This is the cause of many headaches for consumers. Budget media is aimed at the end user who wants real value for money. You will often find a certain brand will have many varying Media ID codes as the manufacturers constantly try to source the cheapest possible media whilst trying to keep some sort of quality. These are also often 'B' grade versions of more popular recommended media.

With this media there is quite often a big variance in media quality from disc to disc. You may also find that sometimes the whole disc cannot be recorded to without major dips in the transfer test. It is quite often supported by writers at less than its rated speed. Everynow and again you will get a really good batch but generally they are short term usage only. A good reason for variance in this range of media is the fact the companies don't normally manufacture the media themselves and so can't check the quality at it's source. Another reason is the fact this range of media is quite often 'B' grades.

First Quality-
Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, Maxell, Made In Japan, are quality disks you can most count on.

Second Quality-
Imation, Mitsui, Fijifilm, Samsung

iDVD does not have an option to control burn speed. To control the overall burn speed you need to save your project as a disk image. Once you have the file saved you can then control burn speeds.

First, check to see what format your player supports. You can usually find this information in your owners manual, or through online forums. We currently have these standalone players in the MMC

Phillips DVP642

Playback media: CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DivX, DVD, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD-Video, MP3-CD, SVCD, Video CD

Compression Formats: Divx 3.11, Divx 4, Divx 5, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4

Sony DVP-NS55P

Playback media: CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RW, MP3-CD, SVCD, Picture CD

Compression Formats: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4

JVC XV-N330

Playback media: CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RW, MP3-CD, SVCD, Picture CD

Compression Formats: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG

So what is the difference?

DVD-R and DVD-RW

DVD-R was the first DVD recording format released that was compatible with standalone DVD Players.

DVD-R is a non-rewriteable format and it is compatible with about 93% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs.

DVD-RW is a rewriteable format and it is compatible with about 80% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs.

DVD+R and DVD+RW

DVD+R is a non-rewritable format and it is compatible with about 89% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs.

DVD+RW is a rewritable format and is compatible with about 79% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs.

DVD+R DL

DVD+R DL or called DVD+R9 is a Dual Layer writeable DVD+R. The dual layered discs can hold 7.95 computer GB.

DVD-R DL

DVD-R (DL) is a Dual Layer writeable DVD-R. The dual layered discs can hold 7.95 computer GB.

Dual Layer

Recording allows DVD-R and DVD+R discs to store significantly more data, up to 8.5 Gigabytes per disc, compared with 4.7 Gigabytes for single-layer discs.

A Dual Layer disc differs from its usual DVD counterpart by employing a second physical layer within the disc itself. The drive with Dual Layer capability accesses the second layer by shining the laser through the first semi-transparent layer. The layer change mechanism in some DVD players can show a noticeable pause, as long as two seconds by some accounts. More than a few viewers have worried that their dual layer discs were damaged or defective.

DVD recordable discs supporting this technology are backward compatible with some existing DVD players and DVD-ROM drives.[5] Many current DVD recorders support dual-layer technology, and the price point is comparable to that of single-layer drives, though the blank media remains significantly more expensive.

One way to test your project before you burn it is to save your project as a disc image. The disc image of your project is a fully encoded version of the project that you can play in DVD Player or burn to a disc later. You can preview the disc image to make sure your project plays correctly and then make changes without burning a disc that you might not use.

To create a disc image of your project:

1. Choose File > Save As Disc Image.

2. Type a name for the disc image.

3. Choose where you want to store the disc image.

4. Click Save.

5. Double-click the disc image icon when the disc image is ready.