"best" DVD-DL?

[haxalot88]

I don't entirely get why people thing *insert brand here* would be the best media (such as verbatim). Really it's because I don't see any performance issues what-so-ever. The reason i say this is because I have tested a few brands on 3 xbox 360 units (my original, my new one, and one i flashed for a friend), and I haven't seen any difference (sony, memorex, verbatim, and nexxtech).
What I did was i burned a disk at 8x speed, and all drives read them perfectly (I had an ms25, hitachi 47, and hitachi 78). The only problem i had was that half of the nexxtech dvd's would error while trying to burn the damn things  .
So in conclusion, wouldn't there not be any "best"? Or am i just getting very lucky with the 360 units I've come across? So far my recommendation is to just buy memorex because I can get 25-pack spindles for $25.99 and they burn at 8x no problem.

[Arakon]

Most drives have issues with any but verbatim and maybe one or two other brands. i.e. my benq will barely read ricohjpn d01, my samsung will read them perfectly. verbatim work flawlessly on both.

[haxalot88]

Most drives have issues with any but verbatim and maybe one or two other brands. i.e. my benq will barely read ricohjpn d01, my samsung will read them perfectly. verbatim work flawlessly on both.

ah, so i was getting lucky thar. Thanks for the info 

[n00bpwner360]

MIS Verbatims are worth the cash.

[trick91]

too bad MIS Verbatims are slowly dissapearing and being replaced with Made In India, which are compete garbage imo

[Witwolfy]

Lets just hope the time that verbatims are as scares as water in euthiopia, that the next xbox console is out then hey? hoping to see HD DVD backing that little monster

[Arakon]

yeah. they'll certainly use hd-dvd, since it's such an amazingly well selling format.

[toliman]

they could switch to blu-ray, or UMD's, etc. or BMD's, UMD blu-ray discs ... 

ok, probably not. i think MS'd do whatever they could to avoid blu-ray for the next 5 years or so, perhaps even switching to 16gb flash drive carts to distribute BD-size games. i.e. it's back to the future xbox 2600.

the other thing to keep in mind is that the dyes used can often decay over time, YMMV, a week, a day, a year or more after you burn the disc, it could glitch halfway through, or at the beginning as the dash OS reads the disc index contents, whenever.

so the 8x burn you make might actually be better than the 2.4x media from a disc you burned 12 to 18 months ago, or the 8x media could be completely unreadable after 6 to 12 months. and unless you're doing a full copy/verify from that burned DVD to HDD, you can't really be sure it's a good burn.

i tend to think if the disc is usable after a year, it's a good brand, (but time travel being what it is these days, it can be tricky to pick a brand that way.)

that said, different drives, different burners, different media different batches of the same media, etc. makes it futile, or just confusing to measure results for dvd media properly. if manufacturers had proper tags in their production batches, you could probably benchmark.test blanks on different 360 drives.

just see how it goes with the ricoh/ridata non-verbatim DL media yourself, it might work out just fine.

[Witwolfy]

thats such bad advice ricoh and ridata are crap they eat your laser lens alive, in the beginning my xbox read them fine but cant even pick it up now "Unreadable disc" or "open try" thats what you'll get after a while. stick to verbatim it will possibly give less strain on your lens then that cheap crap would. trust me id know. rather pay $2 or $5 more that pay alot more later on because of a crappier media you used

[rob1101]

so if MIS Verbatims are too hard to find what would you guys recommend? MII Verbatims?

[G0t m4xx 21]

Only two I've been able to find in Austin, TX that work are Fujifilm and Sony DVD+R DL's. They are both 2.4x, Ricoh D01. Samsungs and Benq reads them perfect, hitachis need a laser tweak

I had some memorex DL's that used a different dye and they didn't work at all.

[notherbastard]

personally, and it is just my opinion, never ever, burn a game on a SL@ >4x and game or not the DL's are all done @2.4x.

I still believe, burn em slow, burn em deep and they last.
thats just me, feel free to disagree.

[Arakon]

that was true some years ago, but nowadays the burners and media are focused on higher speeds. burning too slow can in fact degrade the readability of a disk. your best bet is generally to burn at about half the rated speed, depending on the quality of the disks. verbatim for example you can usually burn at rated speed without issues.

[Witwolfy]

once again i tried burning ona sarah DVD (Yet another CMC manucaturing disk) and i came to the conclusion NOTHING BEATS VERBATIM. I burned the same games on the same methods and only the verbatim came through. TRUST me ricoh and cmc and other cheap brands are crap probably the same manufacturer but with a different stamp on like those crappy phillips DVDS . Stick to verbatims they are the best no one can tell me otherwise

[notherbastard]

that was true some years ago, but nowadays the burners and media are focused on higher speeds. burning too slow can in fact degrade the readability of a disk. your best bet is generally to burn at about half the rated speed, depending on the quality of the disks. verbatim for example you can usually burn at rated speed without issues.

that makes sense then, 4.5 years ago i was burning anything upto 300+ disks a week, probably done 3 spindles since

Time to re-read on my media i guess...

[toroxx]

I'm currently using Ridata +R DL (they are way easier to find in Brazil than verbatims) and they are working properly with my 2 drives (a samsung ms28 and a benq). Plus, they are a little cheaper than verbs. Got some issues with disks burned more than 1 year ago. Had a couple of bad experiences using Memorex and Kodak media.
Are the US-selled verbatims made in china?

Regards from Brazil

[neonpolaris]

Is looking at the packaging for "Made in Singapore" the only way to tell before buying them?  Do all the picky people buy them all in person, or is there another way?  I haven't seen anything to suggest a product number or similar would be certain, so that makes buying online a gamble, right?

[jimbo70]

Buy in person or buy from a good seller on ebay. I bought a few spindles of Verbaim's a while back on ebay that were advertised as MIS, when I got them thy were MII. I contacted seller, he apologized for the mix-up (or that he got caught) and exchanged no charge to me.

[SilverSony]

Hi People,

I personally use Verbatim DVD+R DL, and they are used worldwide by lots of people, I have never had a single coaster while using these fantastic quality discs, I have tried a few others, and really been terrible in every sense of the word, I did some reading and browsing on some of the great information sites, that we all come to rely on, and the majority of people use Verbatim, that is good enough for me, I would rather pay a good price for quality not quantity.

The results are brilliant, so do yourself a favour and get the best, or experiment what is the best for you. 


You can't put in, what isn't there 

[notherbastard]

You sound like a Verbatim employee