Blank BD-R Disks On The Cheap This Morn (Feb 10, 2010)
 

Newegg's got a deal going this morning (till 1pm PST, or whenever they sell out) on spindles of 15 Memorex BD-R disks, for $24.99 with free shipping:

Newegg.com - memorex 25GB 4X BD-R 15 Packs Spindle Disc Model 97854 - CD / DVD Media

That's less than 2 bucks a disk. Not shabby.

hopefully they will not fade away the content after 6 months like many of the cheap DVD

This is a great find, but it really does point out how laughable it is when people complain about the "high cost of BluRay".

Even at the normal price of $34.99, these are $2.33 each. How people can not manage to justify spending $2.33 to deliver HD to a client instead of SD is beyond me.

Even for archival purposes, miniDV tapes are around $2.00 each (the cheap ones) and these BluRay's hold almost twice as much.

Mind boggling.

The cost has never been an issue (seriously - what's $10, $20 or even $50 media in comparison to a $7500 project?) The big hold up has been the fact that most of my customers (businesses) either don't have a Blu-ray player, or want a more ubiquitous delivery media (face it - anyone can play a DVD anywhere - every hotel meeting room or client location has a DVD player.)

I shoot and edit in HD and make sure my clients know they can get a Blu-ray from me at any time, but most never ask.

D'oh! Missed it. Sold out; Price now $35 plus $6 shipping...

Memorex brand is very poor quality. I recommend using Sony or Verbatim Blu-ray discs only.

Not so much poor quality as it is very inconsistent quality control. The Memorex-branded BD-R discs are primarily manufactured by RiTEK, who also sells BD-Rs under its own RiDATA brand. The BD-Rs from that company's factory have been extremely erratic: The good ones are nearly as good as the average Verbatim-branded BD-R, but the bad ones deteriorate after only a few weeks of storage.

The Sony-branded BD-Rs remain astronomically expensive - a whopping $15 per single-layer disc. But that's what you get if that company does not officially sell its blank BD media in any type of package other than single discs inside jewel cases here in the US. And the quality of the Sony-branded discs is not sufficiently better than a Verbatim- or TDK-branded BD-R to justify its astronomical price tag.

The average price of a Verbatim-branded BD-R is about $4 per disc. That's just a little higher than the average price of a Memorex-branded BD-R - and you'll get consistently better reliability with the Verbatims.

Ummm... $4.84 a disk.

BNR25A 6x BD-R Media - 50BNR25AP6 - Blu Ray - SONY Blu Ray - TheNerds.net

Verbatim , 96769 10PK BD-R 25GB 4X Branded Spindle BOX: Compare Prices, View Price History and Read Reviews at NexTag

I don't know where you buy your disks, but I've been buying them since mid 2008. When I ordered my first batch in June 08, I ordered 5 50GB Sony disks at $49.99 each, and 10 25GB disks at $29.99 each.

My last order of 50GB disks cost $17.99 each for TDKs, and Verbatim 25GB disks for $2.63 each in a pack of 10.

Perrone,

Those are the prices that I get locally. And the stores in my area that carry Sony BD-Rs only carry them in single-disc jewel-box packages. Plus, none of the stores that I visit carry BD-R discs in any package of greater than a 10-pack spindle. Thus, the higher prices that I get are based on the fact that nobody in my area carry those discs in even 25-disc spindles, let alone 50-disc spindles. After all, nobody who lives anywhere near where I live will buy a package of any media which costs more than $40 per package. Most actually cheap out the wrong way by buying the discs in very small quantities, if at all.

The problem is that I live in an area where the shipping companies lose nearly half of their package deliveries overall. Some of them actually end up 40 to 50 miles away from the intended address! That performance is simply unacceptable - and also made me leery of ordering anything online unless online is the only place where I can get a specific product.

With falling prices on BD-R media, I decided to check my local BB, and found (to my surprise!) a 3-pack of 50GB Verbatim 6x BD-R DL discs with jewel cases for the exact same price as what that place had been selling the same brand's 3-pack 25GB 4x BD-R discs for just a couple of months ago ($9.33 per disc). In this case, then, it's relatively inexpensive for a known good brand of BD-R DL. I picked up one pack of it. They also sell a 10-pack spindle of 6x 25GB BD-R discs, albeit at a still relatively high price of $6 per disc. This makes the DL the better value at that retailer on the basis of the amount of data capacity per dollar (and ultimately, per hour of video mastered onto disc at any given overall video bitrate).

Encouraged by this thread I went out searching and found Verbatim 25GB 4X BD-R 10 Packs Spindle Box and ordered one such 10-disc spindle for $29.99 with free shipping.

I was quite surprised at the low price. The same place offers a spindle of 20 for $39.99 + $5.99 shipping, which comes down to even less per disc but its speed is only 2x.

What do you think I've been saying for the past 8 months? That's exactly what I've ordered the past two times... But mine were cheaper. Maybe worked out the same with shipping or something, I don't know. I let purchasing work all that out.

I don't know, I haven't been here that long. :)

But I am glad you just said that because these seem to use a different manufacturing process, so it is good to hear you have been using them successfully.

Actually, Adam, those 10-packs are/were the conventional (HTL) BD-R discs - not the LTH discs that are still incompatible with some BD recorders and players. The 4x BD-R discs are being gradually replaced by the newer 6x-rated versions at this very moment. The 20-packs, on the other hand, are the LTH discs. Thus, the 10-pack you actually ordered are the conventional BD-R discs.

Same thing with the 2x BD-R DL discs: The newer 6x-rated versions are superceding the older 2x ones.

I just went by the newegg page that described them as LTH. But it should not matter too much to me as I have a Pioneer burner.