Question about Manufacturers of CD-R vs DVD+/-R

[natebetween]

Okay.....I've read all the media comparisons.....I've browsed the boards until my eyes are about to bulge out of my sockets!!!

I have a fairly simple question. When I first started burning CD-R's a few years ago I was warned to stay away from Ritek's......since then it's been only Fuji and TDK TY's for me. I have seen web pages that support this recommendation.

Now....tomorrow (09/01) will be my first day burnind DVDR's.....YAHOO!!! My question is: "Is this considered to be a good rule of thumb for DVDR's as well?"

I see all kinds of people buying up Ritek's. ALso....I've seen sights in the past that put all the discs and manufacturers through the ringer and report on their findings. Anyone know of any website where I can check actual tests that have been ran on these discs?

Thanks.

-Nate

[halcyon]

The DVD-R and DVD+R media compatibility/quality equation is not quite as simple as the CD-R situation used to be a few years a go.

If you want a high likelihood of a good burn on various different DVD burners, then TY discs are a good choice.

Ritek does make ok discs, but not compatible with everything (nothing is). People tend to buy the, because they work for them and because they are cheap.

Most people do not have tools to measure DVD-R disc/burner quality, so it's hard to say which burn is good and which is not (except for the failed burns which are easy to discard as bad).

It pretty much boils down to what burner you use (+ what firmware), what generation of of disc (Ritek has several for example, others improve theirs as well) you have and what burn speed you want to use.

If you want as high as possible quality without doing individual tests on your drive, then Mitsubishi Chemical, Taiyo Yuden and MAM-A (Mitsui) are decent bets, but nothing is guaranteed.

Remember, the quality of the burn is still very much dependent on the interplay between the drive and the media.

[natebetween]

NICE! Thanks for the info! I guess I'll just experiment to see what's good for me. Although I think I'm willing to spend that extra coin to get TY over Ritek.

-Nate

[indolikaa]

Right now, I'm using CompUSA DVD+Rs (with Optodisc ID) and Memorex DVD+RWs (with Ricoh ID) with no problems.

I don't use DVD-R very much, but when I need it, I still have a few TY 2X discs left...

I have a passionate loathing for all forms of DVD-RW media, so I can offer no help there.

.indolikaa.

[Metaluna]

I have a fairly simple question. When I first started burning CD-R's a few years ago I was warned to stay away from Ritek's......since then it's been only Fuji and TDK TY's for me. I have seen web pages that support this recommendation.

Now....tomorrow (09/01) will be my first day burnind DVDR's.....YAHOO!!! My question is: "Is this considered to be a good rule of thumb for DVDR's as well?"

I see all kinds of people buying up Ritek's. ALso....I've seen sights in the past that put all the discs and manufacturers through the ringer and report on their findings. Anyone know of any website where I can check actual tests that have been ran on these discs?

In the early days, Ritek was said to be about at the level of CMC and the other cheap CD-R manufacturers, but they seem to have improved greatly since then. There are now people who claim that they are about as good as TY (though some people claim the quality of TY has gone down too so maybe they are meeting in the middle). Anyway, Ritek has a pretty decent reputation in the DVD-R market. TY does too, but they are expensive, and judging by the threads in this forum, not too many people use them.

As for media testing, check the Media forum at http://club.cdfreaks.com. There are some sticky testing threads there done using a tool called Kprobe.