Questions about media

[sdenvers]

This may be answered elsewhere but I've looked round and can't find an answer.

Can someone explain why I can write unbranded Vivastar media on a Pioneer A04 or DVR7000 and read on either, and read on a Pioneer DVD ROM drive, but when I put it in a Sony S735P DVD player it doesn't even recognise it (no disc)?

Is it simply that the tolerances of the Pioneer drives are higher with "inferior" media, or that Sony have deliberately chosen not to recognise some DVDR media? The Sony is about 2 years old, as is the Pioneer DVD ROM drive.

I haven't tried any other media in the Sony yet as I haven't got any (waiting for my samples from ValueMedia).

I am embarking on a project to transfer about 1500 hours of VHS material to DVD and I want to produce the most compatible DVDs. Any recommendations for best media (it looks like Maxell is most compatible?) and cases, plus bulk suppliers in the UK are welcome.

Cheers,
Simon

[sdenvers]

OK, follow up to my own question to rephrase it:

Is cheap media manufacture to lower tolerances than expensive media?
Will cheap media degrade faster than expensive media?

[Eug]

Is cheap media manufacture to lower tolerances than expensive media?

Yes. I find that some cheap media does not burn well consistently, and even if it does burn well enough to work well in the burner, it will often work very inconsistently in other machines. I find that good quality media will burn well consistently, and is more likely to work well in other machines, and will do so (or not do so) fairly consistently in a specific machine.

Will cheap media degrade faster than expensive media?

I don't have enough experience with DVD-R media to say, since I've only had it a few months. However, I can tell you that cheap CD-R media does degrade faster than good quality CD-R media. Whether you can extrapolate that experience to DVD-R media remains to be seen, but I would expect the same result.

There are many reports of a few older Sony DVD players not recognizing DVD-R media at all. However, I've seen posts recently saying that using recent burners with expensive media has resulted in these same DVD players playing DVD-R discs flawlessly, but this presupposes that the disc has been burned to spec, which isn't always the case. (A computer is not always a good testing ground, since PCs will play discs that don't quite follow the rules.) OTOH, there are several players out there that won't work with any DVD-R, regardless of how good the disc quality is, so YMMV.

However, you should note that your specific player HAS been reported to work with DVD-R. I would suggest buying some better quality media (like Apple brand for $5 US each), and trying the same experiment. Just make sure the disc is absolutely correctly authored - try the disc in other machines too if you have access to them.

[sdenvers]

I've got some new media and the Sony is happy with all of them. They are apparently V3 DVD-R, whatever that is.

[Faustus]

Yes the cheaper media is indeed of a lower quality and therfore does have problems with some players, I hear that the newer sony dvd players are quite good at reading the cheaper medias but personally its just hersay until I test it for myself.....

I've been able to use the ESbuy.com branded media (not the silver) just fine for about $3.40 each, and I think their prices just went down slightly.

You might want to check out my media reports: http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=96460
But remember that different players may have different results.