Brands of Blank DVD-R Discs ?

[Captain Video]

Has anyone ever had a problem using a store brand blank DVD versus a name brand DVD . Is the quality the same ?
Captain Video

[Noahtuck]

I never buy store branded dvdr's!!!

They usually outsource the cheapest crap they can get!!

And when you can buy verbatim's for $14.00 a 50 pack pretty regularly from officemax & best buy why bother taking a chance!!

I tried explaining this to my daughter once but she just had to save $4.00 and buy some CircuitCity cheapo crap and she ended up throwing half a 50 pack out because they were all skipping an pixelating LOL!!
Now she alway's harp's to people, just buy a good brand and save yourself a big headache for an extra $5.00 8)

[Captain Video]

I just picked up 25 Sony DVD-R discs for $9, on sale at Walgreens, a great deal,
Captain Video

[gshelley61]

You can get 100 Taiyo Yuden DVD-R's online for less than $30 shipped.

They are simply the best. Why buy anything else?

Store bought "name brand" discs are a crap shoot these days.

[ixyk]

For the most part I agree that you should (at the very least) proceed with extreme caution if you choose to purchase store-brand media, or ANY generic media for that matter. However, just because it isn't "name" brand media (on the label at least) doesn't necessarily mean you are buying crap. At least as far as Office Depot brand media goes anyway, my experience has been that I usually end up with fairly decent quality blank DVDs, both of the plus and minus variety. Don't get me wrong though, there's no comparison between these discs and the ones you're likely to end up with if you buy Verbatim or Sony media. So if you're working with critical data, and not simply backing up your DVD library to keep your originals from getting trashed, then I would recommend sticking with "name" media.

However, as many of us already know, the label on a disc DOES NOT necessarily indicate the true manufacturer. Many Office Depot discs I've had in the past were actually Ritek, RiData, or Ricoh discs, among others. These were of acceptable quality for specific purposes at least, though certainly not "archival/backup" quality. You usually can't identify the true manufacturer from the packaging though, so the best thing you can do is to use a program like DVD Identifier to identify the true manufacturer of the discs you just bought without having to actually burn any. Then you can at least return them all if you discover they're not what you expected. This is a good idea to do even with "name" media, and especially if you intend to use any Fuji media of late. It used to be you could trust Fuji media as well, but the last couple times I've bought Fuji they turned out to be crap media. Perhaps this isn't true if you can find "Made in Japan" batches, but I've only been seeing "Made in Taiiwan" batches around. Anyway, I for one don't plan on buying Fuji media again. Maybe I'll try again if I come across any "Made in Japan" batches, but otherwise I won't be wasting any more of my time on Fuji. And unless something changes I'll be sticking with Verbatim and Sony media. [Oddly enough, this is the only Sony product I'm still willing to buy. It's probably only a matter of time before this product line goes the same way as the rest of their crap has lately.]

Hopefully this information at least saves a couple people a couple bucks...

[Capmaster]

Store-brand media is usually junk. It's rebadged cheapo Princo or CMC, or some other "landfill" grade crap media. It's best to avoid it, and with the prices of quality media being so low, there's really no good reason to buy it.

[Noahtuck]

I just picked up 25 Sony DVD-R discs for $9, on sale at Walgreens, a great deal,
Captain Video

I'd still spend $25.00 for 50 verbatim's before sony 8)
Although i have used sony once in a great while with no real ill effect's.
Don't recall the MID on the one's i used though.
For local buying nothing beat's 50 verbatim's for $12.99, just picked some up the other day at officemax, OM & BB have them for that price on sale regularly.

[mar-mar]

I remember going up in office depot last weekend and they had a sale on their store brand dvd spindles 100 for 30$. Sales rep was like i wouldn't back up anything real important on them or take a chance with doing video projects with them...real talk

[dvdcrack]

Verbatims or verbataims how ever you may spell it are pure doggy doo doo! CRAP! I had a 100 pack from best buy back about 2 years ago and 40 of those disc were bad! I then returned the disc to bestbuy and the young teen as stupid as she is let me exchange them for another pack or refund. So I took the refund! So I currious so I bought a 10 pack of the verbatims and only 4 were crap disc. So I bought them back the same day and as stupid as the girl is actually gave me my money back! hahahaha..anyway I bought fuji film and sony and I had not one disc ending up in errors! So Those crappy gold color verbs are CRAP!

Another disc brand are Ridata not bad. very good and here in canada they are 14.99 for 50 pack. 25.99 for 100 pack and you save more when you buy 100. No problems.

[BobK]

I then returned the disc to bestbuy and the young teen as stupid as she is let me exchange them for another pack or refund.

So I bought them back the same day and as stupid as the girl is actually gave me my money back!

I'm not clear. The girl at the refund desk was doing her job and that makes her stupid?

[lordsmurf]

Verbatims or verbataims how ever you may spell it are pure doggy doo doo! CRAP! I had a 100 pack from best buy back about 2 years ago and 40 of those disc were bad!

That was probably during the short timeframe where CMC was being used. Mitsubishi media is what was used before, and is what is used now. Those are good discs.

[oldandinthe way]

The differing brand loyalties should be obvious.

Results you see will be based on your DVDwriter and the extent to its compatibility with the media.

Many store brands are the same media as name brands. This said, I have had a greater number of dvds with obvious manufacturing flaws on Staples CMC disks, than with name branded CMC disks, suggesting there may be quality control differences in the brands