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A Verbatim spokesman had some good advice about what type of DVD formats to buy: "The beauty of a dual format '+/-' unit, he noted, is that you just go to the store and buy the one that is on sale. Of course, he would prefer that you choose the Verbatim brand. If you click on the link you will get an idea of the complexities.
"Standard" DVD media were 2X in -R/RW formats and 2.4X in +R/RW. Newer drives such as the
Plextor PX-708 series support 4X and, of late, 8X media. When you go media shopping you need to check to make sure the speed capabilities match up with your drive. In general the slower speed media will work on the higher speed drives, but not vice versa. Then there are the myriad of packaging options, including the special wrinkle of whether you want a CD-style or DVD-style box, or disks in bulk on a spindle. Street prices are all over the place, packing changes frequently, and new media types come on the market regularly. One of the things that drives me crazy is that you can't take anything for granted pricing -- two 25 packs can be cheaper than one 50 pack; a low speed disk can be more expensive than a high speed one. Hence the wisdom of the advice to look for the best buys. So why not take the advice all the way and simply forgo the brand name products in favor of the generics and house brands? Fewer coasters and more reliability at higher recording speeds, that's why. I have been using Verbatim media for some time, and I like the results. The high falutin' reason is that the company is the U.S. subsidiary of Japan's Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation and many major Japanese drive makers use Mitsubishi media for testing and calibration. The technical reason is that the key to burning media is in the dyes and chemicals used in the product and Mitsubishi claims an edge in those technologies.
In testing the Plextor DVD drive, I was able to burn a movie to Verbatim rewritable media and get it to work with standard DVD players. This is not a guaranteed result, but a very useful one. When you are transferring your favorite home movies, backing up a commercial DVD, or saving other important content you probably will want to use write-once media. But there are other instances -- burning a couple of episodes of your favorite TV shows to take with you on a trip, would be one example -- in which your need for the content is temporary. Similarly, when you are learning how to create video DVDs you are going to make mistakes. Better to make them on media that allows corrections. Rewritable DVDs are good for 100 cycles, and you can do the math on using one RW 100 times versus buying 100 write-once disks. Doing the math is good general principle, in fact -- remember, every coaster you make adds to the per-unit cost of your media; so cheaper isn't always cheaper. (c) 2004 Al Gordon. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can reach Al Gordon at: |
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This is supplemental information to the article:
You have the + vs. - format and write-once vs. rewritable issues, meaning that right off the top you have to choose among DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, and DVD-RW media. But on top of that, there are new speed specifications.
But for the main reason, see above. My experience is has been that their media is reliable and durable. Plus it seems silly to me to invest big bucks in elaborate audio visual and computing hardware then entrust the preservation of the material to cheap media.
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