Quality of Sony DVD+R/DVD-R? - Costco deal

I have used only Sony -R for the last couple of years with both Panasonic and Philips hard disk units.
Approx 400 DVDs burned and very few problems. Most of the times that a program didn't transfer, I later found a corrupted section that caused the problem.

I'll be at Costco on the 4th to grab a couple for myself!

Up until the last few months, the Sony media has been remarkably good compared to other brands in stores: they are one of the last brands that has not been farmed out to the horrible CMC conglomerate. But Sony like all other disc mfrs has begun to slip and cut corners: I have never in three years and hundreds of discs ever had a Sony DVD get rejected by one of my recorders or fail in the middle of burning, but lately I'm seeing 4 or 5 out of 100 do this. Of course, this is still an extremely good reject rate given current retail media quality- just be aware it can happen.

The trick with Sony -R media is to avoid any packages marked "Made in Malaysia", but this is now very difficult to do as the new stock stores are putting on sale is almost always the Malaysian stuff. Try to check a couple different stores and snap up the Sony "Made In Taiwan" media if you see it on sale: the Taiwan factories are a little better run and have a better ratio of good discs vs clunkers. Also, the Sony DVD+R tends to be more consistent than the DVD-R, so if you can't find the Taiwanese -R just get the +R from either factory if your recorder can burn +R.

(Sony's DVD media is different from its CD-R media, which has been godawful for years. Don't be scared off by the terrible Sony CD-R reviews: their DVD blanks are still decent. Don't know how much longer, but for now its OK.)

I don't trust those made in taiwan media. Sony DVd+RW used to be made in Japan, now all made in Taiwan. Their DVD+R is something I don't trust.

In the end, for good dvd, I use taiyo yueden (sp) which is made in japan. very good

I have used 3 - 100 stacks of Sony DVDs, with only one coaster. But, the most recent was a year ago, and they weren't the printable ones. I wait for sales on Verbatim, usually at Best Buy, or Office Max, which usually comes to $.23-.26 per disc.

Leaving aside the "what's the best disc, period" question, and limiting ourselves to "what's the best disc that regularly goes on sale in stores for $25/100", Sony is my vote for most compatible/least problems right now. Verbatim used to blow Sony into the weeds, but they abandoned their "quality first" stance and are now competing to be cheapest in the weekend "Best Buy" fliers. Verbatim is not what it used to be, and even more annoying its totally inconsistent store to store, spindle-to-spindle. Sony may have its issues, but so far they remain more predictable and much more compatible with aging standalone DVD recorders. If you're burning on a PC, you can go with Verbatim, no problem: PCs can handle the many variations. But standalone recorders are increasingly choking on the newer Verbatim retail media. TDK, Maxell, Memorex and store brands have long since stopped working correctly in older standalone recorders: don't bother with them.

Taiyo Yuden (TY) is the last truly solid, made in Japan, utterly reliable disc. But they are only available thru mail order- you cannot just run to Walgreens or Circuit City when you run out of blank discs. Also, they cost about $37 for a 100-ct spindle, delivered. This thread is more oriented to "what's decent that goes on sale cheap all over town?" For those users, Sony is still a good choice. (I picked up 400 more during the last sale at Staples: my important recordings get burned on TY and then duped onto Sonys as additional backup, the Sonys are also my "give away" discs.)

Sonys CAN be good discs but their quality is really going downhill.

I'd put them in a group below Verbatim/TY/etc, but still very, very good. However, the last few spindles I've bought over the last 6 months have had all the hallmarks of cut corners-- discs with scratches on them, weird (and HUGE) dye discolorations, dust all throughout a newly opened spindle...

If anything, Sony is one of the few brands that I still buy (less and less now) that I have to keep track of the "bad" discs... I have 3-4 spindles with about 5-10 discs of defective discs that I need to figure out how to return. The website on the spindles was broken last time I checked, and I hate sitting on hold for 20 minutes on a phone call to talk to someone who probably doesn't speak English as a 3rd or 4th language.

I've had more coasters with Verbatim DVD+Rs than Sony.