I had to replace my old Sony DRU 530A (It up?d and died) when I built my latest system a few months ago and went with a Sony DRU 820. I have not had the time until now to really burn anything except for the occasional CD since I bought it but decided to finally go out and buy some DL?s and check it out. First stop was on line and was fairly surprised to find such a slim selection of DL media and pricing.
For my first test run (and only one at this time) I went with the latest Verbatim?s DVD+R DL 5 pack. This is the pack that has the orange packaging and rates itself as 8x with a 10x sticker added to the box. I went to BestBuy since shipping from most places was about the same as BB?s in store price of $17.99 and I could have them the same day.
As I would expect from Verbatim they preformed wonderfully but I am still a bit shocked to see that there is not a bigger selection of brands, quantity and of course, pricing. You would think that by now with DL burner prices at $100.00 or less (Paid $60 for my Sony from Fry?s) we would begin seeing some depth in choices (brands, quantity, and pricing).
This reminds me when CD burners first came out.
Are we seeing this happen again with DL media and will we have to wait a year or two before we see things come around as we did with CD media?
I hope not. After a few backups with the DL disks I'm hooked on the quality but not so much at the current prices.
Just my two cents worth.
Prices on the Verb Dl have come down watch Newegg and Bb for the sales.You payed about a $1.00 to $1.50 apiece too much.IMHO I've tried the others and found Verbs are the beast . Chris
I know BB had the 15 pack Dl last week for $27.99 and Micro Center 20 pack is $36.00
Thanks for the info but when I bought the 5 pack from Best Buy last week there was no sale at least here on the 15 or 20 packs and they were going for $39.95 and $49.95. Since I'm really not doing a lot of things which would require the DL's at this point I will watch a bit closer for sales and stock up when they happen.
Thanks again.
DVD DL media will remain expensive because they have three times more processing steps than regular DVDs, the yield rate is low, and one step requires throwing away a temporary plastic piece. There is a different process that does not require throwing anything away and has a better yield, but these discs are not as well supported in DL drives as the original discs were. It is very possible that 8X and faster DL discs will all use this second process, but even then the savings will be only about 30%.
JoeRyan if I'm reading your post right your saying the newer DL media used in the second process will not be as good as the first process? So I'd best stock up on the originals? Chris
The discs in the IS (Inverse Stack) method will be better than the first DL discs but so will the 2P discs because manufacturers will have worked out many of the difficulties that troubled the early versions. The problem is the drives: the early DL drives could likely be tuned for the newer discs, but there's no money in that. Drive suppliers would rather have customers buy new drives than keep their older drives up to date by devoting firmware support for them. When DL drives are available that can record 12X DL (probably the speed limit), invest in a new drive then.
What I find interesting is that even with the faster record speeds available most still recommend going with a slower burn speed to get a more accurate burn. And I do understand the concept of if the media and the hardware can burn at a faster rate the lower rate will, or at least should be better but with prices still a bit high I really don't have the funds to just test these disks to see if I can burn at the higher rates. Even though it takes a bit longer (45 to 60 minutes) to backup one full length movie at least I know they work on all my decks with great quality.
So to conclude, it looks like prices will be up there for a while on DL media and by the time I build my next system, in about a year or two, either prices will drop or we will have a new technology to deal with.
Thanks for your input.