Any DL RW's available?

[louv68]

Has anyone here seen any dual layer RW's for sale? http://www.jvc.com/press/index.jsp?item=602&pageID=1

[Krispy Kritter]

None of the places I shop carry any. But not all media types make it outside of Japan.

[jman98]

I haven't. Despite the press release, I still suspect that such discs are theoretical and not actually available. For several years now all kinds of manufacturers have been claiming that dual layer + or -RW discs were coming "real soon now" and we still don't have any.

A search of the usual media sellers I trust turned up no discs. I did find on the internet various warnings that these discs will NOT be compatible with current DVD writers/players. I would expect the first discs, if they ever show up, to be made by the less reliable media makers. Again, note that if you ever find such discs, your current DVD writer probably will NOT be able to write to them and you probably don't have anything that can play them.

I do understand the interest in these discs and they could be useful. I have speculated before that the reason they may not really be available is that they may be incredibly difficult to make reliably. Verbatim was one of the first companies to make DVD+R DL media and they stated at the beginning that their reject rate of discs off the manufacturing line was 50%, which is incredible. That was why the first DVD+R DL discs cost so much - they were having to throw away half of what they made. Given what I know about RW discs, I suspect that the reject rates of DVD-RW DL or DVD+RW DL discs are probably much higher and they may be so high that nobody thinks they can make a profit with them. Suppose the discs cost $5 each or even more. How many would consumers really buy? I wish the manufacturers would stop putting out these press releases that "any day now" they will be releasing DL RW discs because they've been doing it for several years now and we've yet to even see the first one on the market.

[louv68]

I here you. It's just that I ran across this yesterday, and it made me think that finally they were out. http://www.cdrlabs.com/#5557

[jman98]

Well, somebody has to make a burner for the format first, so once these burners actually become available, the discs should follow. I've seen an awful lot of vaporware for the DVD+/-RW DL discs, but if burners finally become available, I'd expect the discs to show up soon afterward. Just expect sky high prices for these discs at first.

[TBoneit]

And without the discs first how do you make sure the burner you are designing will really work.

[saoneg]

Hi all,

a colleague at work has 1, it came as a promo for some hardware he bought a year or 2 ago.
The company that he got it from no longer exists (Adelaide, South Australia), so they do exist. But like everyone else, they are very rare.

I'm still chasing some myself.
Greg

[saoneg]

Hi all,

here's the feedback from JVC Australia
"We do not currently have the dual layered RW's. We have been advised it wont be till later in the second half of this year that we will receive them.


If you require any further assistance please feel free to contact us.

Kind Regards

Lisa
JVC Australia"

Greg

[TheTooleMan]

I see this is (not) a timely topic. It was posted over two years ago.

Right now I'm looking for dual layer DVD RW's so I can make some test burns of a project that requires dual layer disks. Been looking at NewEgg, Amazon, MicroCenter, BestBuy, and a bunch of other on-line retailers and coming up with nothing.

Am I barking up the wrong trees, or are these disks really as scarce as hen's teeth?

[lordsmurf]

I don't think these discs ever existed outside of test samples.
The discs were rather poor for read quality.

[jman98]

I've got some updated info since my previous posts, but you're not gonna like it.

A few test DL RW test discs (don't remember if they were + or - though) did actually get released to various media sources and drives were available for awhile. It was not too tough to get a drive as those drives also burned CDs and all other DVD formats (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-R DL, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD+R DL), but the media couldn't be bought. Only a few samples were sent to various media people, like tech websites and so on. Despite manufacturers insisting for several years that DVD+/-RW DL discs were just around the corner, that never happened. The format (+ or -, whichever it was) that actually made it to reviews was abandoned almost as soon as they got the few discs available. The other one never even got as far as samples or consumer available drives. I don't know if you remember, but in the early days of DVD, DVD+R DL discs were quite expensive, like maybe 4 or 5 dollars a disc. The manufacturing process on these discs produced a lot more errors than single layer DVDs. One factory source at the time said that for single layer DVDs, the reject rate off the manufacturing line was in single digits. With DL media, it was about 50% at first. The manufacturing improved eventually, but I suspect that DL discs still have higher reject rates than their single layer counterparts. With re-writable DL media, I would have to guess that the reject rate was extraordinarily high and so high that the manufacturers all gave up as they couldn't make a profit at what the discs would have to sell for. Nobody would buy them. Remember, in the USA and Canada right now there is enormous pressure to keep costs down as consumers demand cheaper (and lower quality as a result) media. Price is everything. If some consumers balk at paying 30 cents a single layer DVD disc already, can you imagine what would happen if they were asked to pay $10 or maybe even $20 for one DVD+/-RW DL disc? It wouldn't sell very much.

Finally, the RW DL discs both were going to require completely new drives to write them, maybe even to read them too (not sure about that last part). It was hard to imagine many consumers getting interested in replacing completely functional burners simply to pay more for a new burner that could burn RW DL media.

[TheTooleMan]

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll go to Plan B, whatever that might be.

Any suggestions or recommendations on how to burn and test a layer break on a DVD project that requires DL capacity without wasting a $3 disk? I haven't burned a DL disk yet...

[jman98]

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll go to Plan B, whatever that might be.

Any suggestions or recommendations on how to burn and test a layer break on a DVD project that requires DL capacity without wasting a $3 disk? I haven't burned a DL disk yet...

I understand the desire to not waste money, but when exactly is the last time you priced DL media? And where do you buy it that you think it costs $3 a disc?

Verbatim DVD+R DL discs, the only discs many of us will use when we need DL media, is easily available for $1.50 or less per disc at online retailers like rima.com and so on. The more you buy, the cheaper they are.

If your authoring software can create ISO images, you can test by mounting the ISO with something like Daemon tools.

[[_chef_]]

Fully agree with jman98s post.