Which DVD-R do you Like or stay away from?

[scottie]

Just installed our new Pioneer DVD Burner yesterday. Now I need to buy some DVDs to burn all our pics to. Is there any lower priced brand you prefer or prefer to stay away from? I bought a 25 pack of Staples brand on sale today for 7.99 but havent opened them yet. It struck me after I bought them that I should check to see what brand I should be considering.

 

[rtphokie]

Just installed our new Pioneer DVD Burner yesterday. Now I need to buy some DVDs to burn all our pics to. Is there any lower priced brand you prefer or prefer to stay away from? I bought a 25 pack of Staples brand on sale today for 7.99 but havent opened them yet. It struck me after I bought them that I should check to see what brand I should be considering.

I've not had a problem with any particular brand of DVD-R. Staples branded DVD-R's that I've bought on sale there have been just fine.

 

[cmwade77]

My favorittes have been the GQ brand from Fry's. I have had the fewest bad discs with them. Oddly enough, the worst have been Memorex (who I used to use for all my Floppies as they were the best). Basically my experience ha been the mroe expensive the brand, the more bad discs I get. Not sure why, but seems to be my luck, I have had 1 bad GQ disc (and I have bought a lot) and about 20% of memorex have been bad (about 20 of the 100 pack that I bought). Oddly enough for CD-Rs Memorex has the fewest bad discs.

 

[AndrewWG]

I also got a spindle of real bad memorex DVD's. They just kept giving me errors.

When I started burning DVD's a 25 pack was $120.

 

[boBQuincy]

From some tests I have read Memorex is consistently poor. House brands can vary depending on who they buy the latest batch from.
I try to use TDK, Sony, Maxell, Philips, etc. Supposedly the ones made by Taiyo Yuden are always high quality.

 

[scottie]

I just realized the pack I bought from staples was a DVD+R pack. Is that something I should be concerned with? I am used to seeing DVD-R and not sure what makes the "+" different if anything?

 

[AndrewWG]

I've always used DVD+R as opposed to DVD-R. Why? Because those were the first kind I bought. No other reason. I don't think that it makes any difference nowadays. In the "old" days of DVD burning, it did make a difference but now all the burners for the most part are + and - compatible and I would guess that most DVD players can read both + and -.

 

[Groucho]

DVD-Rs have very slightly better compatibility rates than +Rs, and hold just a tiny bit more data. When I have a choice, I generally get -Rs, but if I find +Rs cheaper, I get those.

Taiyo Yudens are highly rated yet the few I've tried were some of the most troublesome discs I've used! Strange.

I often buy Ridata/Ritek blanks. NewEgg often has good deals - I try to usually pay $20/100, and always less than $25/100. Someone's BJ's Wholesale Club has good deals on Fuji blanks for $10/50, these seem very good also.

Many of the "no-names" are just rebranded. Each disc has an id that your burner can read which will tell you exactly who made the disc itself. Something like a Memorex could be some from one manufacturer and some from another, which is why some people may have good luck with them and some poor luck.

No matter what you use, I always recommend setting your software to do a "verify" after burning, to make sure that the disc is 100% error-free. In the rare occasion that I do get a bad burn, it goes straight into the trash and I burn another copy.

Also, speed does make a difference - discs burnt at slower speeds tend to be more reliable. Some of my standalone DVD players choke and barf at discs that I've burnt at faster than 8x (and that's with different burners and different media, even).

 

[manning]

I just realized the pack I bought from staples was a DVD+R pack. Is that something I should be concerned with? I am used to seeing DVD-R and not sure what makes the "+" different if anything?

DVD-R won't work on a DVD+R machine and vice versa.

Machines that are + and - it makes no difference.

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

I've had good success with Maxell and with Sony. I've even had good success with the Memorex (depending on the speed). I've found that the +R is slightly more compatible with old DVD players if you are making discs for playback on a television. The newer DVD players don't seem to have a problem with either -R or +R playback but the first and second generation decks I tested with were slightly better with +R. The generic disks work fairly well but I found that they weren't really reliable from a speed perspective. They would burn but at a slower speed rating than some of the name brands. Not a big deal but I did think it was kind of interesting.

 

[AndrewWG]

I've had good success with Maxell and with Sony. I've even had good success with the Memorex (depending on the speed). I've found that the +R is slightly more compatible with old DVD players if you are making discs for playback on a television. The newer DVD players don't seem to have a problem with either -R or +R playback but the first and second generation decks I tested with were slightly better with +R. The generic disks work fairly well but I found that they weren't really reliable from a speed perspective. They would burn but at a slower speed rating than some of the name brands. Not a big deal but I did think it was kind of interesting.

Funny you say this. I made up some DVD's for the local library once and one of the women had an old DVD player at home and when she tried to play it, it wouldn't work. I was using DVD+R discs so I burned one on a DVD-R disc and she had no problems with it. Of course, the original that I gave her could have been a bad burn too. I just always assumed that the older players preferred DVD-R discs because of that incident.

 

[pyrxtc]

I use DVD-R's becasue although my machine says + or -, I always had problems wiht the + ones. Staples has Sony brand on sale this week, 100 for $24. That was even cheaper then the Staples brand. It was for + or - too.

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

Funny you say this. I made up some DVD's for the local library once and one of the women had an old DVD player at home and when she tried to play it, it wouldn't work. I was using DVD+R discs so I burned one on a DVD-R disc and she had no problems with it. Of course, the original that I gave her could have been a bad burn too. I just always assumed that the older players preferred DVD-R discs because of that incident.

I always thought -R was more compatible too and for the longest time that is all I used but when I started getting a few complaints I tried +R and that seemed to resolve. I probably should have investigated more to see if there was a pattern (like the old DVD players were from a single brand or something) but I didn't think about it at the time. Now a lot of people are on their second or third DVD player so it doesn't seem to be an issue as much.

 

[PhotobearSam]

DH burns a LOT of movies (over 10 a week) and he had really good experiences with Ridata DVD-R's and found they were great. Now he is using Memorex DVD-R's and has had only a few bad disc's with them. He is going to try burning them at 8x to see if that improves.

Wish we could get your price on disc's here. We found 50 packs for $19 to be our best deal so far on a regular basis and sometimes (X-mas or big sales) we have found 100 disc's for $20 to 25...

 

[webshark3]

FYI,

High end or low end, many manufacturers contract with 3rd parties. So just because a brand is good one week, doesn't mean the next batch even cam from the same factory.

But I've noticed less and less write errors over the last few years, and consistently get good performance out of whatever bottom-of-the-barrel priced disc I use.

 

[Groucho]

I always thought -R was more compatible too and for the longest time that is all I used but when I started getting a few complaints I tried +R and that seemed to resolve. I probably should have investigated more to see if there was a pattern (like the old DVD players were from a single brand or something) but I didn't think about it at the time. Now a lot of people are on their second or third DVD player so it doesn't seem to be an issue as much.

The -Rs definitely are more compatible but it is by a pretty small percentage - and that number gets smaller every day as all the new ones will play both happily. A couple years ago, I think it was something like 83% vs 85%, in terms of players that will play +Rs and -Rs.

My first DVD player wouldn't play anything that you burnt yourself, CD or DVD... back then it was amazing just to see a DVD at all.

PhotobearSam, can you order from a US online seller like NewEgg? With our American dollar completely in the toilet, you ought to be able to do great importing stuff. But there are probably duties or something to be paid?

All I know is that I live just over an hour from the Canadian border and used to go up every few months, but I'm not going anywhere outside the USA until our dollar actually is worth something again!

 

[jfulcer]

I've burned literally hundreds of DVDs for my church. Maybe over 1000. When I started burning I used many different brands and always got inconsistent results. Sometimes, even though they burned just fine the people that got them couldn't play them or the picture would break up while playing.

I tried Sony, Memorex, TDK, store brands, etc. All provided me very inconsistent results. I ordered some Taiyo Uden (www.neato.com and sign up for their newsletter to get 20% off coupons) and have never looked back. They burn consistently, play consistently and are highly rated. They are a bit more expensive but I'd rather pay a little more for the quality.

Good luck with your choice - it sounds like you're getting a wide range of responses.

 

[PhotobearSam]

My first DVD player wouldn't play anything that you burnt yourself, CD or DVD... back then it was amazing just to see a DVD at all.

PhotobearSam, can you order from a US online seller like NewEgg? With our American dollar completely in the toilet, you ought to be able to do great importing stuff. But there are probably duties or something to be paid?

We have one expensive RCA player that does not play burnt movies...It's now in a closet and we bought 2 DIVIX (spelling)players that play EVERYTHING...Love them



As for importing stuff....I have an ace in the hole...My Mom and Dad are in Florida for 6 months at a time each year and I just get things delivered to their home there...Gotta love it. My own personal delivery service...

 

[webshark3]

Another FYI for everyone,
Years ago, I found I was able to burn DVD-Rs (any brand) that played in an old JVC that DID NOT accept burned media. Your apps/process are as importnat as your media.

I used a app (lone gone) called PrimoDVD on a Pioneer burner well known for consistency. Using other apps did not yied playable DVDs.

Don't know if this helps much now-a-days, but it's something to look out for. I also burn critical media at the slowest rate. I've been told fast burns are like microwaving; they never taste as good as a slow-cooked meal. In the old days, I could get a disc to play easily on that old dvd player when media was burned at 2x. It was jittery or unreadable at 4x-8x.