relative quality and best burn speeds for some popular media

[lordsmurf]

Enough of the spec is revealed in manuals on how to use video products. I remember learning a great deal of information simply by reading the help files for DVDit! PE, DVD Studio Pro 1, Final Cut Pro 2, and Cleaner 5, some 6-7 years ago.

[JohnnyBob]

Thanks for the leads guys. I'm reading, and reading...
So it won't work to use a flashlight, mirror, and photographer's lightmeter to determine reflectivity

Seriously though, this reflectivity thing seems pretty simple in theory. It's just the percentage of light reflected back...
"Reflectance (Reflectivity): Proportion of incident light that is returned from a reflective surface."
http://www.mscience.com/gloss.html#R

If it's as important as you suggest, surely somebody ought to run reflectivity tests on the popular media, at least, and publish the list. That same company does it, presumably for a fee...
http://www.mscience.com/test.html

If they can do it, you or I can do it!

[VegasBud]

JohnnyBob,

I hadn't run across the mscience site before. I see they sell 2 "MODERATE COST DVD AND CD MEDIA TESTERS". Both of the testers appear to use calibrated consumer drives, not reference drives. As is mentioned in the "Demystifying the drive" whitepaper, the problems with calibrated consumer drives is what led to the development of reference drives. The "Calibration no substitute for poor equipment design or build quality" whitepaper would allso provide some insight on the matter.

Considering what they're charging for their testers, and extrapolating what they might charge for a disk test, it probably wouldn't cost all that much more to let AudioDev (the pros) do the testing for you on a CATS system for $240 per disk (minus $70 if you decide not to take the expert analysis). Personally, I would take the expert analysis.

If there's a comprehensive reflectivity study somewhere, I haven't run across it. It would probably be very difficult to maintain an up to date listing for all the disks made by all the manufacturers in all the facilities.