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What are the best DVD-R discs?

S

SickBeast

Lifer
I've had terrible experiece with Riteks on my Pioneer DVR-110. I have a feeling they were counterfeit.

I'd ideally like to find a decent brand that I can find at my local Staples or Best Buy.

Thanks. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: GeeFizzleDizzle
Verbatim, Sony, TDK or Maxell are probably the best your going to find at B&M stores. And other than the Verbatims those are not always the greatest.

If you're willing to order online you can get the best...Taiyo Yuden.

Check this site for all you need to know on DVD media quality :

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
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Great post. :thumbsup:

Thanks very much, that's exactly the info I was looking for.

Just out of curiousity, are the DL discs still $3/each? Is it even worth it to use them? What about the rewritable media, anything I should be aware of?
 
Originally posted by: SickBeast
Originally posted by: GeeFizzleDizzle
Verbatim, Sony, TDK or Maxell are probably the best your going to find at B&M stores. And other than the Verbatims those are not always the greatest.

If you're willing to order online you can get the best...Taiyo Yuden.

Check this site for all you need to know on DVD media quality :

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
Click to expand...
Great post. :thumbsup:

Thanks very much, that's exactly the info I was looking for.

Just out of curiousity, are the DL discs still $3/each? Is it even worth it to use them? What about the rewritable media, anything I should be aware of?
Click to expand...

First off, you're welcome. I'm glad I could help.

Now, I'm not sure about the DL media as even though I have a DL burner I don't use very many DL discs.

Finally, according to certain "experts", rewritable DVD media stored under the same conditions as one-time use DVD media lasts longer and is more reliable longterm. I'm not 100% sure if that's true so my biggest reason for using rewritable media would be the fact that if you burn something to it and need to go back and update the data or need to use the media for a totally different purpose, then you can do so. In the long run, this would possibly allow you to buy less media and just reuse what you have instead of having to always buy new media every time you need some.
 
Verbatim is the best (not including Taido Yuden, of course), with TDK as a close second. Sony isn't very good, and Maxell are horrible.
 
Originally posted by: myocardia
Verbatim is the best (not including Taido Yuden, of course), with TDK as a close second. Sony isn't very good, and Maxell are horrible.
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The quality on the Sonys and Maxells must have just gone downhill relatively recently because according to the site I posted, as of 5 months ago, they were still considered 1st class media.
 
There's no simple answer to this question, because performance depends on the particular optical drive you have. There are often significant differences in write quality among discs used in different burners, and a particular brand of disc can perform horribly (and literally be unusable) in one burner yet give perfectly good results in another burner. As you may know, measurements of C1 and C2 errors with CDs and PI/PIF errors with DVDs are used to measure write quality, and they vary depending on what drive the disc was burned with. Read a handful or two of reviews over at CDFreaks.com or CDRlabs.com and you'll see what I mean. 🙂

Maxells are not "horrible," BTW. In fact, with my new Asus burner, they produced some of the best quality burns, in several media categories, in CDFreaks' review of my burner. As a result of the review, I went out and bought some Maxell CDs and have had excellent results (and Maxell CD-R Pro discs are spoken very highly of on the forums at CDFreaks). Verbatim DVD+R discs also did very well in the review of my burner, as did TY CDs.

Also keep in mind that disc brands often use more than one mfgr to make the various kinds of discs they sell. Their CDs might be made by Ritek, or CMC Magnetics, or Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (MCC), or Optodisc, for example; their DVD-R discs might be made by another mfgr, their DVD+R discs by yet another, and so on .... Plus, mfgrs produce different quality levels of discs, so not all Riteks are the same, not all MCCs are the same, and so on. So to say a brand is "great" or "horrible" can't really be accurate (unless, I guess, every disc they make performs horribly in every drive it's tested in 😛 ).

As I understand it, write quality depends largely on the quality of the organic dye used in the disc and on how the disc's MID (media identification code) is handled by a given drive. A drive's writing strategies are "optimized" according to the MID of the disc it sees in its tray, and different drive mfgrs optimize their strategies differently, so different drives can produce different results with the same discs. Firmware also plays a role in how many different brands of discs can be burned successfully.

Generally speaking, brands that seem to perform well on a consistent basis among a lot of burners include Taiyo Yuden, Maxell and Verbatim. Sony's "Made in Japan" discs also typically perform decently. For some odd reason, I don't see TDK being used in many tests. I've used TDKs many times and have always had great results.

I'd say if you want to know which DVD-R discs to buy for your DVR-110, cruise over to CDFreaks.com and/or CDRlabs.com and see if they've reviewed it (I'm pretty sure I've seen reviews of the 110 🙂 ). CDFreaks is pretty good about testing several different brands of discs within each media category, so you get a pretty good idea of which brands are likely to perform better than others with your drive.

Incidentally, Rima.com and ****** are said to be good sites to buy Taiyo Yuden Premium discs (in bulk).

Good luck.
 
I have always heard that a general rule of thumb is to look for media made in Japan, and to stay from media made in China.
 
Originally posted by: bigsnyder
I have always heard that a general rule of thumb is to look for media made in Japan, and to stay from media made in China.
Click to expand...

I've heard the same thing, and I used to be able to find made in Japan DVD+R discs at Staples, BB, CC etc. Now it seems like everything is made in China, couldn't find any made in Japan discs.
 
