Have a look at DVD compatability test link below to see how much an effct different media have on success.

It's a bit dated but it illustrates a point & gives some recommendations.

http://www.dvdtoday.com/Recordable%20DVD%20Test.htm

thank you guys so much.

Maxell, Sony, TDK, Apple -- all reliable and worth the xtra money. Stay away from Memorex DVD-R. Good for data backups only. DanielleJoelle recently posted that he had tried the 2X silver at Americal which sell for about $2 a piece and found them very reliable. I'm going to try some but I think I'll stick with the above brands for my DVD movies. I've had the experience of using cheap brands in the past, having them work fine when they pop out, and then months later fall apart.

I use the Pioneer brand ($3.44 1x) and out of the last 50 have no slugs.
They also play in all my relatives set top players so I am Happy.

James J. Kizak

I'll give you a different take--make your purchase according to who has a warranty. In my holiday rush to make DVDs for family, I became fed up and frustrated due to making a significant number of "coasters" and filed warranty claims for every disc that failed to write. It's too expensive to throw discs in the trash, especially considering that they probably only cost the manufaturer pennies.

Thus far, TDK has been the most responsive. I was able to get my failed discs replaced in just over a week (had to send the discs and proof of purchase back to TDK and they shipped new discs). Pioneer was harder to work with--still waiting for their response as they referred me back to the vendor who sold them to me. Comp USA stands by their product and allows you to return defective discs to the store (if they fail to burn, I consider them defective). Their product has also peformed pretty well for me.

I'm not sure who has the best blank DVD-R product but if you can mitigate the risk by having the manufacturer stand by their product, the decision is less risky. However, I would stay away from the cheap-cheap media.

I'm fairly new to this but have been using DVDit SE, a philips DVD burner and Fuji DVD+Rs wih good success.

mike

Paul-
Specifically what type of problems/symptoms have you experienced with Memorex DVD-R?
Burn failures, compatibility issues, picture quality?? CompUSA and Best Buy carry Memorex almost exclusively so it's a bit harder to find other brands, at least locally. My early, limited experience has been good with Memorex......so far. So naturally I'm curious what I should look out for with these disks.
MR

Where can you find Pioneer for $3.44? Meritline only goes down to $4.99.

Luxo

Memorex are not any worse than any other DVD not certified 2X. However, every one I've burned has stutter problems. I've tried burning them at 1X and the same problem. Sometimes the DVD plays just fine for several movies but in the 3rd (or 4th or 5th, etc) it just freezes up. The sad thing is that I didn't discover this with just a cursory examination of the burned DVD, only later when trying to replay one and getting far into it. I soon discovered that all the Memorex had the same problem. With Sony I have never had even a blip and this should apply to any other brand 2X certified by Pioneer. The only DVD players I have tested my DVDs in are Pioneer, Sony and Hitachi. All play them fine if the media was 2X certified, mess up if using Memorex or other brands NOT 2X certified.

Paul-Thanks for the feedback very informative in light of the fact that I've had almost identical symptoms with stuttering in later chapters. Many times the player finally just locks up. MY "solution" taking a stack of "bad" disks to the store where they played just fine on the Mintek DVD-1600. I bought it. In my case I concluded that my Apex 1100W was the problem. Even so, it sounds like the Memorex media may still be part of the overall problem as far as compatibility goes.
The Mintek has worked with everything but DVD+R but I've only got the one disk for test so I'm not sure the DVD itself is good or not. Thanks again, I will be paying attention to that 2X certification.

MR

Luxo:
I get them from Videoguy's.com by the "50 pack".
Pioneer 1X.

James J. Kizak