Best and worst DVD+R DL media

[Persistence]

I've had good, but not perfect, luck with Sony brand. The quotient of unburnable "coasters" is low enough that I cannot be sure if the cause is the disc or some operational fluke.

Two years ago, I bought some Memorex DLs, and about half seemed to burn OK. Since I was just getting used to DL projects, I gave the brand the benefit of the doubt and bought a spindle of 50. Not a single one would burn. It made no sense that the problem could be stale firmware. Why would any disc be compatible with only an unusual or rapidly changing firmware, lest it be unsalable? I bought another small spindle and kept the sales receipt. The results were the same: 100% coasters.

Reading the history of Amazon review entries for the Memorex DVD+R DLs, I am convinced that the product is a scam. The company sells single layer products that may be (usually) OK, but evidently does not test, or have any quality control, over the double-layer discs it sources from bucket shops and hustlers around the globe. I am amazed that vendors carry the brand. It dominates shelves at most retailers. Evidently, the buyers of the DL product are a smaller niche, whose returns or complaints don't reach a noise level sufficient to cause action.

Sony, TDK, and Verbatim are more expensive, and I buy them in small quantities, so my findings don't have "statistical depth." But my guess that efforts to cut costs and meet "minimum specs" will cause some "least common denominator" behavior. The few Philips discs I've bought are OK, but I've also read of some instances where they became "coasters."

I've not found any centralized review site that covers DVD+R DL quality. At best, they cover single-layer products. I also fear that the information they give about where the firms outsource their media may be stale or hard to verify, especially if there is deliberate disguising by the root sub-sub-sub-contracted source provider.

[redwudz]

Try lordsmurf's site for a lot of DVD disc information: http://nomorecoasters.com/

If you are wondering why crappy disc manufacturers are still in business, it's a mystery to most of us. Some of their discs seem to work for some people with some burners, I guess that's good enough for them. I've been using Taiyo Yuden SL and Verbatim DL discs for several years and I have had zero coasters. And the price of those discs were only a few pennies more than the crap discs.

[filmboss80]

There is ONLY one reliable DL brand: Verbatim DVD+R DL. That's it. If you had searched this forum, you would already know that. Countless users will attest. However, there is one more element to avoiding coasters: the burning software. ImgBurn always. Nero (or anything else) -- never. Not opinion; fact.

[jman98]

Memorex single layer discs are without a doubt the worst DVD media I ever bought. I bought them before I learned about media quality. I can only imagine how bad their DL media is. Memorex is not the worst brand of media on the planet as there are actually worse discs, but they are really really bad.

Verbatim DVD+R DL discs are very good. Do note that the 8x and 8x-10x discs are only made in Singapore. Lower speed DL discs may be made in Singapore or India. I mention this because while everyone agrees that the Singapore made discs are top notch, there is much disagreement about how good or bad DL media made in India is. There is one exception to this. Verbatim's DataLifePlus series of DL discs are rated at 2.4x speed and they are only made in Singapore. They are also inkjet printable.

[jntaylor63]

Memorex is $hit. I used them for some of my first burns and 4 years later they are crap. Use TDK or Verbatim single layer.

Only use Verbatim DL.

[OldeMan]

Verbatium DL .. I can still find made in Taiwan and the others have said...IMGBURN...baby 8)

[lordsmurf]

There is ONLY one reliable DL brand: Verbatim DVD+R DL. That's it. If you had searched this forum, you would already know that. Countless users will attest. However, there is one more element to avoiding coasters: the burning software. ImgBurn always. Nero (or anything else) -- never. Not opinion; fact.

Do this.
Read more at links already given (and in my sig).

[jman98]

Verbatium DL .. I can still find made in Taiwan and the others have said...IMGBURN...baby 8)

As far as I can tell, Verbatim never made DL media in Taiwan. They do, however, still make some single layer discs in Taiwan. I think you meant to say Singapore.

[mazinz]

Verbatium DL .. I can still find made in Taiwan and the others have said...IMGBURN...baby 8)

As far as I can tell, Verbatim never made DL media in Taiwan. They do, however, still make some single layer discs in Taiwan. I think you meant to say Singapore.

OldeMan is correct. Most major retailers stopped carrying the Singapore versions (I heard actually they are not made in Singapore at all anymore). I have seen both made in Taiwan and made in India for verbatim dvd+r Dl's at bestbuy (well when bestbuy used to carry verbatim which the stores no longer do now)

I pretty much have to buy everything I am after online because of most major chain downsizing the media section and everyone going to memorex crap. Going the ebay route, I scored 12 packs of Singapore verbatim DL dvds for a reasonable price.

[KTH]

Redwudz is correct about ritek/ridata DL media only working well in specific burners. I have tried Memorex branded Ritek DVD+R DL media and also Ritek/Ridata DVD+R DL media in enough burners to know that most drives will have problems burning Ritek media properly. Drives that I have used to burn to Ridata DL media successfully most of the time (95% or higher) is the LG GH22LS30, LG GGW-H20L, Sony-Optiarc AD-7240S-0B. Both the LG Blu-ray and Sony units are still available (See links below). As some of you know I have always recommended that people use Verbatim DL media and I still do, but where I live there is only one store that sells Verbatim DL media and it's priced very high and very rarely goes on sale (Maybe once a year). Also ordering online and shipping it in is not an option either since with the current shipping cost can cost me almost as much as the disc's. There are more local stores that sell the Memorex brand Ritek media and I can usually get it on sale. The media ID's of the Ritek disc's that I have burned successfully using the above listed burners are


S04 Rev. 066 (8x)
Ritek D01 (2.4x)


Of course there's no guarantee that your results will be that same as me and maybe I just got lucky and caught several good batches of media.

