I am burning these discs on a Sony DRU-810A, and they work flawlessly. Maybe it's the fact that they are on Sony's compatable list for the drive or that they are quality discs, I don't know. But what I do know is that the picture quality that I got from my copy was PERFECT. NO PIXELATION, NO DROPPED FRAMES, and NO PAUSES. A perfect burn.
I ran the Verbatim discs through DVDInfo Pro and it came back with write speeds of 2.4, 4.0, and 8.0 (see picture.) The box mine came in says "up to 6x speed," so you MIGHT be able to push it to 8x with a high speed drive.
For everyday, general consumer use you should find that these discs will give you a high quality, dependable burn. Some may ask if they are archival quality, and I have to say that my guess is 'no.' Unless the disc specifically says "archival quality" then I would assume that they are standard discs (which have been found to deteriorate over time.
I highly recommend these discs for your approved DVD+R DL burner. (Remember to check the media compatablitly of your drive BEFORE you purchase these discs or any other disc! See your drive manufacturer's website for details.) Verbatim 95123 DataLifePlus 8.5 GB 2.4x White Inkjet Printable DVD+R DL Discs, 20 Disc Spindle
I just finished a huge wedding DVD project on my iMac, and after making 5 coasters in a row using Memorex discs I gave up. I almost ended up buying an extrenal burner thinking the problem was my built-in drive on my computer. Then I read on some help forums that Verbatim is the brand to use. So I ordered these and burned 8 DVDs in a row with no errors or problems, and the printable surface allowed me to print a high-quality picture on them. I couldn't be happier!
While these DL disks cost a bit more than others, they are the only brand I've had good luck with. No coasters out of 40 so far. And, Plextor drives with the updated firmware manage to burn these at 6x, still with no problems.
I've tried Ritek, both Ritek labeled and Memorex labeled. The Riteks are okay, but only burn at 2.4, and I've had at least one bad burn. The memorex labeled Riteks were terrible, with only about a 20% yield, over three different burners, including a Memorex DVD writer. Memorex did send me a replacement spindle from their warranty site. The replacements seem to yield around 90% - much better than the original batch.
I ordered two sets of discs - these and another brand that was slightly cheaper (a box of 25 for about the same price and this box of 20).
I was very nervous about these, because of the higher price and the "2.4x" burning speed.
I was able to burn these at "8x" (it was a valid option for me in Nero, I didn't have to do anything special to trick it or force it into the higher speed).
Even a 8x I have has PERFECT RESULTS with these, while the other brand (advertised to be 8x) struggled even when I tried slower burn speeds.
Technically this DESERVES 5 STARS, but it really hurts to pay close to $3/disc. Ouch. That's why I dropped it down to a 4-star rating. But I love inkjet-printable discs, I needed dual layer for this project, and a good $3 disc is better than a $2.50 coaster.
FYI - My burners at NEC ND-3520A and ND-3550A. Other burners may have different results, so always test before you order massive quantities of any brand of blank discs.
These media work well to burn DL disks in a number of different DL burners, mostly at 2.4x or 4x. Copies work on several different set-top boxes tested. Like ALL DL disks, TOO EXPENSIVE! This product tends to burn well, with 4 out of 50 "coasters." If you MUST use DL disks, these are good. The white surface takes ink better than the comparable Ridata disks, which are a bit less expensive, but print with noticeably less vibrant color.
This is a long review, so I apologize for that in advance. But in researching the best optical media in various forums on the web recently, I turned up some good information and I thought I would include some of that here.
I've used Verbatims in various formats over the years, and have had no trouble with them, using primarily a Panasonic and Pioneer burner. I now have disks that are seven or eight years old that have backed up files, and they're still readable. The Riteks and the Memorex's, however, are showing high failure rates, and some of those disks are only 3-5 years old. This makes them useless for anything longer than a few years. I've seen some people say disks that were only a year or two old would no longer read.
I should mention that the reason for the four instead of five stars is that Verbatim has licensed its technology to a number of offshore manufacturers and their quality just isn't up to the old Verbatim standards. It could have been only three stars because it seems there are more of these lower quality disks floating around than the true Japanese made ones, so be careful. If there were only Japanese made Verbatims out there I would still rate them five stars.
As I mentioned, I've been reading up and doing some research on optical media since I need something reliable, and the cdfreaks forum on the web and a couple of other blogs where people discuss optical media are good sources of information, and people are reporting that the non-Japanese Verbatims often have problems. So stay away from those and make sure you get the true Japanese ones. Those will say so on the package. The Taiwanese ones are said to be usually okay, too If you have a DVD duplicator program like Nero or Roxio there is usually a selection for "disk information" or something similar that will show the manufacturer's ID and disk specifications and info. Very often disks that are branded with a name brand are made by another consumer grade maker. It's just money that's driving this, but in some cases the traditional quality has suffered.
