Newbie with Media Question

[Warrior8445]

Well, I went down to the local TV store and bought some of those blank DVD's to use in my new Sony GX-7 DVD Recorder. The best price on blank DVD-R's was for "eProformance" 4.7GB Recordable discs. My owners manual says...2 hours at SP mode. The salesman says 4.7GB equals 2 hours. So, why does the recording stop after 90 minutes? It stops by itself and then the Recorder tells me I have a "dirty" disc and it has become just another piece of trash for the landfill. Why is this? Is 4.7 GB not 2 hours? When I use a Maxell DVD+RW disc (more money), I can get two hours...but then the disc won't play in my Mac G4 drive/reader/player. What kind of DVD-R's should I use? Help!
Regards,
Rich in Omaha

[ZippyP.]

What kind of DVD-R's should I use?

Better ones!

[Warrior8445]

Thank you very much for the fast reply. However, this was not the answer I was looking for. Does a 4.7 GB disc always record for 2 hours in SP mode?
Thank you in advance,
Rich in Omaha

[Bodene]

Don't view it as...how many minutes u can get on a DVD-r. I ripped, shrunk and burned one of the the LOTR movies onto one DVD+R, and it is 180 min. Tiz merely a matter of getting a good compression software to get the movie down to DVD-5 size. I use DVD2One, but DVD Shrink (free) does well also.

You pretty much answered your own question Warrior. You admitted to using inexpensive blanks, and your problems began when u did that. However, when u went for the more expensive maxell DVD-RW's, the problem ceased.

In DVD media, you get precisely what u pay for.. Cheaper media means lower quality dye, and quality of dye in the media dictates how well the burns go, as well as viewing quality and shelf life of the videos u make.

Your Mac, like alot of players such as my PS2, prolly doesn't like RW's. Therefore, my advice is....buy Maxell, Memorex, or some other name brand R media, instead of RW. Save the RW's for when u want to try a new technique but don't want to chance making a coaster if it doesn't play on your stand-alone player.

Hope this helps.

[Warrior8445]

Thanks, Bodene!