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Tech: DVD Burning - media matters
Sat, 27 Aug 2005

Since before when I figured out how to actually burn DVD data disks from FreeBSD, I've had no luck whatsoever. Every attempt has failed after a few minutes of burning.. maybe 10 per-cent, maybe 25 or even 50 per-cent.. but always a failure (regardless of data size .. 600MB, 1.2GB or 2.5GB. Regardless of speed as well since these discs required a minimum and maxium of 4x burn speed.)

Today, after the 10th coaster or so in the pack I decided to run over and pick up a fresh high quality brand named DVD pack while doing some other chores - this existing pack was an inexpensive no name brand from China somewhere (25 DVD-R's for $8CDN seemed a good deal :) and rather than blame the drive I figured it more likely to be the DVD platters themselves. After all, I was able to burn CDR's no problem.

I picked up a pack of Memorex DVD-R 8x-speed for $16 CDN or so, and a pack of DVD+R BenQ's for $12 CDN. (The DVD burner is a BenQ so I figured this might help, and they're DVD+R where-as the Memorex are DVD-R. Might as well get a feel for the things..) Knowing I should have some success with -R's, I tossed a Memorex in and fired up the .iso -> DVD-R burn script I'd stored before.

Worked perfectly, first time. (Set to 4x burn speed, despite the discs being rated up to 8x. I figured better safe than sorry, and I don't mind wasting an extra 2 minutes :) There you have it -- cheap no-name brand for $8 or named brand for twice that -- the brand named platters win. I'm sure theres some good no-names, and good re-branded-from-good-brand, but I've got 24 more disks before I need to worry :)

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