Alright, please bare with me. I'm green to all of this.
So, I bought a 50-pak of Matrix DVD-R's, for about $45. Which, was a good deal, at least to me. Anyhow, went to back-up a DVD using DVDXCopy. At 70% (burning to the DVD) it would eject the disc and an error message would pop up. Something along the lines of, "burning failed at 2x." So, I tried using my Sony DVD+RW disc, and it worked perfect. Went to back up another DVD, popped in a Matrix disc and blam, error again. Tried it one more time, and I got another error. So, only 3/4 of the movie is on there. Sh!t!! I'm guessing the DVD-R's that I got are only for data.
Anyhow, which DVD-R's should I get. And do any of you know where a good place to them for cheap?
I use either choice, or datawrite 1x/2x, with the ritek dye, these have given me excellent results (no coasters) and r cheap.
Between 80p and £1 each.
Have a look, there is also a sample pack of 5 or 6 dvd-r so u could try that first.
If u r outside of the uk, I don't know whether they ship outside the uk but u can mail them.
They have excellent customer service aswell, I just purchased some blank unbranded dvd-r which were crap, so I let them know, I returned them and was offered refund/exchange etc.
Also which media r u using, u stated -r and +r/w?
Malum - a member here is normally top notch on the recommended media to use, he may actually respond to this thread also.
I am no expert but I can tell you what I have tried and what works.
Before I knew what I was doing I started with Bulkpaq (white tops, rebranded Princos) and they were rubbish. it took me a long time to work out that it was the media (they work but if you fill them to the edge the movie freezes near the end)
If you try and burn something crap at 2x then you are asking for trouble anyway, even at 1x they will be riddled with errors that your machine has to correct as it goes which puts a strain on your machine and causes the freezing problem described above. The Bulkpaq were just about OK for splitting movies as long as there was less than 3.5Gb on each (but I have my concerns about their longevity)
I then bought some FWS discs which it turned out were Ritek G03 dye (I didn't know this before I bought them) these were great very few failures from the 100 I bought (I still have some)
Then I bought some Datawrite 2X which turned out to be Ritek G02 dye type (I bought all of these before I knew about different dye types BTW) and these are also excellent no failures at all so far.
To find out what the disc really is put a blank in the drive and start Decrypter set it to ISO write mode and in the panel on the right it will tell you the manufacturer and the dye type.
This is fine if you have the disc already but most sites don't tell you the real manufacturer or the dye type which makes buying a bit of a lottery.
Also hampering you is the fact that none of the above discs can be had for love nor money at the moment.
The newer 4x discs can be had and Ritek do one with the G04 dye on it (I haven't tried them but I assume that they are good) They are more expensive than all of the above though.
All of the decent discs have one thing in common, a dark purple writing surface. this is not to say that all dark purple dye is good but anything that isn't should perhaps be steered clear of (again a bit difficult to tell until you have some)
I get all of mine from www.blankdiscshop.co.uk as they have the best price and they describe the discs properly.
So in summary I'd go for the Ritek G02, 03 or 04 (the last being readily available). I wouldn't touch anything made by Princo again (they may make some great discs but once bitten..)
I also write evrything at 1x (on an A104)for the least number of errors and maximum likelihood of a good disc.
