Is it worth shopping for DVD+RW and DVD+R media? I was looking for a good source for Verbatim, JVC, Maxell, Sony, or TDK media. Does it pay to shop around or are prices pretty much the same everywhere?

as far as Verbs, they go on sale regularly at places like Office Max, Best Buy, Sam's Club, when they do, stock up on a few spindles, don't bother with the crappy JVC, Maxell, Sony or TDK stuff.

Maxell and TDK go on sale very often at Walgreens. Just a couple of weeks ago I purchased a few spindles (spindle of 50 DVDs) of Maxell for $11.99 each. I do not know why Roger Lococco called Maxell "crappy" but I personally never got a single coster using Maxell DVD media on my JVC DR-HM30S DVD video recorder. The same experience is with TDK. Very pleased with both.

generally Maxell and TDK aren't considered good media anymore, they've been ok in the past, and since Verbs go on sale regularly, there really isn't any incentive to go with other brands. You might not have problems now with your Maxell and TDK discs, but they are probably degrading rapidly ( all discs degrade over time, but the general consenus is higher quality media from Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim will last the longest.)

Didn't TDK merge with Imation recently? I know Imation tape media was always questionable. Most recorders say to run away from Memorex and Imation media

Didn't TDK merge with Imation recently? I know Imation tape media was always questionable. Most recorders say to run away from Memorex and Imation media
Imation bought Memorex in Jan 2006.

TDK stopped making consumer DVDs in their facilities a little before that (to concentrate their resources on HD).

Update: Nov 1, 2007 - Imation now "handling" TDK consumer DVD sales and after-sales support, according to this posting. (http://www.tdk.co.jp/notice/notice_us.html)

Spyder696969: be forewarned, Imation is coming after Taiyo-Yuden next... maybe gobble up Verbatim on the way!?

:D

Check Meritline.com, Rima.com, Totalmedia.com, and Supermediastore.com. I just bought 500 Taiyo Yuden dvd-r 16x for $149.95, shipping included, at supermediastore.