfedale M5 standalone. Good allrounders in my opinion (although I do prefer plain white tops), 10 discs written & not one error, just the way I like it!


Cryus Troy
my test results

I set out to make these disks fail. After reading the test results of all of the above i decided on a different approach

Like other 40x speed disks some won't work at all on a 4x speed burner

So using Nero Blindwrite and clonecd on a Aopen CRW 9420

Blindwrite. Using a bin and cue file for a VCD... Perfect result plays well in the DVD player. have been impressed with the improvements made to blindwrite

Nero This time using SVCD.... Failure nero didn't like the speed of the media against my burner this is what i was hoping for. Tried again with Nero but this time i ticked the boxes for the Simulation and media tests...for some Odd reason this seem to work burning the same SVCD

Nero with Mp3's. No problems at all

Clonecd

From a already burnt Bulkpaq cd i wanted to see what they would be like burning to another Cd. The other cd in question was a normal unbranded 80 min cd
first disk did give me a fail media error but tested it in the DVD player and it worked fine
Second cd again same setting same film this time no reported errors and the cd again worked in the DVD player

Overall although i've ran out of my test cd's (hint hint) I never got the chance to try on pc and psx games but reading from the above i don't think i need to worry about it. I was very surprised that these cd's will work on a old 4x speed burner so theres hope out there for the ones that still use these type of burners


Passion4Plex
Well what can I say, these discs are outstanding. Nice looking disc, reminds me a bit of other discs I used to use.
The only problem I found is that they aren't recognised in my Sony 725 DVD, but nothing is - except Princos!!
I wrote 2 data CD's at 48X on my Liteon 40x12x48 updates with the 48x12x48 firmware version VS04, no problems at all, wrote in under 2 and 1/2 mins, reads in all of my rom drives. Wrote 4 MP3 discs also at 48X plays in my Pioneer Car Stereo no probs, as do the audio CD's (although I wrote these at 12X on my Plextor SCSI 12X10X32 drive).
2 PS2 games written at 8X (on the Plex SCSI) - also no probs.
In my opinion these discs are as good (if not better), than anything currently available, only thing I would query is the same as other people have mentioned - shelf life, how long will these remain readable, only time will tell.
Thanks for letting me test - look forward to more testing in the future.
Cheers


Billt
just burned mp3`s on TDK writer, x8 speed burned with nero. works fine,

burned vcd`s with clone x8 speed, plays fine on H & B standalone.

burned wave on plexy x4 speed with nero, works fine,
burned 4 more vcd`s plus back up progs, Put back ups back on pc to reburn, everything was fine.


Buccaneer
Like Spook said the printing leaves a lot to be desired.
but I have burned them all 2 VCDs 3 PSX and 3 Audio
100 % successful I(I cocked 1 of the Audio up but that was my fault not the disks)
I used Clone CD 4.0
Nero 5.5.8.0
Plextor Reader 32x
and Plextor Writer12x


Gazanimal
Got these discs yesterday & have managed to use 3 upto now.

Seem nice looking & if a product looks good then a consumer is always drawn to it.(Ferrari`s as an example)

One disc of mp3 music burnt successfully! (made on a Teac cd-rw)

One disc pc game backed up successfully! (made on a Pioneer 104)

One disc buggered `cos my Teac doesn`t have buffer under-run protection....lol...my fault not the cd`s.

Overall I`m well impressed If the price is right then Bulkpaq could storm the cd-r charts with these.


Geronimo
These were well nice cds 1,2,3 was a 3 disk svcd which played fine for me

4 and 5 were a ps2 game 2 disker the first one loaded and played fin and the second one loaded great but couldnt play as wasnt far enough into game

6,7,8 was 3 mp3 disks which play in my napa and pc

9,10 was a vcd which plays spot on on dvd p[layer pc and napa

so all in all excellent stuff

have a 24 speed writer and only really slowed down the burn on the ps2 which i always do anyway

thanks a million for the samples


Yingke
Discs look nice, good top for marker pen to label. Would definately buy if the price was competitive.

