Best Midia to Burn and Trade - your opinions

This was never an issue to me, because i´ve never had any problems with my DVD´s / CD´s. In the past i didn´t realise that there would be long term problems with bad media, but since my DVD collection is growing very fast i think it´s time to share some views.

At the tradersden.org they have a site to wich they measure what´s good out there:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

this is a good site, but in my opinion it misses people reviews and experiences, and for a non expert person like me, it´s really not very friendly to read.

So, my experience with DVD´s is:

I used to have Memorex -R 16x, and one day my computer simply "refused" to read them tilll this day, even though they play well on my living room DVD.

Now i use the Datawrite red DVD+R 16x, and till this day, i´ve never failed to burn one DVD. I ALLWAYS burn at the LOWEST speed. I think this is a big issue (DVD´s and CD`s), and 20 minutes isn´t that long if we whant to have a long term quallity DVD.

I allways try to keep two copies of Queen bootlegs. One in DVD and one on my external drives ( i almost have 2 completelly filed)

I think that even at the top DVD´s out there, if you´re burning at the fastest speed the chances of ocuring error increase! (can someone confirm this?)

So, i would like to hear your opinions about the midia you use; what care do you have with your collection, and the 100.000 dollar question:

How long are you ganna wait untill you start to make back-up copies from the ones you have? (since some DVD´s deteriorate???).

Thanks for your replies

Take care

P.S- in case you see someone using bad media (myself included), a warning would be very welcome!

I've been burning DVDs since the first Apple Mac with a Pioneer 101 came out in April 2000 - the discs were £10 each and they still play fine.
I tried a few other discs through the years, but experience has since taught me always to stick with "A" grade discs and that the Ritek dyes appear to be the most compatible with playback on a huge variety of standalone players.
At present I have been using Ritek G05 dye discs for over 2 years now with no problems at all (and I buy 100's)
Oh, I'm using -R discs.

That said, I still think it's worthwhile keeping a back-up DVD of everything AND storing important stuff on a Hard Drive that you keep in a closet.
We all know through experience that Video Tape has a good long life (I've got a lot of VHS tapes going back to 1980 that are fine - I know because I'm transferring them to DVD), but DVD is still a "new" format whose life-span is an unknown quantity.

DVDs are the most unstable medium, worse than CD-RS and much much worse than tapes. I also have external Hard Drives where I store copies of my DVD-Rs.

Japanese media is always the best.

You can't go wrong with Fujifilm... just be sure they aren't the Fujifilm discs made in Taiwan.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Sir GH<br><h6>ah yeah</h6> wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Japanese media is always the best.

You can't go wrong with Fujifilm... just be sure they aren't the Fujifilm discs made in Taiwan.
[/QUOTE]


Maybe you want to take a look at this:

http://www.cdr-zone.com/reviews/dvd_media_reviews/fujifilm_16x_dvd_plus_media_using_prodisc_dye_review_page_1.html


Take care

Yep, I knew about that.

You're safe as long as you get the ones that are made in Japan.

What do you people think about "Verbatim" media ?
I had never problems with them, but for some reason some people don't like them

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Sir GH<br><h6>ah yeah</h6> wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Yep, I knew about that.

You're safe as long as you get the ones that are made in Japan.
[/QUOTE]

All you can find here in Europe is the made in Taiwan or made in India crap. Japanese quality media is impossible to find in stores here. I used to order Japanese Taiyo Yuden (which is the actual manufactorer of the made in Japan Fujis) media online a couple of times. They are the best discs I've ever used, but very expensive, so I only used them for precious back ups.

How long CDs/DVDs will eventually last of course depends on what you are doing with them. If they are exposed to sunlight and dust all the time, they'll be un-readable after a short time. If stored properly even cheap discs may last a couple of years, but nowhere near as long as magnetic tape.

The problem with giving advise what brand of CD/DVDs is good or bad is that the manufacturers of the discs change from time to time. I mentioned Japanese/Taiwanese Fujis above, but for example what is being sold as TDK or Sony discs today may be from another manufacturer than the stash that was sold a couple of weeks ago. So IMO it doesn't make much sense to recommend to only buy brand yx, aside from Japanese media if you have access to them, they are likely always good.

So, the bottom line is... if you want to store anything for a long period of time, by whatever means necessary, find Japanese media.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Sir GH<br><h6>ah yeah</h6> wrote: [/QUOTENAME]So, the bottom line is... if you want to store anything for a long period of time, by whatever means necessary, find Japanese media.
[/QUOTE]

Which really boils down to "if you want to store anything for a long period of time, by whatever means necessary, move to Japan."

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]<b><font color = "crimson"> ThomasQuinn wrote: [/QUOTENAME][QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Sir GH<br><h6>ah yeah</h6> wrote: [/QUOTENAME]So, the bottom line is... if you want to store anything for a long period of time, by whatever means necessary, find Japanese media.
[/QUOTE]

Which really boils down to "if you want to store anything for a long period of time, by whatever means necessary, move to Japan."[/QUOTE]

That, or buy the CDRs/DVD-Rs off eBay.

I'm good for either one though, just to clarify!

Never ever burn on Ricoh. Biggest crap I've ever had.

I have very good experiences with Imation. Sometimes I used Verbatim but I heard those are good only for data CD's/DVD's, not for audio CD's.

Not sure about Memorex, they're quite ugly :-)

What about labels? Some people say that the glue accelerate the deterioration of CDRs/DVDRs.

Henrique - avoid labels. They destroy the DVDs/CDs. Labels can even detach from the disc while playing and ruin your player. Also avoid writing on the discs with permanent marker or other ink pens. The ink can leak onto the data side and destroy the data. You can use printable discs but I would strongly recommend to keep unprinted safety copies.

- Have a copy on a reliable disc
- have a safety copy on an external HD
- send a copy to a trusted friend whenever possible :)

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]YourValentine wrote: [/QUOTENAME] Also avoid writing on the discs with permanent marker or other ink pens. The ink can leak onto the data side and destroy the data. [/QUOTE]

I don´t understand!
How can this be possible?
The surface of CD/DVD seems to be "waterproof" or compact, so to speak. Are you saying that it absorbs the ink?

Take care