On Tuesday 21 September 2004 05:45, John Richard Smith wrote: > I bought a NEC 2510A recently. > I have never bought DVD blanks before, whether dual or single layer. > I note that here in UK, suppliers are grading the media make against > manufacturer/device. > That implies they have had trouble with some makes of media with certain > makes of drive.
Stands to reason that with any hardware device, there will be variations in manufacturing standards. However, suppliers grading media against specific devices does NOT imply that there are issues with other devices so much as that they are guaranteeing some level of compatibility/functionality with the specific device. Could be for a number of reasons, including: 1. They have tested with that specific device to save the customer the trouble. 2. They are using the grading as a marketing device to justify higher costs for media/device. > I wondered if list members have had similar experiences like that > themselves or are our suppliers being very cautious ? I have heard some people claim that specific media was "better" than others, and others have said it makes no difference. My own take is that you should buy good media for important things, and cheap media for the rest. If you want to burn at top speed in a new drive, you need media that is rated for the top speed and you may want to get media that has been tested against the specific drive. > So far I haven't come across any NEC website to give guidance upon media > make and type for DVD write purposes. That suggests they don't expect > any problems or they don't want to own up to a problem. Or that they don't have any specific agreements to benefit from making any recommendations. Common business practice to not recommend specific manufacturer's media if they aren't paying you to do so. > It would help if one understood the technical whys and wherefores of > choosing Media for DVD write purposes. I do not tend to buy re-writes > for dvd writing. I am just the opposite, preferring re-writes over write-onlys. > A preliminary inquiry of the media makes tells me different makes of > media seem to have different dye colours, and in the past, in my > experience, this has made no difference to choice of media make, but > maybe it is different where dvd write media is concerned. I have had no > experience to judge them by, maybe list members have ? I have not heard anything about any specific dye colors or other material affecting dvd burners. Format, speed, and end device (player) compatibility are all that I have seen discussed. > One thing I have noted in my experience price is absolutely no guide to > media quality. Me too. It is, however, an indication of advertising. > Right now I would be content to buy blank single layer dvd write only, > working my way up from the cheapest available, and I guess that will be > the only definative arguement in the end. Personally, I tend to stick with DVD+RW, and I usually buy pretty inexpensive media. My take is that it is slightly more expensive than buying single write only, but if a mistake is made or something doesn't burn right, I can erase and try again. Also, I like the +RW format SO much more than the -R/-RW format. If I burn once and keep it forever, well, it was simply a slightly expensive single burn disk. In my mind, the slightly higher expense is worth the flexibility of not having to worry about getting a coaster. YMMV. P.S. the slightly higher expense that I refer to is the fact that you can buy dvd+rw media for a little less than 1$ per disk at various mail order places in the US. +r or -r is slightly cheaper than that at maybe 1/2 the cost. -- Bryan Phinney
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