Here are the results of my test.

Writer Teac W54E Firmware 1.1Y
All Discs Written at 4x

Disc 1
Max Payne BIN/CUE Good
Disc 2
The One SVCD Good
Disc 3
The Order SVCD Good
Disc 4&5
GTA3 CloneCD
Disc 6&7
Kung Pow VCD Good
Disc 8
Project Earth BIN/Cue Good
Disc 9
The One Divx Normal CD
Disc 10
MAC Application
Burnt fine but didn't read in my PC but im not sure if it's suppose to work

The SVCD and VCD can be played back on my DVD Player, SM Supervision 2500. the SVCD are a jumpy but im 99% sure that's my DVD player's fault.

P.S. Sorry for the Time it took to test, but i was busy with some exams.


Lesley
burned mp3's, vcd's and wave using hp, plexy and pioneer.

the hp gave me two coasters at 4 speed think thats the writer though

the plexy and pioneer had no probs burning at x12

no skipping or jumping, copied back to h/d no problems at all.

thanks for letting me try these, very good disc

Batty

just finished using all 10

no probs at all ,wrote all 10 at 24x on a plex

mixture of data ,audio,vcd

would certainly buy some of these


Modo
But are they OK with CD+G ??

deva


Out4zero
Put it this way... I've just ordered and got (next day delivery) 200 of them.. BIG thumbs up

Burnt MP3's, VCD's, SVCD's, PC, PSX, DreamCast no probs and as fast as my burner can cope

System_Error

burned 3 on the fly in my lappy with a TEAC 16x burner no problems.

and the other 2 in the LG writer on my desktop again all were fine.


Boggle
I havent had any problems burning with these disc but i just wanted to say that i have a 16x writer and using nero it would only let me burn at 8x with these blanks and i have never had this problem with any others before


Ajay 533
Finally got around to using the 10 samples I was sent, I burnt them all on the fly using a Sony 40*12*48, had no problems whatsoever and I will certainly look at buying these once I finish the 100 I have.


Danny 2
hmm... I could have sworn I posted my review, I can't find it anymore though. I'll just make another one.

Out of all the bulqpaqs I had I used them all on Audio CDs. and the quality of the burn varied. Some discs had skipping (all my mp3s are flawless so they were not the source of the problem) on some parts, and the very end of the disc sometime didnt finish burning. the last part of the last song would sometimes get cut off. Other than some minor problems its a solid brand. I would definately buy if the price is right, but definetely would not if the price was steep because the quality isnt exactly ace.


U-571
got the odd dodgy one myself, last track finishing half way through.

Liam 007
All Mine worked fine, I used them for VCD's SVCD's and copied with Clone, they only recorded at 24x, because of smartburn on the liteone burner that i used, I also converted some MP3's using nero and burnt succesfully, no problems (except the top layer seems V. Cheap) with these discs at all and would use again,
Thanks for letting me test,
Liam007


Fatmanuk
Hi,

Not within this test, but my local supplier persuaded me to try these and I've just finished my first hundred....

Results are absolutely superb, and I've really pushed them as well. They work on anything, load fast, no coasters, etc....
and with the top surface is descreet for labelling, but more than adequate for writting on and still providing some protection for the disc.

Will I buy more? - got another 200 coming today.....!


Tipsy
these bulkpaq disks are cheap & servicable but the quality of the media is quite crap really, they are to thin & scratch too easy... would never recomend them to anyone.. the first batch I bought were good but the second lot of 200 I've got I wouldnt do anything apart from back up data... going back to my unbranded ritek disks!!

Kev!


Jeffbond
Not on test but i have used the bulkpaq 40x for a while now and have had great results from both plextor12x and lite-on 40x

doing a vcd i can burn at full speed no probz but when doing bin and cue files with nero the speed drops down to 20x to burn