my own experiment, +rw vs -rw, recordmax vs nero at best buy

[suerpflysocal]

i decided to do my own experiment. i burned a home made dvd from a wedding video with menus and tested it out at all the players at my local best buy. I made 2 versions, one with +rw and one with -rw, one with nero and one with recordmax dx. As always YMMV. Also, i decided to go with rw because i think it is more difficult to play on standalone. Most player that play -rw should play -r (am i wrong?). sme goes with +rw and +r. I also think that it is imposrtant for a player to play rw because we do so much testing before burning the real thing.

Just thought this may help some people, so please no flames.

Also, these players were not hooke up to tv. my only onfirmation was by the lcd display saying "play" and and the time starts rolling (most of the time)

Video: dvd made from DV encoded with tmpeg at 8000cbr and authored by DVDit PE with menus and LPCM audio

Burned with : Sony DRU-500AX 2.0c (please no flames)

Burned with: +rw by recordnow DX 4.6 with pxengine upgrade
-rw by nero 5.5.9.14 using dvd-video template

I also came back a scond time and reversed the disc +rw with nero and -rw with recordnow and tried it on the players that did not played both discs the first time. I also went to Sam's club and tried to play these 2nd round discs on 3 players.

results:

best buy:

-rw(nero) +rw(rnow) -rw(rnow) +rw(nero)
JVC XVS300BK yes yes na na
JVC progressive yes yes na na
kenwood dv605 yes yes na na
magnavox mdv430 yes yes na na
mitsubishi dd4030 yes yes na na
panasonic cv52 5disc yes yes na na
philips 724at yes yes na na
philips 793 5disc yes yes na na
sony nc615 5disc yes yes na na
sony nc655 5disc yes yes na na
sony 315 yes yes na na
sony 715 prog yes yes na na
toshiba sd1800 yes yes na na
toshiba 5disc yes yes na na

problem players:

panasonic rv32 yes no yes no
panasonic rp62 yes no yes no
toshiba sd3800 no yes no no
toshiba sd4800 no yes no no
mistsubishi prog no yes no no
samsung s221 no no no no
samsung p421 no no no yes

sam's club

akai 7000 prog na na yes no
Daewoo 5900 na na yes no
toshiba sd-k510 na na yes yes

My own players:

panasonic rp82 yes yes yes yes
sampo dve620 yes no yes no
apex ad600a no no no no

Notes:
na= not applicable becuase not tested. note that if it passed the first time with both disc , i did not test it a second time with the disc reversed. Also the sam's trip was only for the second time around.

prog= progressive scan player, but i forgot the model number

akai 7000 has been reported to be internally identical to apex 2100 but better build quality?
toshiba k510 reported to be a sam's rebadge of sd2800 (looks identical)

You can draw your own conclusion. The only one i came up with was that samsung was a brand that i had high regards for being in the upper tier for a budget player, but i was very disappointed in the results. Other samsung owners please comment. They are the only brand i would avoid for now until further tests show otherwise.

Again, these are only my experience...YMMV

[Tommyknocker]

I bought a Samsung S229 because it only cost $100.00 and could play (S)VCDs I created myself. The only disks it has trouble with are CD-RWs that have SVCDs, I have found so far. I do not have a DVD-R yet, but will keep you posted.