N&amp;gt; to know what the correct cd/dvd rw/r to buy.

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ASKER

Thank your for your input Watzman. If I'm reading it correctly I should go with the writable "-" format and stay away from the rw formats. I forgot I had some old dvd-rw laying around (I lost half the disks though; some where in my room :( ) but with the Nero burner they seem to be working fine.
I was also just wondering if there was a decent place to buy them from? I know amazon.com is a good place, but are there any others that beat amazon.com and are trusworthy as them?...

There are two issues with the RW media: The first is that the optical contrast is lower than with one-time media, and you can see this with the naked eye (there isn't as much darkening of the burned area on an RW disc as there is on a one-time media). The second is that the data can "fade" and be lost. By definition, the dye has to be able to "go back" to the unburned state. It's not supposed to do it at room temperature, but ..... well, s**t happens.

Media ..... You can get the same media at Best Buy, OfficeMax, Office Depot, Circuit City, Staples or CompUSA that you get at Amazon. Personally, a media that I have had exceptional luck with is a semi-private label sold by OfficeMax (but I have seen it in other stores on occasion), it's "K-Hypermedia". I've used hundreds of pieces of it and also of other brands, and I've had a better experience with it than with any other brands, and it's relatively inexpensive, and I've had time to evaluate it over a period of about 2 years, and not only has it worked well, but it's holding up. Other than that, I know that Verbatim media is highly recommended by Pioneer, and there are lots of other good brands. And there's also lots of blank, no-name junk. Find something that works and stick with it, but many of the "quality" vendors have put out a few batches of junk media as well. [more proof that s**t happen, I guess]

ASKER

Wonderful more information :). Well this was the type of disk that I tried to burn and it didn't work in my dvd player DVD-RW TDK. Is that one brand I should stay away from?, or was it just my luck of choice?...

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There are 3 variables here: The set-top player (which you cant' change easily), the format (+r, +rw, -r, -rw) and the specific media brand used (in some cases, the burner could be (but should not be) a 4th variable). There is no way to do this other than by trial and error, you may find a combination that works, you may not. However, the one-time media formats (-r and +r) are more likely to work than the eraseable formats.

ASKER

This is all good information to know, but is there a site that allows you to double check the type of compatable disks for the dvd player or should I just risk it and go for tiral and error?

sazukaChan: if you tell me what DVD burner you have, I can look up what media is likely to work best with it. I have some overview in a printed magazine.
Arigatoo and best regards,
has.

There isn't a single web site or source that I know of. There have been a lot of articles on this, and some of them gave some results by model number, but there are 2 problems with that. The first is that consumer DVD player model numbers change about every couple of months. Model numbers just are not in production for that long. The second is that sometimes a given "model number" of player, seemingly identical on the outside, may be built with totally different guts internally at different times (I have some Apex players for which that is the case .... same model number, and look outwardly identical, but take them apart and they are night and day). Thus the model number may not tell you much. It's hit-or-miss, but the good part is that it's mostly hit now, and any player built in the past year to 18 months is very likely to take both + and - media. The older the player, however, the more "picky" it's likely to be.

ASKER

For al-hasan response: my dvd player is a TOSHIBA. As for the make and item number I'm not really sure but it does play vcd's and is about 3 years old if that helps some.

For Watzman response: Thank you for letting me know, I just hope I can figure it out with in the first few hits so I don't waist a ton of money and if they don't succeed and they read in my computer they'll be great data discs.

sazukaChan: the burner is important, can you tell me that model please?
Thank you.
has.

ASKER

How do I check the model number of the burner? I can't pry apart my computer to check it.

ASKER

Um... I think I just found it, I'm not sure entierly though becasue I found it under computer managment:

DVD/CD-ROM drives PIONEER DVD-RW-107D

sazukaChan: found in c't issue 10/2004, p.138 ff some information about the media best used with the Pioneer A07/107 (firmware v. 1.12 - any newer one should yield better results, with the exception of 1.13):

DVD-R:
# good results: Mitsubishi DVD-R 8x (Verbatim) media, score 61
# okay results: Taiyo Yuden DVD-R 8x (JVC) media, score 41
# not so good: DVD-RW 4x of Verbatim, score -26

DVD+R:
# good results: Mitsubishi DVD+R 8x (Verbatim) media, score 68
# good results: Ricoh DVD+R 8x (Fuji, Ricoh) media, score 59
# good results: Philips DVD+R 8x media, score 59
# good results: CMC DVD+R 8x (Platinum) media, score 58
# not so good: Ritek DVD+R 8x (Teac, Traxdata) media, score -137

The score value here is a measure of quality of the data recorded, higher is better.
In general, if you record at slower speed, the quality of your data is better. Now you can try out which one of these works best with the Toshiba player, and maybe the Verbatim will already be a success.

Good luck and best regards,
has.

ASKER

Thank, you your answer was quite helpful. I apreciate it.