My friend recorded hundreds of movies before he went overseas for a year. He strongly discourages using cheap brands of disks due to their high rate of failure. He also suggested recording DVDs at half their max speed (a 16X max disk should record very well at 8X).

My best friend is a microelectronics tech. who applied to Radio Shack for an advertised part-time temp job at Christmas. Radio Shack said that he knew too much about electronics for their purposes. And when he was a field supervisor for our local cable company, he spent much of his time disconnecting Radio Shack connectors, splitters, and other equipment that was leaking too much RF or otherwise disrupting cable service. My own experience with that company, the K-Mart of high-end electronics, has been similarly rewarding. I guess the Chinese manufacturers had to learn from somebody.