Taiwan vs. Japan

[AlecWest]

It seems like the advice I see most places is to look for Made In Japan on the package ... that somehow, blanks made in Taiwan are not as reliable. I'm not disputing this at all. I was just curious because, whenever I go to cheap local stores like Walmart and Walgreens, they sell blanks made in Japan ... but recently, I visited an Office Depot store and (I kid you not) EVERY blank DVD brand they sold was made in Taiwan.

You'd think a chain-store selling primarily to businesses would stock the best of the best in office supplies. Why, then, do they sell only DVDs made in Taiwan? Is Office Depot just a crappy store? Opinions, please.

[budz]

It seems like the advice I see most places is to look for Made In Japan on the package ... that somehow, blanks made in Taiwan are not as reliable. I'm not disputing this at all. I was just curious because, whenever I go to cheap local stores like Walmart and Walgreens, they sell blanks made in Japan ... but recently, I visited an Office Depot store and (I kid you not) EVERY blank DVD brand they sold was made in Taiwan.

You'd think a chain-store selling primarily to businesses would stock the best of the best in office supplies. Why, then, do they sell only DVDs made in Taiwan? Is Office Depot just a crappy store? Opinions, please.

The OFFICE DEPOT stores here in HONOLULU, HAWAII stock MADE IN JAPAN & MADE IN TAIWAN DVD MEDIA. OFFICE DEPOT isn't a crappy store in my opinion. MADE IN TAIWAN media isn't bad unless it's like CMC or PRINCO. :P
I use MADE IN TAIWAN TDK media, MAXELL RICOH and MCC VERBATIM. They work well in my dvd burners and standalone dvd recorders and dvd players.

I really don't think OFFICE DEPOT just stocks crappy DVD MEDIA. They have great sales on their MADE IN JAPAN/TAIWAN DVD MEDIA like MAXELL, usually buy one get one free. For people like me that don't wanna pay for FED EX 2 DAY SHIPPING costs, OFFICE DEPOT sales are great for the media that I use. :P

[lordsmurf]

Taiwan has some good media (TDK, MCC, etc).
Japan is almost all good media.

[AlecWest]

Thanks. I wasn't meaning to cast aspersions on Taiwanese products, only repeated what I've heard or read here and elsewhere. I haven't been burning DVDs long ... but have only run into one home-brew DVD my player couldn't deal with (generic DVD with a LeadData media ID). But, it's interesting to know that at Office Depot, it depends on the store. The one in Portland (on MLK Drive) sells only blanks made in Taiwan according to their labels ... Maxell, Memorex, Verbatim, Philips, and their store brand.

[budz]

As long as the MAXELL media id is RICOH for the DVD+R media, VERBATIM DVD+R media id is MCC then they are fine for MADE IN TAIWAN. Anything else would be crap. MEDIA CODE, MEDIA CODE is IMPORTANT not just the BRAND NAME. The reason for this is many companies use other manufacturers for their dvd media. For example MAXELL MADE IN TAIWAN DVD-R is manufactured by RITEK which isn't the greatest media although some may disagree but in my opinion use what works for you.

[AlecWest]

MEDIA CODE is IMPORTANT not just the BRAND NAME.

Yup. It's too bad there can't be a "truth in labeling" law that applies to DVDs, requiring packages to clearly post the media ID. That way, it would be more of a level playing field for consumers. I remember buying a stack of Memorex DVDs that had a specific RITEK ID that was considered good ... while other RITEK ID codes were not considered good. And, it would be nice to be able to shop by media ID and not by brand. With Memorex, the DVDs I buy today might not be made by the same people (or process) as the Memorex DVDs I buy a month from now.

BTW, to prove I'm not a slouch on Taiwan (grin), I'm currently using Sony DVDs ... made in Taiwan.