Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim and Ritek are all top notch media.
If you plan on buying media in stores rather than online, media made in Japan or Singapore will be your best choices. Stand clear of Memorex and Imation media. Pure garbage!
yeah sonys are good look for the made in japan, but the ones made in taiwan are pretty good too. ive used both with no probs. but i would look through the stock to get the mij. heres a thread a few threads down check it out for current sales.http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/256275
SONY 8X DVD-R are the best store bought consistent stable DVD media no matter where their made. Also the Best deals on sale about every 2 to three weeks. BEST BUY currently has 50 disc spindles for $17.99 Reg. $39.99 and again you will not beat the quality though it can be matched by VERBATIM media found competitively online. SONY's look good too, no flashy disc logo, label, or silver finish. I use DVD43 SHRINK, DVDFAB Decrypter, and Nero Recode2 on slow burn without a coaster or bad burn 98& persent of the time. GO SONY.
I gave up the dash format,booktyping reasons.But I did burn a slew of ty-g01/MXL-rg02/MXL-rg03/Ritek-g04/Ritek-g05/and sony 08D1 and they were all excellent media. MXL are the hitachi made maxells,made in japan.The sony 08D1 were the dash 8x sony,made in japan.
You can get the Japanese sony 08D1 for 35-40 cents at staples and bestbuy when they go on sale every 4 or 5 weeks. Same with the maxells. Office depot has them this week for $16 a spindle of 50. The taiwanese will code as Ritek-G05 and the japanese maxells will code as MXL-RG03.
Meritline/rima/and supermediastore.com usually have some good deals on tys for under 30 cents each.Not so fortunant for the plus format,UGHH!Verbatims are also sweet.
Some to stay away from:
TDK
Memosux
HP
Taiwanese Fuji.The japanese are tys!
Any other house brand with the exception of Office Depot.Their 8x media is ritek!
It all depends on how you want to buy them.
On the web or local stores?Locally,look for made in Japan on the labels.