Blank Media Question

[Zephik]

Sorry, didn't know where to post this.

I'm running into a small problem. My Hard Drive capacity is reaching its limits because of all the Media I've been putting onto it lately. Which is how it always is with me because a computer to me is just a internet capable DVD Player. But at the moment I don't have enough pocket change to spring for another Hard Drive and the cheaper Thumb Drives only give me about a gigabyte whereas I need something closer to twenty. So while I was trying to figure out a solution to my little dilemma, I remembered I have a gift card at Best Buy that I haven't found a chance to use yet. Sounds like the perfect chance to me!

This is my question.

I've never bought blank media before other than one time a year ago, and those were CD-R's. But since I'm looking for something to put my movie media (My MP3 Player can hold all of my pictures and music, for now at least) on, I'm looking at DVD-R/RW's. But what I'm confused on is the differences between "DVD-R/RW" and "DVD+R/RW" and also what brand would be best to go with. I've had some absolutely horrid blank media discs before, so I would rather not make that mistake again. It's not fun remembering you have this great series on disc that you forgot about and then you find out that its all fracked up because of crappy discs. ><

I was actually looking at THIS (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7642535&type=product&id=1134697746163) too, since my younger brother has a LightScribe drive in his computer. But I've never even heard of that brand before and I thought LS was supposed to be pretty expensive?

Thanks for the help! I really appreciate it! lol pretty crazy that I've never really bought blank media before or at least know good brands from bad. >< I know Seagate and WD, thats about it. :p

[Omega]

DVD-R and DVD+R are just different types of DVD's, but they do the same job.

Lightscribe discs are expensive, yes. But you don't need them for a LS drive. Also, you could do for free with a sharpie what a 120$ LS drive and pricey media does. =/

I would go with Verbatim or Memorex CD's/DVD's. Not that it really matters, however. Take care of them, however.

[Drum Thumper]

Also, you could do for free with a sharpie what a 120$ LS drive and pricey media does. =/


LS Drives have come down considerably in price. It's just too damn bad that the discs are still pricey as all hell.

And I agree--be sure to get a good brand name like Memorex or Verbatim. I've also had good luck with Imation discs.

[Omega]

LS Drives have come down considerably in price. It's just too damn bad that the discs are still pricey as all hell.

Aaaand it's still not worth it. I don't need fancy labels. Just a sharpie <3

Get a Plextor PX-716a from about two years back. It writes everything but LS, HDDVD and BluRay, and pretty quickly.

[Bucko]

I use TDK DVD+R myself. I've had no problems with them.

[Sakker]

I burn a lot of stuff onto DVD's, almost any brand will work, and it doesnt matter whether its + or -, as long as the dvd burner does both. I have used every name under the sun for DVD's, I like memorex a lot, but I've used staples brand, playo, a lot of generic ones, and they all work really well, every now and then you may get a bad batch from any company. If the store has them, I normally buy memorex though.
BTW I have a LS burner, never used it for inscribing the discs, but I have heard that it can burn out the lens pretty fast if you use the LS feature, or atleast on the older models, I dont know about currently.

[nil8]

Ok, little bit of history. Just like our current blu-ray vs hd-dvd debacle, at one time, dvd had 2 competing formats. They do the same, the work basically the same, just different formats. Modern burners can deal with both without problems.

I use a lite on dvd burner. Works great, and I burn around 10gb a week.
Memorex would be my suggestion. Decent price, good quality. TDK does a great job too.
A good burner setup and set of dvd-r/dvd+r should only run you like 60 bucks if you know how to look for deals and have patience. Every 2 months or so Staples has a massive sale on their Memorex DVD-R 100 packs. They go from 60 bucks down to ~25.

I hope this helps.

[Zephik]

Thanks for the help you guys!

I think I'm going to go with these (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7642535&type=product&id=1134697746163). I've never used Lightscribe before so this would be a good chance to test it out and see if I like it or not. If I don't, then no big deal I guess. After all, I did get this gift card for free. ^_^

My younger brothers Lightscribe drive is only about a year old and I believe its made by Lite-On. So I don't think I will have any trouble with that. If I do, I'll just burn the info until I find someone with a better Lightscribe drive to do the labeling.

So is the -/+ just a big mystery or something? Is there any reason why they did that other than to just confuse the consumer? lol I mean so far, all I have heard is, they are completely useless. So why have them? :?

Thanks again!

[AJ@PR]

So is the -/+ just a big mystery or something? Is there any reason why they did that other than to just confuse the consumer? lol I mean so far, all I have heard is, they are completely useless. So why have them? :?
Ahhh... yes.

You see Snow, you still haven't actually *seen* the Stupidity Department in Heaven, have you?

They're the same people that brought us BetaMax and VHS.
They were bored later in life, so they did the -/+ thing.
Now come these ages... and they're at it again:
BluRay and HDDVD

((did I get that right?))

[nil8]

Close enough AJ. Basically there are 2 different formats from 2 different companies, just like Blu-ray and HD. The only difference is that they were both gunning for the same media and ability to write to the media.

It's very common in technology to have competing products and one being the winner. Remember minidiscs instead of CDs? How about Zip, Sparq, and LS120 disks?

Same idea. The losers fade off into oblivion and the winner sticks around until something better comes along.

[AJ@PR]

Same idea. The losers fade off into oblivion and the winner sticks around until something better comes along.

Napster who?

:D

[Scorchio]

"The plus formats have the same data storage capacity as the minus formats (4.7GB), but DVD+RW offers faster writing, better internal linking (a technical obscurity you don't have to worry about), and support for drag-and-drop desktop files, which makes it easy to compose the contents of a disk. DVD+R is a write-once format intended to be more compatible with more DVD players, though at this point it seems to be about even with DVD-R, which remains the most compatible computer-burned DVD format."

"DVD+R is a dvd disc that allows multiple layers for one disc where as dvd-r only allows one layer. They will not compete to become the de Facto standard, because they are both here to stay. Multi layer DVD+R can allow extra capacity per disc than DVD-R hence its high cost!"

Not sure how accurate this info is, but I cross checked it with a few sites and they all said basically the same thing.

As for disk type, I would go with Imation. Never had any problems with those.

Hope that helps :)

[Spawn-Inc]

well i get TDK discs and they have been fine so far. if you want max stoarge (not including blueray and hddvd) then get a dual layer burner and dvds. i've used memorex dual layer dvds (about 4) with no problems. they hold 8.5GB's each. so only 3 disc's will help your stoage problems.