[QUOTE=davidh;5434]This may be mentioned somewhere but I couldn't see it.
I have been using blank DVDs for some time now, with of course the official paid for versions of DVDFab, but initially was not sure what blank DVDs to use, I don't mean the brand, I mean either - or +.
Some time ago when I was buying more the salesperson seemed to know about them, so I asked him, and he said for what I was doing definitely the - ones.
Is that true, or not, or either are just as good?
Please excuse my ignorance in these matters. :D[/QUOTE]
Hi davidh,
No need to excuse anything about your queries...perfectly reasonable.
The advice you got from the staples dude is rubbish.
With modern hardware, either should be just fine.
In a nutshell it went like this...
Years ago, -R was the first, blank dvd media out of the gate.
This format was/is supported by Panasonic, Toshiba, Apple Computer, Hitachi, NEC, Pioneer, Samsung and Sharp.
Soon to follow came +R supported by Dell, HP, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp, Philips, Ricoh, Sony, RCA and Yamaha.
The war had begun.
Years ago with really old dvd players, -R had a slight advantage in terms of compatibility.
In recent years, bitsetting (also called booktyping) enables +R media to appear as DVD-ROM media to players and thus confers even greater compatibility than either -R or +R.
In truth, it probably doesn't make any difference at all unless you have a finicky burner or player. I've used tons of both -R and +R and have ahd no problems based on format...at least not in years.
When refering to blank media, we prefer to identify the MID (media ID) rather than the brand as the brand usually doesn't tell much.
For eg., the problem with recommending Memorex is that it has multiple manufacturers and quality varies widely.
The discs you have may have been manufactured by:
Moser Baer, CMC, Ritek, Ricoh, Prodisc, Infodisc or ideally by MCC.
Quite the crap shoot, wouldn't you say?
This is one more reason that most forums and users recommend Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim.
My favorite SL media is YUDEN000 T02. They're +R and the best darn stuff on the planet...JMO
Hope this helps
