best media for dvd video, cheap

[Solarflair]

can i get some suggestions on some good but cheap, dvd media, for dvd video purposes. I have alot of cheap ones but most of them crap out near the end of the disc. Im looking for something that wont mess up near the end (past the 4gb mark) of the disc.

[kisrum]

Look at this https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia or this http://www.digitalfaq.com

Look for Made In Japan, not Taiwan. Many can tell you on-line sites to purchase from. I've made peace with paying about $0.40 each (stacks of 50) for locally purchased Japanese-made media - others can do better. You will often see posts here when (US) stores are having sales.

[Solarflair]

what are some brands/ manuf. id of japanese made media?

[kisrum]

There's no answer to that. One day a Fuji or TDK label will be on an inferior stack from Taiwan and the next day the same label will be on a good quality stack from Japan, except it will hopefully say "made in Japan". Paraphrasing from www.digitalfaq.com, brand doesn't matter. When I'm at Best Buy or Office Max I look for low price and "made in Japan". I am not an expert. The two links above are still your best bet for reliable answers.

The MANUFACTURERS that conventional wisdom seems to prefer is Taiyo Yuden (id Yuden??) and Ricoh (id JPNRICOH??).

There is popular software called DVDInfoPro, I think, that will tell you who the actual manufacturer is, but only after you've brought the package home and stuck one in your DVD burner. There is a free version with pop-ups and some performance issues or a $20.00 version which I eventually paid for.

Hope this helps.

[doppletwo]

Best Buy has Fuji 8x DVD-R on sale for 19.99 for a 50 pack.

If you get the MAde in Japan they are TY(Taiyo Yuden) really good discs for most people.

The Made in Taiwan are ok too but not as good in my opinion. Try and get the made in Japan.

Best Buy seems to have this sale often. But I stock up when they do. Because you can't get these discs all the time at this price.

Sometimes Fry's has this sale too, but the one near my house seems to stock more Taiwan than Japan so you have to hunt there their stock. But the packages do say whether they are Taiwanese or Japanese.

Taiwanese are either PRODISC0? (I can't rember the number) or FUJIFILM1 (this one might be wrong might just be FUJI1)

But try and get the Japanese the are TY like I said. If to have a NEC 3500 series writer even with stock firmware you will be able to burn these 8x's speed disc at 12x's. And the disc will work great.

But there are people out there that say the TY is overpriced junk TY is usually over a dollar a disc. and people like I think Lord Smurf don't like TY. And the is thread saying TY is worst than some generic garbage, but in my experience my TY backups player in every player even the most finicky players I know of but that is a sample of ony about twenty to thirty models I have tried them on.

You will have to test them on your players. You have to get what works for you thats always the best media.

Also what burner do you have? IF you have a cheapo BTC it will coaster ( make into a coaster instead of DVD video) any media in my experience. But other people have had better experiences with BTC with the newer firmware.

[Solarflair]

from bestbuy, micro center, compusa, office max, office depot, i have yet to find anything from japan. Maybe im not looking hard enough but i just cant find any.

I have a Plextor 12x dual format. From worst to great all the media ive used will burn just fine. Its just when watching the video, it craps out near the end of the disc.
For data storage, even the cheapest, wackest rated media gets the job done. Its just video that i am concerned with. I usually burn dvd video of tv shows, full of 352x240 mpeg1 videos at 48hz and usually fill it as much as can fit.

[doppletwo]

Maybe people have already picked through it. Once a sale is posted here hundreds of people on this site run out an snach up all the Japanese media or you are just in an unlucky area.

I have rarely seen a store that only has Japanese media of any type most store willhave Japanese and Taiwanese or only Taiwanese.

[lordsmurf]

www.nomorecoasters.com

[cyflyer]

whatever you do though, stay away from anything that has Ritek/Ridata/Ri-anything/G04/G05 associated with it. I am, belatedly, finding out that it is worthless shit. I must admit to getting carried away by the 'good' reports on the posts here, and dived in head first buying Riteks. I now look at backups which I did over the past few months and they pixelate like the clappers at the end, and not just post 4gig, but well before !!!!!!!! Backups that appeared ok at the time, and I had long assumed to be ok. I am now worried that I may have wasted time, money, and effort. I am now worried every time I stick in one of my backups as to wether or not I'll be able to get to the end. I stopped the riteks about two 50 spindles ago, and moved onto the TDK TTG01's which so far seem pretty good. Soooooooo frustrating. Do crap media manufacturers actually test their shit before dumping it on us poor suckers????????????? They should be lined up and shot !!!!!!!!!!

