[brother337]

Hey all,

I've usually used Verbatim media (CDs and DVDs) for burning movies and data and such and have generally found it to be a good quality brand. I especially like them as DVDs because I've never had any DVD player compatibility problems with them.

However, recently I found that I can get a 50pack spindle of Verbatim DVDs through my office supply budget at work, and these disks actually look cheaper than the Verbatim disks I'm used to remembering and seem to have compatibility problems with DVD players when I burn movies onto them. This has happened with 2 spindles that I've purchased.

Do Verbatim and other disk manufacturers have high quality and budget lines of product? I mean I know I'm going budget when I buy Memorex, but I always saw Verbatim as a quality brand.

[lkrupp]

I bought a spindle of 100 Verbatim DVD-R disks from Sam's Club for $40. They are working quite well for me and even work in my really old Sony DVD player, even though the player's manual says it will not recognize any burned media.

[brother337]

Originally posted by lkrupp:
I bought a spindle of 100 Verbatim DVD-R disks from Sam's Club for $40. They are working quite well for me and even work in my really old Sony DVD player, even though the player's manual says it will not recognize any burned media.

just curious, what do your disks look like? Are they the verbatims that have the plain mirrored silver tops?

[filmmaker2002]

I use Ritek and Taiyo Yuden.

[brother337]

Originally posted by filmmaker2002:
I use Ritek and Taiyo Yuden.

I was under the understanding (with CD-Rs at least) that Ritek and Taiyo Yuden were the actual manufacturers who made disks for different companies. So a batch of Sony CD-Rs might be Taiyo Yuden, but another batch (under the same Sony brand) might be Ritek.

How can you tell what actual manufacturer made your DVD-Rs?

Also, is Taiyo Yuden as reputable for DVD-Rs as they are for CD-Rs?

[Spoffo]

You can get all sorts of infromation regarding who really makes various DVD-R brands and how reliable they are at www.videohelp.com. There is a bit at the beginning of each disc that includes the actual manufacturer's ID. You can get a little freeware app called DVD Media Inspector that will check a blank and tell you this ID code. Generally, people have found the T-Y discs to be most reliable, and any blank labelled "Made in Japan" is almost certain to have been made by them. Fuji and Maxell alre almost always M-I-J discs from T-Y.

However, the whole thing is a fast-changing field, and the performance of most Made in Taiwan blanks seems to have improved recently to very reliable levels.