Dvd-r?

[davpen]

I am looking at getting a DVD burner for both data backup and movies. I would probably be going with a Pioneer A04 DVD-R/RW drive if I do buy one.

For me the media costs remains the main sticking point. A name brand DVD-R costs about AU$20 in Australia. There are now some budget DVD-Rs being sold in USA that are a lot cheaper even allowing for shipping costs. As an example www.cd-recordable.com will ship 30 DVD-Rs inernationally for US$75 which is under AU$5 a disc. A big difference.

The question is how good is this budget media? How does it compare to the name brand media for reliability and compatibility?


David.


P.S If any one can explain simply why DVD-R/RW is better than DVD+R/RW or visa versa I would appreciate it although I expect there is no such simple answer. A short list of pros and cons might be more realistic.

[BrianP]

Pros of DVD-R vs DVD+R:
--DVD-R has generally been shown to be more compatible with set top players (which to me is the most important feature)
--DVD+R has had terrible support from HP, midleading owners of the original DVD+RW drive that will never have DVD+R capability... while that may be irrelevant to future units, there already seems to be a fracturing of support from users who feel slighted, and general mistrust because of broken promises about the hardware and the compatibility of the format

Pros of DVD+R:
--support from major players such as Sony, Dell, etc.

As for DVD-RAM:
Seems like a fine choice for data backup, but if your focus is video, go with -R

Full disclosure:
I just got a DVR-A04. Haven't had time to test it yet. Installation was a snap though, completely uneventful.

Cheap media:
I ordered some blanks from the site you mentioned. Again, I haven't had time to test yet, but they arrived promptly (which is to say they shipped them quickly following my order). I've been corresponding with someone who has an A03 and does wedding videos. He says he's used this media and has had no complaints from clients. YMMV.

[wkulecz]

I found no difference between "brand name" disks (Apple, Verbatium, Pioneer) and the no-name blanks being sold by Meritline back in October. I wasn't satisified with video playback, but players that glitched, glitched with both no-name and brand name disks. Players that didn't glitch, were fine with both.

Unless this is fixed in newer firmware the A03 would only burn certain "approved" blanks at 2X dropping to 1X if the disk had an unknown code.

IMHO by a few and test 'em before commiting to a bulk purchase.

--wally.

[orbital]

How about this for a good price!!!!!!

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/cdrdvdrmedia/dvdr.html

[davpen]

Thanks for the feedback.

It is the ongoing cost of the blank DVDs that has put me off buying a DVD burner up until now but it sounds like the budget DVDs are worth a try.


David.