[steve2713]

cyflyer, the best discs I've ever used would probably have to be the Ridata branded RICOHJPNR01 discs, 4x +R media. These here :

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-132-344&depa=0

They used to have $10 rebates on them all the time, I've gotten 200 of them for $30 per 100, they are great discs. They are right up there with the Taiyo Yuden discs I've used, I seem to get even better results with RICOHJPNR01 though, burn great at 8x on my 2 8x burners as well. Sorry you've had so much bad luck with Ridata, but many people have had great luck with certain Ridata/Ritek discs.

Solarflair, alot of your success, or lack of it, is going to depend on how your burner and its firmware get along with a particular media. I'm sure there are discs that work flawlessly on my NEC or Benq that are worthless on your Plextor, and if I'm not mistaken, Plextor drives can be some of the pickier drives.

[doppletwo]

I had good experiences with Ritek, but they are inconstistant. I was using the orange top RITEK04's. I noticed that there was actually two types of them. You can tell by the hub both hubs are clear, but one hub is shiny and the other is matte.

The shiny hub ones were pretty good, but the matte hub ones were not that good.

But now I stick with FUJI 8x's made in Japan since they are Taiyo Yuden and I can get them at Best Buy or Fry's when they are on sale for 40 cents a disc or less in 50 or 100 pack usually. And they go on sale quite often.

[Solarflair]

since i bought this 12x plextor. I absolutely cannot stand 4x media. i usually can handle 8x pretty well though.

[anubis13]

For data storage, even the cheapest, wackest rated media gets the job done.

I would not be surprised if you tried to retreive data from those cheap discs and found many errors.

I have used NEC drives for the last few years and I usually get GreatAZO discs from meritline.
That said, these are not that good but for the money they work fairly well. your results may vary as the drive has alot to do with how cheap discs perform.

[MACCA350]

Taiyo Yuden

[Solarflair]

i would love taiyo stuff, but its a bit too expensive for me.

[steve2713]

Well, if you want to roll the dice and try REALLY cheap discs, you could try some of these:

http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?go=view_item&id=2427&cata=&s_cata=

They are Sonic brand, MUST001 media code, they are actually 4x rated discs even though the site says only 2x (All my burners recognize them as 4x media, and they have 4x printed on the center hub of the discs). I have no clue how these are going to work with your Plextor drive, but they actually work pretty well with both my NEC drives, a 1300 and 2500. They actually burn at 6x and 8x on my 2500 with some firmwares, but they don't burn well at 8x (6x is similar to 4x in burn quality). I'd say that about 1 out of 15 burns with enough errors to cause skipping and be considered a coaster, so they are actually pretty decent considering they are about the cheapest discs you're gonna find, short of the occasional great clearance deal, etc.

If you order them using one of their 10% codes, I think they are down to $16.20 per 100, free shipping :P

Again, these may or may not work well with your drive, I have no idea, just giving you the cheapest useable discs I've encountered. If you don't want to go the ultra cheap route, just buy Fuji or Maxell discs when they go on sale, that's the easy answer. Also, you could try some cheap discs like Khypermedia or some of the other brands that use CMC media when they have good sales on them, I've gotten some 50 packs for $10 from time to time, and CMC discs burn very good on all of my burners, although I'm not certain how Plextor likes CMC media.

Here's a ton of info on the discs:

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?start=0&catid=18&threadid=298848

Here's a couple of PI/PO scans, if you are interested:

[samijubal]

1631 Prodiscs from Rima, they are S03 media code and work flawlessly every time.

[Solarflair]

i cannot use 4x media. its way too slow, 20 minutes for 1 dvd is crazy. i burn so much therefore i need at least 8x.

