[ZengE]

This isn't a shop I know but Trigger makes some good comments that I think shoppers of media should know so I'm posting it here so it doesn't get lost in the masses....sue me if you don't like it.

Originally posted by Trigger
here's some education about blank media...

http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=33

highest quality blank cd and DVD media is manufactured by Taiyo Yuden in Japan, however I'm 99% certain nobody in NZ sells them
they are even hard to get in USA
Taiyo Yuden is by far the best DVD media
second/third best is Ritek and Ricoh manufactured, but only specific 'generation' discs and they vary depending on which burner is used

please note that who MANUFACTURES the blank media is completely different to what the discs are BRANDED as. Brand names are things people are familiar with like Verbatim, TDK, Imation, Melody, etc...

for example Verbatim DataLife Plus DVD+R 4x discs which are Manufactured in Japan are manufactured by Taiyo Yuden and are pretty much the best DVD media, some even read better than pressed discs!!!
but on the other side, Verbatim DataLife Plus DVD+R 4x discs which are Manufactured in Taiwan, China or Singapore are manufactured by Mitsubishi and are of rather poor(er) quality.

so basically brand name is fairly irrelevant, what you should be looking at is the Media code/Manufacturer ID of the discs which you can only read from the physical disc itself with tools like DVD Decrypter

currently theres is a big variation in media quality due to how new and somewhat 'undeveloped' blank DVD media is, as opposed to say blank CD media where the pretty much most discs will perform equally (bar some really really shitty quality media)

so really when someone says "blank Verbatim DVD media is great!" they could be talking about half a dozen or more different types of discs manufactured by different companies and different 'generation' discs

Extremely Superior Quality blank DVD media is manufactured by Taiyo Yuden and has the following manufacture IDs (they are different generation, but all superior quality):
YUDEN000T0
TAIYOYUDEN
TYG01

second/third best would be a specific 'generation' of Ritek and Ricoh manufactured media:
RICOHJPNR01
RITEKG04

please note you can't get Taiyo Yuden media in NZ, if anyone can get it I'd be very interested in purchasing it
so far www.picosys.co.nz and www.tastech.co.nz have RitekG04 media available

if you want more information, go read the clubcdfreaks forum link I posted above

about those people complaining about dodgy media from picosys, they specifically list manufacture IDs of discs which is what no other store does and most dont even know about it. its your fault really for not doing reasearch about media quality