Blu Ray Media: VinPower Review

Blu Ray blank media guide : Best Blu Ray media brands
Best Blu Ray Media Brands Part 18: VinPower Media/ Discs Review


Taiwanese manufacturer VinPower carries two product lines, a higher end line under the Optical Quantum brand (already reviewed), and a lower-end line under its own corporate name, Vinpower.  Both Optical Quantum and VinPower have poor quality ratings in the DVD media market. In fact, Optical Quantum scores slightly lower than VinPower for DVD products, although the difference is not statistically significant given the comparatively low number of user reviews for both product lines in the DVD blank media market. Both Optical Quantum and VinPower factor Philips Blu Ray media, which has an 83% overall rating, but a very high variability in quality, going from a low of 67% to a high of 93%. We reviewed this outsourced Philips media, and concluded that it was not archival quality, and that we could not recommend it independently of the brand that outsources it. We had a big surprise when we reviewed Optical Quantum, as it scored a very high uncorrected 93% approval rating, despite the much lower rating of the media it outsources. We were expecting VinPower to score at the same level, but were disappointed in that regard.

We found VinPower Blu Ray media in quantity in BD-R formats, with a total of 45 reviews, scoring an uncorrected approval level of 78%, very low for the Blu Ray media market. As VinPower outsources the same media as Optical Quantum, and as both brands had a statistically significant number of user reviews, we expected the approval rating to be equivalent. In fact, they are widely different. While some of the difference may be due to a statistical fluke, some of it must be due to very high media variability by batch, putting in doubt the future ratings for Optical Quantum.

To create our predictive quality rating for VinPower Blu Ray media, following our standard process, we compounded the uncorrected satisfaction rating with the brand's DVD rating of 79% (independently of Optical Quantum).  Because of the number of reviews was not high enough to give us a margin of error of 5% or less, we downgraded the resulting rating by  6% for statistical sample size correction, to ensure that the final number would be within 5% of the lowest limit of the statistical margin of error. The final predictive quality rating for VinPower Blu Ray media was 70%, a very low number. We expect this rating to trend up by up to 5%, as the number of user reviews increases.  The predictive quality rating is simply too low for us to be able to recommend VinPower for any data storage use, despite the very good score for VinPower's sister brand, Optical Quantum.

Conclusions

• VinPower's Blu Ray media predictive quality rating is 70%, a poor rating in the Blu Ray media industry.
• VinPower's outsourced media (Philips) is not of archival quality, its average reliability across all brands that factor it is significantly higher than Vinpower's, and its variability is high.
• For these reasons, we cannot recommend Vinpower for archival purposes, or for any other data storage use. We believe that there are significantly better choices at relatively similar price points.

Next we compare all major brands of Blu Ray media... So come back soon!

To understand Blu Ray lingo, check our lexicon of Blu Ray vocabulary. Our Blu Ray brand predictive quality rating process is explained here. Our statistical analysis practices are described here, which is also where we discuss ConsumerPla.net's predictive quality rating.

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