FlyingPenguin recently posted the article up at PCA. More info than you probably care to know, but the bottom line: get TY. Rima and supermediastore are the two most-used sites for getting it.
 
Sonys are very good .. also HP are good ... haven't tried Vebatim or Maxell
so I can't comment on them
 
Originally posted by: Slugbait
... the bottom line: get TY.
Click to expand...

Good advice if you can't find a credible review, with burn-quality tests of various brands of media, for the drive you own. 🙂 But TY isn't always the best: In CDFreaks' review of my new Asus burner, Maxell 'regular' CD-Rs burned with less C1 errors than TY CD-Rs did, and they burned at 48X speed whereas the TY discs burned with more C1 errors and would not burn at 48X. The TYs still performed very well -- just not as well as the Maxells did. With DVD+R discs, Verbatim performed best in my burner. C1 errors with CDs are not ultra critical since drives' error correction circuity takes care of them by & large, but generally speaking, the less the better. Why? Because over time all organic dye-based discs start to degrade and develop errors. Theoretically, the less errors that exist at the time the disc was burned, the more it can degrade before becoming unplayable or problematic (all else being equal).

Most people really don't have any idea how well their discs are being burned or remaining viable. They think that just because the discs they've burned play back okay today, the discs are great. Maybe, maybe not. Only way to really gauge the longevity of the media and the burns is to try playing them 3 or 4 years from now and see if they still play flawlessly (or, of course, scan them in a capable drive).

In my own experience, a guy I used to work with burned some work files onto a CD for me so I could take the work home. He burned them on a Dell, and I have no idea what brand of CD he used. That was in 2003, and last year I wanted to pull some of those files up again. The disc is unreadable (I tried it in three different drives), and it's not scratched. Luckily I had made duplicate copies onto a hard drive -- if I hadn't, the data would be lost. Will all dye-based discs become unplayable after just a few years? Maybe not, but they won't last decades or anything either. For really critical data, many of the hardcore enthusiasts on CDFreaks' forums recommend burning new discs every couple years or so just to be safe. (That goes for CDs and DVDs.) I don't have a drive that will do scanning, so I'll prolly just play it safe and follow their advice. Discs are so cheap that there's really no reason to take chances. 🙂
 
I like Ritek G04 on my samsung lightscribe dvd+-rw drive. Yes they are slow, but I have had no bad burns in many discs and they are very reliable discs.
 
Originally posted by: Ken90630
Originally posted by: Slugbait
... the bottom line: get TY.
Click to expand...

Good advice if you can't find a credible review, with burn-quality tests of various brands of media, for the drive you own. 🙂 But TY isn't always the best: In CDFreaks' review of my new Asus burner, Maxell 'regular' CD-Rs burned with less C1 errors than TY CD-Rs did, and they burned at 48X speed whereas the TY discs burned with more C1 errors and would not burn at 48X. The TYs still performed very well -- just not as well as the Maxells did. With DVD+R discs, Verbatim performed best in my burner. C1 errors with CDs are not ultra critical since drives' error correction circuity takes care of them by & large, but generally speaking, the less the better. Why? Because over time all organic dye-based discs start to degrade and develop errors. Theoretically, the less errors that exist at the time the disc was burned, the more it can degrade before becoming unplayable or problematic (all else being equal).

Most people really don't have any idea how well their discs are being burned or remaining viable. They think that just because the discs they've burned play back okay today, the discs are great. Maybe, maybe not. Only way to really gauge the longevity of the media and the burns is to try playing them 3 or 4 years from now and see if they still play flawlessly (or, of course, scan them in a capable drive).

In my own experience, a guy I used to work with burned some work files onto a CD for me so I could take the work home. He burned them on a Dell, and I have no idea what brand of CD he used. That was in 2003, and last year I wanted to pull some of those files up again. The disc is unreadable (I tried it in three different drives), and it's not scratched. Luckily I had made duplicate copies onto a hard drive -- if I hadn't, the data would be lost. Will all dye-based discs become unplayable after just a few years? Maybe not, but they won't last decades or anything either. For really critical data, many of the hardcore enthusiasts on CDFreaks' forums recommend burning new discs every couple years or so just to be safe. (That goes for CDs and DVDs.) I don't have a drive that will do scanning, so I'll prolly just play it safe and follow their advice. Discs are so cheap that there's really no reason to take chances. 🙂
Click to expand...

Interesting that the Maxell media produced faster (and better quality) burns than the TY. I'll have to research my drives to see what works best with them.

You say that no dye-based media will last decades...how is it then that some manufacturers claim that their discs have a 100-year lifetime? Is that a lie, or an exaggerated figure based on the most optimal storage conditions? I'm sure that some of the premium media claims to have a lifespan of at least this long and I want to know if there's any basis for it (obviously blank media hasn't been around long enough to test the 100-year claim).

FWIW, I have an old Mitsui Gold CD-R that was burned around 1996 and it is still 100% readable today. 🙂 I remember when Mitsui and Kodak media were top quality.
 
Originally posted by: d4mo
I've always liked Ritek's but I don't think the quality is as good as it used to be.
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I always liked their CD-Rs, but their DVD-Rs were *crap* for me; even their 8X discs would only burn at 4x for me.
 
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