[steve2713]

20 minutes? My drives burn a full disc at 4x in about 14 1/2 minutes.

If you 'cannot' use 4x media due to its 'way too slow'ness, I'd just suggest you wait and jump on one of the deals that comes along from a local retailer such as Office Max or Best Buy. Right now, most of the best bargains on media are on the 4x discs, so if you 'cannot' use it and its craziness, you'll have to be patient and wait for a deal to come along.

Maybe if you tell us how much is too much, or tell us how much per disc you're aiming to pay, it'll make it easier to make a suggestion. Is $40 per 100 too much to pay??? If it is not, you can get Fuji Taiyo Yuden media all the time. Newegg has 100 packs of Ritek R03 8x +Rs for $30 after rebate, not as good as TY but I've had good luck with them.

[steve2713]

Here's the Riteks on Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-132-367&DEPA=0

They are actually $29, free shipping also.

[cyflyer]

Thanks for the comments steve2713, but I've gone off anything associated with the word "Ri..." For the present I'll roll along with the TDK's as I'm satisfied with them, so far. Another point to mention, is that the recommendations for 'Newegg', 'Rima', etc really apply to you guys in the USA, and mail order is financially impractrical for us on the other side of the planet. In my case Cyprus. Besides, I, and probably loads of others, like to physically see something and pick it up in my hands before buying. Its a phycological thing ! Local shops aren't too bad stockwise, and I pick up the TDK's for about the equivalent of US$60 for 50.

On the subject of coasters, it would nice to know if any of those manufacturers ever read the comments about their products on this website and they had any comments to make.
PS I still think they should be shot !

[steve2713]

Sorry you don't have access to some of the links I've provided, they were primarily aimed at Solarflair, who is in the U.S.

The reason I responded about the Ridata/Ritek bashing was that there are MANY different media codes, some better than others, and RICOHJPNR01 discs happen to be very good discs. TDK, that you've become fond of, also uses tons of RICOHJPNR01 media for their 4x discs, I've used it and it burns in an identical manner to the Ridata branded RICOHJPNR01 discs. TDK also uses Ritek G04 for some of their discs so you've been warned.

[cyflyer]

G04.....sends shivers down my spine. The local spindle TDK's are the entire surface printables, 4x, TTG01's. Thanks for the warning.
The links for the mail order places I can see, but the cost of receiving the goods would be more than the cost of the actual dvd's. Might get a friend who's visiting the US to get a spindle of the TY's I hear so much about.

[MACCA350]

I get a stack of 100 4x Taiyo Yuden for AU$67 (yes thats Australian Dollers which is about US$51)

Keeps me happy

[Capmaster]

Taiyo Yuden

Agreed. Buying the cheapo stuff is false economy because you'll have more coasters.

Plus there is much less difference now between the price of the primo top-grade stuff like Taiyo and the mediocre stuff like Ritek or Prodisc. At least here in the states there is little price difference. That may not be true where you live.

[Solarflair]

Here's the Riteks on Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-132-367&DEPA=0

They are actually $29, free shipping also.

If i can get TY 100 for 40-50bucks id be happy. Where can i find those?

[steve2713]

If i can get TY 100 for 40-50bucks id be happy. Where can i find those?

If we'd known that, this whole thread wouldn't be necessary

For one, Best Buy has Fuji 8x -R, +R for $20 per 50 pack all the time lately. If it has 'made in Japan' on the spindle, it is TY media. I think most of the online retailers also are selling TY media below $50 per 100 pack at this point.

[steve2713]

http://www.supermediastore.com/taiyo-yuden-silver-thermal-8x-dvd-plus-r-media-100.html 8x +R, $48

http://www.supermediastore.com/taiyo-yuden-silver-thermal-8x-dvd-r-media.html 8x -R, $47

two examples

[Bix]

Verbatim (MCC) from Sam's Club: http://search.samsclub.com/eclub/search.go?BV_SessionID=_SC_0726392514.1106436131_CS_&...h&logged_in=No

[steve2713]

Yeah, that's another option. Of course, Amazon has 100 packs of them for $30 after rebate, shipped free, if that is what you're after.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002IQ1FS/ref=pd_cpt_gw_4/002-5266458-0036823