Also as most people have recommended I also use Imgburn to burn all my DL media.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118030

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136137

[redwudz]

Of course there's no guarantee that your results will be that same as me and maybe I just got lucky and caught several good batches of media.

One major problem with cheaper media is inconsistency of quality between batches, sometimes even within the batches themselves. Sometimes you do get lucky, but many times it can get expensive and frustrating to waste your time generating 'coasters'. I've burned my TY and Verbatim DL discs on several different burners, Sony, Pioneer, LG, Samsung, and no coasters.

[jman98]

@mazinz - Thanks for the info. I only mail order my discs now and I don't buy any in stores. The last Verbatim DVD+R DL discs I ordered (which was earlier this year) were made in Singapore. Taiwan made discs have a bad reputation because some really low quality manufacturers set up shop there, but they are not all bad. Verbatim now uses Taiwan exclusively for their top line DataLifePlus series of single layer discs. It's worth stating again that my experience has been that 8x and 8x-10x DL discs are never made in India by Verbatim and the DataLifePlus 2.4x has only been made in Singapore. So if you stick to those, you know you won't get made in India discs. It's when you start getting to those cheaper 6x and 4x discs that you start seeing more made in India discs from Verbatim.

[lordsmurf]

It has nothing to do with "batches" (such a bad myth), but rather a simple issue of being variable and unreliable. This whole "batch" thing was invented by people who wanted to defend their favorite brand with some sort of half-assed logic.

[lowellriggsiam]

I vote maxwell as being the worst.

[JohnnyBob]

Nothing is 100% reliable and anyone who says otherwise is off his/her rocker!

I use TYG03 and MKM003. Neither are perfect, and I've had less-good batches of both, but they usually burn OK. I have occasional problems playing MKM003 in some standalone DVD players.

MKM001 used to be the best but it's not reliable anymore, so I avoid it now. You should definitely avoid the made in India kind. Unfortunately made in Singapore is no longer a guarantee of quality and recent batches have been super-terrible quality.

Don't waste your money on Ritek, Memorex, or other cheap brands.

Don't take anybody's word for anything! Remember, some of the comments are probably from company shills. Test for yourself. I strongly recommend buying a minimum sample first before stocking up on anything to reduce your chance of getting burned.

[jagabo]

The worst DVD media is Fry's GQ house brand. Several years ago it was average. Then they switched manufacturers and not a single disc would even verify immediately after burning if there was more than 3 GB on it (I tried in at least 3 different drives, several different burn speeds). I haven't tried any in the last few years so the situation might have changed.

[jman98]

The worst DVD media is Fry's GQ house brand. Several years ago it was average. Then they switched manufacturers and not a single disc would even verify immediately after burning if there was more than 3 GB on it (I tried in at least 3 different drives, several different burn speeds). I haven't tried any in the last few years so the situation might have changed.

One of my good friends is convinced that all DVDs are the same and only fools pay for quality. He buys whatever cheap crap Frys has for sale. He gave me a couple of those discs to burn some TV show captures for him. I checked them out and was very surprised to see a Taiyo Yuden media code on them. Maybe they are the lesser grade TYs. I have no idea. This was earlier this year.

[jagabo]

One of my good friends is convinced that all DVDs are the same and only fools pay for quality. He buys whatever cheap crap Frys has for sale. He gave me a couple of those discs to burn some TV show captures for him. I checked them out and was very surprised to see a Taiyo Yuden media code on them. Maybe they are the lesser grade TYs. I have no idea. This was earlier this year.

How did the burned discs turn out?

[lordsmurf]

The worst DVD media is Fry's GQ house brand. Several years ago it was average. Then they switched manufacturers and not a single disc would even verify immediately after burning if there was more than 3 GB on it (I tried in at least 3 different drives, several different burn speeds). I haven't tried any in the last few years so the situation might have changed.

One of my good friends is convinced that all DVDs are the same and only fools pay for quality. He buys whatever cheap crap Frys has for sale. He gave me a couple of those discs to burn some TV show captures for him. I checked them out and was very surprised to see a Taiyo Yuden media code on them. Maybe they are the lesser grade TYs. I have no idea. This was earlier this year.

Fakes. You should know that.

[robjv1]

One of my friends "heard I needed Dual Layer discs" (what a friend!) and so she bought me a pack of 25 Memorex Dual Layer Discs for my birthday last July. I mostly have used them for test discs, but surprisingly all of them have worked reliably.

I of course would only stick with Verbatim as I've had 100% success with them, all except the 2.4x DL media -- the burns they make are fine, but some of my players just flat out don't like them and prefer the 8x or 16x.

[paschwartz]

I had a need to burn some DVDs and I didn't do any research on blank media. I recently (Aug 2011) bought 4 15-pack spindles of Memorex DVD+R DL discs because they were on sale for $10 per spindle. So far, I have burned 46, and 15 of those have failed. For those of you who aren't even slightly mathematically inclined, that's about a 1/3 failure rate. That's not as bad as some commenters out here have reported, but that's not good enough for me. The only way these manufacturers will get the messgage that they must stop selling inferior products is if we stop buying them. Memorex DVDs are now on my boycott list, and they should be on yours as well.

[JohnnyBob]

Use the 8x Verbatim DL's and you'll be fine. Best deal at Amazon, occasionally at Newegg or Meritline, search for "96542".

[fritzi93]

I'll nominate CMC MAG-D03-64 discs as being "bad". Probably not "worst" because some do work and I haven't tried all brands.

I've burned well over 100 of them with about 80% success rate on an LG burner, and about 85% success on a Lite-On. Used for unimportant tossers. Burned with ImgBurn and verified.

As already suggested, use Verbatims if what you're burning is remotely important