Buying blank d.v.d's?

Question

Hi, in the past I have just bought packs of d.v.d's for making slide shows for my mum and I have had no problems, I have bought two lots of fifty blank d.v.d and they do not work,now I am looking on Ebay to buy some more and I am totaly confused with all the different ones, for instance what is 8x----- and 16x--- mean and what is Dual layer? can someone please tell me what to buy please? Sorry to be a dunce Sue

Answer 1

First of all, you need to know whether your player, recorder or drive takes both DVD-R discs and DVD+R discs. In many older players DVD+R discs don't work. So unless your sure your machine can use DVD+R, only buy DVD-R discs.

Next, you need to buy some decent quality DVDs. There are lots of cheap recordable DVDs available that are simply not worth the money because they don't work, or get corrupted very easily. The following URL points to a good guide to DVD quality:
http://www.cdr-zone.com/articles/recordable_dvd_quality_page_1.html

Good quality DVDs can be quite expensive, but the x8 ones have been coming down in price recently since most of the big name manufacturers have been switching to x16. So you often can pick up really good disks very cheaply these days.

The best makes of recordable DVD that I have used have been Taiyo Yuden and Ricoh which have never let me down either while writing to them or reading data from them.

I have also have had very few problems with Verbatim or Maxell, although they are usually quite expensive.

Dual layer disks are 8.5 gigabyte disks, whereas normal recordable DVDs are 4.7 gigabytes. I tend to stick with the normal ones as the dual layer ones are very expensive.

Here are a few sites where you can buy good quality recordable DVDs (I would steer clear of e-bay when buying disks if I were you - best to get them from a reputable dealer).

http://www.ukdvdr.co.uk/
http://svp.co.uk/
http://www.dvdshoponline.co.uk/

Answer 2

8x and 16x is how fast the DVD can be burnt. Check your burn speed. Dual layer means there are two layers of the dvd. So on one layer there is 4.7 and the other is another 4.7. Just depends on what you are burning. If its a large dvd that is really large and would look bad compressed then buy dual layer. 8x is good though. Fast enough for me...

Answer 3

8x and 16 x are the speeds of that dvd, they have to be compatible with your dvd drive, if u have a dvd drive with 16x speed then it's compatible with both 8x and 16x dvd's, but the 8x dvd drive is only compatible with 8x dvd's or lower. x means "times" that it's 8 times faster than the original dvd speed.

the dual layer dvd's are of doubled capacity up to 9.4 GB, and they also need a compatible dvd drive, so it all depends on the dvd drive you have, read its specifications.

Good Luck :)

Answer 4

I have been using SuperMedias 8X DVD-R RiDATA for years.
They work great for what I need them for. Very few that won't work and the price is very good...They have also answered my questions in the past.....