Choosing DVD Burning Media

by: Carolynn Wong

There are many reasons why it's particularly important that we get to choose the most ideal type and, most of all, best DVD there is, especially if you're considering DVD burning. Low quality media can freeze or skip and may even not be recognized at all. Cyclic redundancy errors or “I/O” errors are also prevalent with these types of DVD media. These errors may mean that you are dealing with a dirty disco or that your DVD burner is not accepting the low quality media.

Another error that you can face is a "power calibration error." This type of error can also often be due to low quality media. What you could try to help is shut down the DVD software, eject the disc, and restart the program while re-inserting freshly cleaned media.

If you are trying to save up, cheap media can be fine for text or data sheets, even .jpg or .gif pictures but it’s not recommended for your DVD backups.

What you can do is download an identifier for your DVD in order to figure out what quality it is.

What you want and what you are after here is prime quality media for your DVD backups. Any type of media which may make use of superior dye and dye application paired with a quality composite disc are perfect for DVD backups. Gambling your DVD backups on lower quality media can very well waste your time and effort in DVD burning. