50 DVD-/+R's for $50 at BB (1 Viewer)

[Rodon]

Ron, Don't be fooled by outside labels or caught up in store brand names.

Are you checking the DVD discs with a program like DVD Identifier to see who is really making them? What you should do is check to see what manufacturers are making each disc, wich ones work for your drive, and keep a list of the disc ids for discs that work in your writer. Then you will have a compatability list.

Imation, TDK, Ariata, Memorex, and Maxell are all branding 3rd party discs.

Be careful passing off Ricoh as well - they are a manuafcturer of many of the premium discs

Just helping you save some money and helping you buy what is best for your burner.

I would suggest doing some research into some dvd-r information and compatability lists.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Rodon,

Thanks for the information.

Any idea where I can find some compatability lists?

There was a link above, but it was sort of hard to
find the exact area of that forum that contained the
list.

 

[DavidBL]

Ron,

Try here. It's a subsection of the site Patrick mentions above. Lots of ways to search and sort.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Some manufacturers make poor generic/unbranded blanks, but when they make branded discs for big names, the quality is good.

A good brand insists that their quality standard are followed when contracting out production, and follows through on the QC testing to ensure that the blanks are up to par.

I've never had a poor DVD-R disc from TDK, Memorex, or Verbatim, regardless of who made the disc.

And I've used a LOT of different blanks...including the cheap stuff.

 

[Rodon]

Problem is you do not know who is making the discs for the name brands until after you buy them. I like to make sure I am getting discs that are tested to work with my type of burner. Name brands often times switch manuf. during their life cycle.

That is why I started reading up. I use fatwallet/anandtech forums as well as they have tons of people buying these discs and they report on name brands and the manuf. of each disc.

So far the only in store discs I bought were the Aritas because I read they were Richo DVD+Rs and people were having good luck with these and my 411-s drive.

I am a big fan of the Ritek DVD-R G04 discs that are available for about $.90-$1 each. You can get them from newegg for cheap. I have yet to even burn a coaster on my LiteOn 411S and I have used Primco 4X DVD-Rs (these are reported hit or miss), Ritek G04s, and these Arita 2.4 DVD+Rs (Richos). All have been good for me.

Good luck.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Well, I know what works for me. I've owned 3 burners (Pioneer, Panasonic, and Optorite).

Princo and Optodisc were hit/miss.

With TDK, Memorex, and Verbatim (all from multiple manufacturers) I get no bad burns. And I write at 4x with verify, so I know that every bit is good. It ain't broke, and I'm not fixing it.

When it comes to CD-R, I only burn Taiyo Yuden and Mitsui media. But I have found name-brand DVD media to be more forgiving.

 

[Patrick Sun]

The week of 2/15/04:

Staples is offering 10-packs of TDK 4x DVD+Rs and 2x DVD-Rs for $7.94 each (no mail-in rebate required).

CompUSA is offering the Memorex 50-pack 4x DVD+R or DVD-R for $49.99 (no mail-in rebate required).

 

[JohnRice]

Just thought I'd toss in my $0.02 on the compatibility issue.

My experience has always been that most burn problems come from hardware and software issues than from the media, so long as you stay with recognizable brand media. It seems too many people want to burn their discs too fast (particularly on CD) use bargain brand burners or try to do too much multitasking while they burn. I'm pretty new to burning DVDs, but have been burning CDs for years. I have only used drives from Yamaha (CD) and Pioneer (DVD) and have never gotten a single coaster after maybe 1,000 burns.

I use a reliable app, Toast in my case, since I'm on a Mac, but I expect CD Creator should be just as good. Version 6 of Toast is great. I have also used hundreds of Brand X CDs, at no more than half the rated burn speed, with no problems.

Also, I don't know if drives wear out or just get better, but my brand new Pioneer DVD burner seems to burn more reliable copies than my 3 year old Yamaha CD burner, particularly on the cheap stuff. Like I said, I have never had a bad burn, but sometimes the Brand X CDs were a little hesitant on my internal DVD-ROM drive, which has always been a little picky.

As far as DVd media, so far I have burned about 60 discs without a single error, and I verify almost every disc. This is with the Pioneer drive and both Imation DVD+R and DVD+RW media as well as Memorex DVD+R. Haven't tried any DVD-R media yet. I'm about to pick up some Maxell media on sale at Home Depot.

 

[Rodon]

JohnRice just reminded me of another thing. If you ARE having problems - Check your drives firmware. Many times compatability issues are improved with different/latest versions of firmware. I know on the Liteon 411s dive that I own compatability was improved with many of the brands just by upgrading firmware. Must be the way the drive handled/recognized its media. If your drive supports flash upgradeable firmware, check out the latest levels and see if it helps.

 

[JohnRice]

Yes, just to emphasize, firmware is important. In fact, it is a good idea in the long run when buying a drive to make sure it is flash upgradeable.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Pricing depends on location. In this part of the world, it's $9.94. And stock appears to be very limited.

M.

 

[Patrick Sun]

That particular store is gouging you because the New York sales circular shows the same $7.94 price as the one in Georgia. Page 4 in this week's Staples circular for NYC.

 

[Michael Reuben]

So it would appear. OTOH, $9.94 is also the website price:

http://www.staples.com/Catalog/Brows...2440&PageNum=2

M.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Best Buy suffers from the same thing in reverse sometimes (where their local pricing is more than their online website, but the local stores won't price-match their own online store prices. Go figure...)

 

[JohnRice]

Forgot to mention, Office Depot has Memorex 15 pack spindles 2 for 1 this week. $26.97 for 30 discs. Pretty good deal.

Applies to both + and - media.



Anyone ever notice everyone has the same brand on sale each week? Two weeks ago it was Imation, last week it was Memorex and this week it is Maxell.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Someone must have complained, because today the price was listed correctly. And today they actually had stock. However, they were limiting it one to a customer. Still, a good price and, per disc, about what I pay for bulk spindles.

M.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

i see that on their website, do you know if it is at their stores too?

CJ

 

[Patrick Sun]

Yup, they are (unless they are sold out) according to their sales circular for this week. I'd buy some of the TDKs, but I have already way too many blank DVD-R/DVD+Rs at the moment.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

picked up the 50 pack of memorex dvd+r at compusa today for $49.99, good deal. now i have to wait for my burner to get here...i have an entire 200 gb hard drive filled, waiting to be backed up. sharingthegroove.org is evil, i tells ya.

CJ

 

[JohnRice]

Decided to give a lesser brand a try this week since Office Max is selling 25 packs of Khypermedia DVD+Rs for $30 plus a $20 rebate.

I hate those stinking rebates, but for $10 in the end and since I also had a $10 coupon, I figured it was worth a shot. the discs are only 2.4x, which isn't all that big a deal to me.


They also have 10 packs of Memorex DVD+RWs for $20, no rebate needed. The nice thing is, they are 4x. Of course, my drive doesn't burn RWs at 4x so it's kind of a loss for me.