MAXDisc DVD-R
 

This has been the Holy Grail for me, as an optical media collector, for about 10 years, i.e. a completely unbendable medium, despite enormous effort. And only a few years ago, thanks to a member of old cdfreaks forums, I managed to do it, although basically by accident, as none of us had any idea that under this brand would be hiding the long sought DVDR media from Swiss Vivastar.

An interesting, if very short, article could be written about Vivastar, even from the scant information I have. It was one of the first independent CD-R manufacturers in Europe (by independent I mean that it did not belong to big companies like Philips, Fujifilm, Sony, Ricoh, Kodak, Mitsubishi, etc., who had been making CD-Rs long before) and the very first DVDR manufacturer in Europe.
At the time they had absurdly big ambitions, they even set out to develop a completely custom DVD recorder, something that maybe 3-4 companies in the world could do at the time. They also had big plans for the media, even paying for an advertising campaign on MTV in order to break into the US. The huge costs of Don Quixote's DVD burner development and marketing came upon them in the late spring of 2002, when they went bankrupt with huge debts.
The company was later cut down to the marrow and rebuilt by new investors, and Interaxia AG was formed, which no longer handled hardware or production of its own media, but merely supplied DVD dye, stamps ("stamps" for the disc presses), and process technology to small manufacturers around the world.

It is actually admirable what Vivastar dared to do in a few years - they started production of relatively decent CD-R media with their own dye, they were the first to start DVDR production in Europe with their own technology and even reached the stage of a prototype of a functional DVD drive. Although, 2-3 years later, when media and drives cost 1/20th of what they cost in 2001/02, it wouldn't have mattered all that much and they would have been swept away by the wave of cheap Asian production anyway.

I burned media about 4-5 years ago, I don't have the original test anymore, it wasn't stellar back then. As you can see, right now the medium is on the cusp of readability, if not past it. :)
Too bad I will probably never be able to get hold of Vivastar media in larger numbers and under their own brand (where there is a presumption of greater quality, and under which Vivastar used to sell 95% of its production) to do tests on more burners, and especially on ones that get along extremely well with obsolete media from forgotten and small manufacturers (NEC, Benq).

So nice to hear from you, pepst. I've always appreciated your vast knowledge about optical media, especially the rare and unusual brands from the early days. It's too bad that MyCE is no longer around, but we're very glad you've joined us here. Thanks in advance for any knowledge you can share with us.

Thank you for the kind words jadburner. :)
I'm glad we can meet old familiar faces from MyCE here. Too bad MyCE ended so suddenly and for no reason...
And it's great that in the form of this forum there is still a place where tests and discussion about optical media can be shared.

@Pepst

When they open a CD/DVD/BD museum, you are the most suitable candidate for the position of curator of such a museum . ;) :piwo:

Tested on a "full-size" Optiarc drive, still not the optimal model from Benq, Lite-On or Plextor, but as confirmed, even the slim LiteOn drive I did the first test with tests well enough.