What DVD-RW brands are you using in your JVC DR-M10

[TheMadHatter]

"I use Optodisc DVD-RWs, and so far, no probs" he says while frantically looking for some wood to knock on.

[Matt_]

Actually the same rule still applies to DVD-RW or any other media, except that you rarely find made in Japan DVD-RW media sold in the US. Taiyo Yuden and Maxell don't make DVD-RW on their own (TY has even stated on their website that they have no plans to manufacture rewritable media). Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (formerly Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation) has plants in both Japan and Singapore, but normally the media made in Singapore are sold outside Japan, and MKM or MCC made in Singapore media are almost as good as made in Japan stuff.

You'd better get hold of those made in Japan DVD-RW and/or DVD+RW media if possible, they will disappear quickly since Sony has switched the production to Taiwan as usual. See the following link for the quality of these made in Japan Sony DVD+RW discs (DVD-RW should be similar):

http://forum.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=113237

Cool -- It's nice that I stumbled upon something good. I had bought this (It's DVD-RW; apparently 1x. I don't see any mention of "2x" or "4x" anywhere) 2-3 months ago, so I don't know what my chances now are going to be of finding another Made in Japan Sony, particularly in light of what you said. And I appreciate the link; unfortunately I haven't learned yet what the type of data in that thread means. What does the information there signify in terms of what distinguishes it from, say, a Sony DVD-RW made by a plant in a different country ?

Is there some reason that a certain plant (such as TY as you pointed out) doesn't want to produce DVD-RWs ? Is there something about re-writeable optical discs that I do not know about ? What I observed recently about CD-RWs (I'm new to this whole world of recordable and rewriteable optical discs) is that not only is it very hard to find a store that carries CD-RWs, but, even though drives now are rated at or above 24x for recording to CD-RW, usually all I can spot at a store is 4x CD-RW.

Before buying this JVC DVD recorder, I had been following the various JVC threads on this forum for several months. My reason for starting off with DVD-RW instead of DVD-RAM is twofold. People were commenting that in VR-mode the JVC records in mostly oddball non-standard resolutions. Also, it's more time-consuming and there's more effort involved in working with video recorded in the VR-format than in the Video-mode.

I'm not sure whether to post this question in this thread or in one of the other JVC threads, but I have two DVD-RW related questions.
(In light of the cost of a 10-pack box of this Sony-brand of DVD-RWs) Is there a limit on how many times I can re-use/re-format a disc ? Though the companies use figures like "1,000"'s of times, I think I had read on this forum that the # is MUCH lower -- around 30 or so times.
The other thing is this. Right now, all I have is my laptop's CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive; but I'm planning on buying an external Pioneer A08. But for the time being once I record someting to DVD-RW and then decide it's a show that I want to keep, it occurred to me that if I just put that into another standalone DVD player and then connected it to the JVC DVD Recorder and then recorded it onto a DVD-R in the JVC DVD Recorder, there'd be a loss in video quality.
I was under the assumption that I could leave content on a DVD-RW and not be in any hurry to transfer it off of there onto a DVD-R, but in another thread I started, apparently rewriteable is not a good archival storage format.

[piano632]

Those 1x Sony -RWs are either made by Sony or JVC (you will have to check the media ID to know for sure), but in both cases they will work well on the JVC recorder.

These are DVD-RW I have used on the JVC recorder, and all work well:
Sony 1x (Sony ID, Japan)
TDK 2x (TDK ID, Japan)
Maxell 1x (JVC ID, Japan)
Fuji 2x (MCC ID, Singapore)

You will be hard-pressed to find Japanese-made -RW discs in U.S. these days, all of mine were bought back when the discs cost $4-5 each.

[Synergy]

Is there some reason that a certain plant (such as TY as you pointed out) doesn't want to produce DVD-RWs ?

Is there a limit on how many times I can re-use/re-format a disc ?

I was under the assumption that I could leave content on a DVD-RW and not be in any hurry to transfer it off of there onto a DVD-R, but in another thread I started, apparently rewriteable is not a good archival storage format.

1. RW media use phase change technology which is very different from the chemical dye used by write-once media. RW media generally have limited range of sensitivity compared to write-once media, that's why less backward compatibility as we are facing. Taiyo Yuden and Maxell apparently don't want to invest in RW technology for whatever reasons, but there are still MKM, TDK, and JVC.


2. While DVD-RW media are rated for 1000 times of rewrite, it's just an estimate. Because there is defect management used in VR mode, DVD-RW media may have longer life if used in VR mode than in other modes. See the following post:

http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3741115#post3741115

Defect management is able to block damaged area on a disc similar to on HDD, so the useful life of the disc can be extended. Even if you record and erase the disc every day, it can still at least last for three years. So buying high quality discs is essential, and keep them from scratch and dust. I think the quality of DVD-RW is still better than CD-RW, simply because there are still good manufacturers such as MKM, TDK involved, while most CD-RW media are made by Taiwanese manufacturers because of low profits. Remember that there is a huge market for rewritable DVD media because the standalone recorders eventually will replace VCRs, so there is more incentives for manufacturers to make the media last longer. In the short-run, just use high quality brands as mentioned before.

3. The basic principle of backup is to maintain multiple copies if they are really important. Or, you could use DVD-RAM media in VR mode for really long-term backup.