I'll echo what Glenn said - you can't tell the grade of a disc by the color of the dye.

Use a good quality retailer who will describe their discs honestly and accurately. If some of the discs they sell are described as Grade A and some aren't, then don't get the ones that aren't because they are probably Grade B or C.

As mentioned Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden are good brands.

Use a program like DVD InfoPro or Nero DVD Speed to test your discs. My personal favourite is the Disc Quality test in Nero DVD Speed.

Remember if you want 100% compatability you need replicated discs which means runs of 1000 or so discs. With duplicated (ie burnt) discs the best you can hope for is about 95% compatability.

Grade a discs are what they use in the industry. They are hard to get but you can't just burn onto them. they have to be stamped. talking about the japenese disks i suggested earlier on the ones i buy if i have an order for about 100 dvds are blue. I would normally use the purple disks but they are not very good on first generation dvd players.

I found this helpful in choosing DVD media.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

I won't claim to be an expert on DVDs, but that is incorrect; possibly you're confusing Grade A with Authoring discs.

My understanding is that Grade A discs are ones that have passed the manufacturers quality control checks.

Grade B ones shows limited defects. Grade C show even more defects (the defects on Grade C discs are often obvious even on a simple visual check).

In the early days of CD and DVD manufacturing a high percentage of the production would show defects. In order to avoid the losses associated with throwing them away, manufacturers sell them as B or C grade stock. So an unscrupulous retailer may give some media a glowing write-up on their web site, but in fact it may be C grade stuff that they've bought very cheap.

That's one good reason to get reputable media from reputable retailers.

If you aren’t doing a task that is processor intensive, I don’t see any need to close all other programs while burning a DVD on today’s fast computers. Also, the guy’s recommendation to use brand name DVDs is uninformed. All the brand name companies source their DVDs from multiple media manufacturers. Just like any other product, some manufacturers make good quality products, while all too many make poor quality products. What you need to look for, then, is not the brand of the DVD, but the manufacturer, which can be determined by the Media ID of a DVD. Beware that the Media ID has been faked at times, so it is a good idea to purchase media only from reputable retailers.

There are several free programs available for Windows and at least one for the Mac that will show the Media ID of a DVD. See the first part of the Blank DVD media quality guide.

The best DVD manufacturers are Mitsubishi Chemicals, Taiyo Yuden, Hitachi Maxell, Sony, and TDK. The Verbatim brand is owned by Mitsubishi Chemicals. However, be aware that Maxell, TDK, Verbatim and Sony also sell third party media under their brand names that is not as good as their own media.

It is possible to purchase straight, unbranded Taiyo Yuden DVD media online. Just make sure to purchase only from a reputable online store.

If you need to purchase from a brick and mortar store there is of course the problem that you cannot know the actual manufacturer of the DVD. In this situation a general rule of thumb is to purchase media made in Japan. Verbatim media is excellent if the DVDs are manufactured by the brand name’s parent company Mitsubishi Chemicals, but since Mitsubishi makes their discs in Taiwan just like many of the junk manufacturers it is impossible to tell their media apart by the country of origin. The exception is Mitsubishi’s dual layer media, which is made in Singapore.

A great resource on DVD media quality is the Blank media quality guide & FAQ.

Well, my PC is a 1.8 GB P4, with a gig of RAM. I don't know if that's considered fast these days.

Guess I'm throwing my crappy purple discs away. . .


Maybe he associated brand name with the good manufacturers.

I have TGY03 which is Taiyo Yuden 1st class media bought from Neato. The DVD is purple yet it is considered 1st Class Media.

Ok, I ordered a 100 pack of Taiyo Yuden DVDs for $36. So thanks dudes.

i have those discs and i will never go back on them now. they are first class

I just hope y'all are right, and it's the discs that are the problem.

goto google and you will start to see what i mean

Hey guys. Still having issues with the DVDs, even after buying the Taiyo Yuden discs.


I've noticed something, and it just occurred to me. It's always "black" areas of the movie where the disc starts to hitch and stutter -- usually the beginning of a movie (opening titles, white text on black BG), the very end (last couple seconds of closing credits, white text on black BG), and sometimes in the middle of a movie, if it cuts to black or fades to black I have a movie where it goes black between scenes, some of them have stutter issues). Why is this?

My fake commercials that don't start in black are issue free (except maybe at the very end, but I usually never watch the very end -- talkin' the last few seconds of credits)

Aha... we have an answer: your levels are illegal.

Actually, the black levels are not what I'm having issues with, it's the hitching and stuttering that are driving me nuts. The hitching and stuttering just happens to coincide with the black parts of my movies, but I didn't see anything in that article that touched on this problem.

That is strange, because illegal black levels causes strange behavior, such as skipping and stopping.