Was wondering what blank DVD's are best to use
 

Ive been trying to burn movies from limewire onto DVD's for a very long time, with no luck. Im using sony DVD-RW. Anyone whos had success in putting videos onto DVDs so u can watch them on a DVD player, can you please tell me what brand, type, anything about the blank DVD's u used. Thanks...

I personally like Verbatim and Imation RWs....

Also what software are you using to convert and burn your movies...:rolleyes_2:

I usually use Verbatim DVD+R or sometimes DVD-R. The ones that are scratch resistant (Very dark blueish surface)

Its all about the player. I picked up a Phillips DVP 5140 at Wallyworld for $49.95 and it will play anything i toss into it. The remote sucks.
I use the memorex dvd+r and can get up to six movies on a data disk. If i want a disk to play in almost any player i use nero and burn in iso at 4X.

First of all, I assume that you are converting your movies to DVD format? There are many programs that will do this, although not all of them produce high quality. Currently I am using WinAVI. I can get better quality by using TMPGenc, but it takes a lot more time and work.

I also have a DVD player that will play DivX (.avi) movies, and was pretty excited about it when I got it! You can watch movies without going to the trouble of converting them...some of the movies, however, aren't very big. Plus, I only have one of these players, and don't want to have to move it if I want to watch a movie on my other TV! I've gone back to converting movies to DVD. I have been extremely interested in reading about what type of media to use...Verbatims are usually suggested, but recently I've been reading a forum thread on afterdawn.com and the following media types are seen as the best: (not necessarily in this order, although Yuden was recommended when I said I was having problems such as you are having)

* Yuden (Taiyo)
* Maxell (Hitachi - make sure they're made in Japan)
* Verbatim

I've read that DVDRW's are not great for burning DVDs to, unless you just want to practice...

Good Luck :idea:

Thanks everyone for responding. I just got a new laptop, a Dell XPS, and it has a program called media center that says it can burn to DVD's it also has a program called Roxio, I havent tryed either yet. I take it Sony's aren't the best, and I though the RW's were the only ones that were rewritable. I dont know if the programs I have change the avi. format, or what.

I also use Verbatim dvd's. Did use TDK for a while but got some bad batches & also they didn't play on my brother's player. Now stick to Verbatim + & -. For double-layer I'm now sticking to Verbatim DVD+ DL because DVD studio pro does NOT like dvd- dl disks.

My set top dvd player also plays everything thrown at it. It also supports mpeg4/divX which means I can simply burn a data disk with mpeg 4 files on it & the dvd player treats it a little like an mp3 disk re: menus. But for burning normal dvd video disks, you specifically need to burn it in dvd video UDF format. Otherwise most set top players won't play such disks.

There are some brand & type specific players on the market. Panasonic is one of those. duh! Pay all the extra money for something that only plays panasonic disks ... no thank you. Many of the cheaper brands do better than the "brand" names re: dvd playback. But yes, some of their remote controls of the cheaper brands are not well designed.

In regards to Roxio. The one for mac is very good & is 'the best' general burner program for mac. But I believe for windows it depends whether you have the full version or the 'light' version which will be limited in its abilities. Roxio should be able to convert any mpeg 1, 2, 4, divX, XviD, avi, quicktime mov format at the beginning of the burning process.

I'd recommend burning at minimum speed for dvd R disks. And stay away from the 'el cheapo' disks. Get a decent disk if you want "reliability" for burning & lasting more than a couple of years & play-back on set top players. You can check to see what disks burn better on which dvd burners. There are sites that test burners for reliability. Some do better with some brands. I checked my burner here http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/ You can also check to see what dvd disk formats your player supports.

Thanks LOTR, so is using DVD-RW's made by Sony a good idea? Or should I use a different brand, or +RW, +R, -R, or both.

All you can do is see if the sony's work, if they don't try one of the brands that have been recommended...I use RWs simply for the fact that I can re-use them at a later time and if a movie doesn't work out properly on it I can re-write it again...

in general, any 'brand name' DVD will be fine...I tend to buy what's on sale...verbatim, imation, memorex, maxell...haven't had any issues with any of those...the cheapo generics tend to fail in a short amount of time...

I would suggest -R media as statistically speaking most players support that format...

as far as RW...well, with media soooo cheap these days I say why bother?...it takes time to erase a disc so you can re-use it...so I just throw away the occasional failed burn and go on with life...