Blank Discs: Are all DVD-R media created equal?
 

I'm considering buying a DVD burner cause they are coming into my price range, however the media cost still has me a bit unsure.

I see some web sites that sell bulk media for abou 80cents a disk, but I've never heard of the brand.

On DVDRhelp.com they seemed to have lots of mixed success and failure stories with pretty much all media.

Any advice or comments anyone can give me. If I can't get quality media for less then $1 each I'm gonna wait it out some more before purchasing.

Hi audi2honda,

I've had nothing but problems with cheap brand DVD-R ( ~0.78 ea. )
There are recommendations around, that one of the best cheap brands is "RITEK".
Check here: http://www.dvd-rwmedia.com
I haven't tried that brand yet :!:

-kwag

Be aware about something.

At begining of this year, plants that were able to produce virgin DVD (all formats) could be counted on a single hand. At this time, all brands were near the same in quality because all disc came from more or less the same place.

The problem appared in April : the total amount of producing capaticy off all the plants was far below the expected needs in the world for the end of the year (missing 2 or 3 milion units !).

I'm damn sure that, seeing that, a lot of chinese cheap CD-R brands changed their plants and start producing DVD just to take a piece a of the cake.

The quality isn't there anymore. All that count is to sell ! So be carreful and never buy a 200 piece spindle like a friend of mine did a few weeks ago (none of his burns was successfull so far !)

Tell me about it 8O
On my last two 50 DVD-R spindles, I was only able to burn about 20 :!:
All others gave me errors. And this was burning on three different DVD writers :!: My Panasonic DMR-E20 (and DMR-E80 too!), Panasonic LF-311 (PC Internal IDE ) and my new Sony DRX-500UL (External USB2 +FireWire)

-kwag

@Kwag,

Kwag wrote:
I've got the Panasonic LF-311 internal and I use Ritek's. I only had
2 coasters out of 45 movie backups. :D I keep the DVD-R filesize
at 4.3GB and avoid burning to the edge of the DVD-R where the medium
is the weakest at recording. Depending on the movie length I switch
between DVD2One, DVDShrink or if small enough I just use
DVD Decrypter to encode from.
Try http://www.allmediaoutlet.com/P-DVD-...ITEK-LOGO.html
for great prices. Just bought 100pck Ritek's for $114.00 free shipping. :wink:

-bp

i've got the same unit , lf-311,,,
Princo's have been good to me,,,,
all other dont behave well....

ztr

I'm also considering buying a DVD burner and would appreciate some your recommendations on a model/brand that is reasonably priced. I was looking at these Lite-On at Ebay that are pretty cheap for $30.00.