Blank DVD Media

[Mulder]

Whats everyone using for blank media? is there much difference between the cheap media and the more expensive stuff? I just purchased a Samsung SH-S203N(my first dvd burner) and was wondering what was the cheapest media i can use that won't cause me degraded playback or to cook a huge amount of coasters.

[AkG]

What do you consider "cheap"? I use TAIYO YUDEN +R's exclusively and they are only about 45 cents each. I have burned litteraly 1000s of these and the failure rate is under .1% (thats my failure rate of 0 POFs, Total PIFs under 200 w/ no cluster higher than 2 allowed, PIEs under .1 avg). Others swear by Verbatium, still others by MAMA...it all depends on what your burner likes best (my Plextors and Sammy's like TY best).

Best place for Blank Media in Canada has to be Blank Cd & Blank DVD Accessories - Blank Media Wholesale Products Canada

Hope this helps.

[Mulder]

Not sure what i consider cheap, I've never bought any blank DVD's before. I am looking for an 100 tube of blanks thats not more then $50-60 and is not going to cost me in the long run through burning coasters ever third dvd.

Are these the ones you were talking about AkG
TAIYO YUDEN WHITE INKJET HUB PRINTABLE (100 PCS)

[AkG]

I pefer the silver laquer ones (about a buck cheaper) but thats just personal preference. ;)

TY's are the granddaddy's of the CD and DVD industry (heck the were the one to press the very first CD-Rs!) and you will have no trouble doing 20X w/ those. Though some Sammy's prefer MCC. And other still perfer -R over +R. (i'm lucky in that both of mine prefer TY +Rs)

All I can recommend is play around with them at dif speeds and see which speed your dvd burner likes best. Use Kprobe (even though its meant for Liteon's it works w/ Sammys that use the Mediatek chipset...like yours does) or Nero Cd dvd speed (I use this program even though it requires a reg hack to work with Sammy's) and see how a good a burn it is. Don't forget to let it burn 3-4 discs at a given speed before "testing" as most burners learn as they burn to improve the burn quality.
Some good guidelines for interpreting the results are:

PI Errors: LOWER is better. avg under 2.5 are good (I like them MUCH lower) but just as important as the avg is the MAX cluster size...under 50 good...under 25 very good...under 10 AWESOME

PI Failures: I like to see under 200 total...but that is a bit extreme by most peoples std's.

PO Failure: SHOULD BE ZERO. Anything more than that and I wouldn't trust the burn.

Good luck and happy burning!

By the way, blankmedia also sell empty 50 and 100 "cake boxes" to hold the DVDs if they don't come with them. The printable ones usually don't as they are made to be dropped into a holder for the automated duplicators. Heres the cake box link:
CD DVD Cake Box Pack and Empty Pc Cake Box - Quality DVD Cases Canada