For example, just recently I found some TDK branded disks, which I've found are usually decent media, that were made by CMC Magnetics, which is considered mediocre quality consumer-grade media. So again it's caveat emptor--buyer beware.
One exception to this that came up again and again in these discussions was Taiyo Yuden. They are only Japanese made, and their reliability and consistency was especially held in high regard. They also have a good super-cyanine dye that is said to last longer than the original cyanine. I recently bought some of them for the first time, and so far have had no problems with them.
Verbatim does have a point in its favor, though, in that their metal azo dye is said to be even more stable than Taiyo Yuden's. It's said to be more resistant to ultraviolet damage also. This is a nice feature, certainly, but I think it's been over-hyped, because unless you're in the habit of tossing your DVDs on the dashboard of your car, it's not really that important. If you like to do that then you should probably just get one of these USB mini cruzer devices and backup to that. Even those aren't forever though, because the electrons in the tiny solid state transistors will bleed off over time. I "refresh" mine every year usually by copying the data over again. That way there should be no problem.
But getting back to the Taiyo Yuden, be sure that you have true T-Y because they are often faked. True T-Y has a smaller ring near the hub in the dye layer that's easily visible. I haven't seen anyone else do that and it's said to be more expensive and harder to fake. The package should also say made in Japan although I've read that even that isn't a sure thing. The cake box spindles even have Taiyo Yuden stamped on is which is another thing. But the little ring should be a pretty reliable indicator.
Despite my reservations about Verbatims these days, I'm about to purchase some of their +RW media to make more copies of my personal files and photos. That's because RW's don't use optical dyes, which can age and degrade over time; instead the data is stored by a phase change in an exotic alloy--often GeSbTe (germanium-antimony-tellurium), but I have also seen InSbTe (indium-antimony-tellurium) mentioned-- which should be more stable. This is possible because the alloy has different reflectivity in the crystalline vs. the amorphous, non-crystalline state. The problem is that since these are rewritable disks there is the danger that you could accidently overwrite them, which is why many people prefer the optical dye media which are write-once. For me I don't think that is a problem so I'm willing to try some of these and just see how well they do over the long term. I'll check them again in 5 and 10 years (assuming I live that long :-)) and see how they do compared to the optical media. I'm thinking these should be more stable than optical dye media but as I'm not a materials engineer I'm not sure, but I'm going to give them a try.
When it comes to being as safe as possible about your backups, the best strategy I've been able to come up with would be to backup your files to both Verbatim (Japanese made, that is) and Taiyo Yuden for the optical technology, and then to the exotic alloy-based RW ones, and keep them in separate locations. Since each of these makers uses different technology, it's unlikely that they would fail in the same way, or that the same disks would fail in multiple backups. Then check them every year or two. With three different types and maybe some mini-cruzers that you also check periodically you should be pretty safe. Unfortunately, I've discovered there are no absolute guarantees in this business. Recently I saw a post from a guy who lived in the midwest and his house had been flooded and all his backups got wet and he had many unreadable disks. I suppose if you live near a river you could put some disks in waterproof plastic bags. LOL. What's a person to do? And tape drives, although probably still the more reliable method, are expensive, and the technology changes every few years, so you're not guaranteed to have a drive in the future that will read your old tapes if your old one breaks. But optical drives that will read DVD-R's will probably be around for decades.
If you need the ultimate in quality and don't mind the expense (these disks are over 2 bucks a disk), then check out the Mitsui dual gold/silver media and also the Century disk made by a partnership between Mitsubishi and Kodak. Gold media are still regarded by many as the only true archival grade disk, but that had more to do with problems relating to the polycarbonate coating in the old days. If there was a defect in the plastic layer the silver could oxidize and compromise your data, and gold doesn't oxidize. However, that problem was solved years ago and now there's no real reason to go to the expense of the gold disks from what I can see.
However, the Century disks do have one huge feature in their favor, which I find very convincing, and I bought some recently to try them. It turns out that DVDs are typically stamped from a glass master with runs of usually around 500,000 before they replace the master. After the fist couple of hundred thousand, the master isn't that accurate anymore and that can cause problems. Manufacturers typically mix disks from different parts of the runs together when you buy them. It's thought that this is why you can buy a cake box of 50 or 100 disks, have no problems and then run into several failed burns with apparently no reason. Very likely those disks were from the last 100,000 or 200,000 of the run.
However, these Mitsubishi-Kodak disks are guaranteed to be from runs of less than 25,000 disks, which should be well within the tolerances of the glass master. You pay for it though, and a cake box of 25 disks is around $65. You can find them on the web by looking up "Century disk." The dye is a metal stabilized azo dye which is said to be possibly the best dye, too. I bought a small number of these disks for some very critical data as well as the Taiyo-Yuden and have been very happy with the results. No "coasters" at all.
Whichever way you decide to go, good luck with your optical media and archiving! - Verbatim - Printable Dual Layer 2x - Dual Layer - Dvd Dl'
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