Brand of CDR to use when making VCDs

[old_Bill]

I have made several VCDs which initially run fine on my APEX 3201 DVD player. However as time passes they seem to become very sensitive and less reliable. Often they will not play correctly until being cleaned and resetting the DVD player. I generally burn the VCDs to cheap CDRs, is this the problem? Is there a brand or type of CDR which is more reliable than others? Or is this just the nature of VCDs?

[noneedforaname]

I use Imation, and they work great on my JVC XV-S42 DVD Player

[hwoodwar]

Old_Bill:

I have done some extensive searching about this subject on the internet. One day I spent over four hours, trying to find a general consensus as to which CD-Rs are the best quality blanks. During my search I found more people recommended Fuji, Kodak (no longer being produced they dropped their CD-R line) and Taiyo Yuden. Fuji's latest 48x CD-Rs are made by Taiyo Yuden.

My research also showed that CD-Rs are kind of like VCRs in that there are lots of different companies that put their name on a product, but in actuality there are much fewer manufacturers and many are relabelled to a particular companies' name.

There are utilities out there that will do a test and tell you the "true" manufacturer of a CD-R disk. I use one called CDR Identifier.

I am a firm believer in "You get what you paid for." I expect you will get some answers like "I just buy the cheapest I can find" or "I have never made a coaster with XXX brand." Consider this: there is a lot more to quality that just, can I do a successfull write the first time. Some other charcteristics to think about are: scratch resistance, will the dye fade with time or heat, will the surface peel with time, will random errors appear with time, etc.

Now that I have found out the above mentioned information, I only buy Fuji CD-Rs as they are the only ones of the three that I mentioned that I can readily find in my area. The cheapest I have ever found these is $15 USD/50-spindle.

[JamesB69]

I use fuji or imation, whatever is onsale, never had any problems before. To me it sounds like you may be sracthing the disk accidentally. Many cd cases (the kind with pockets) will scratch cds when you take them in and out. Or possibly fingerprints. Although I once had a DVD-Rom drive that acted finicky and within a few weeks the laser died. You may also want to try a lense cleaner on the dvd player.

[2573]

My samsung m105 didnt play any cdr, but i use princo, and it goes very very right. Use princo and try it.

[puertorican138]

I would recommend Fuji (The ones made by Taiyo Yuden, though) and Verbatim. :P

[vitualis]

Verbatim is definitely good...

As for Imation, they OEM from third parties so you don't really know who makes them...

Also, don't necessarily believe the "CD Identifier". The information on cheap media can often be incorrect.

Regards.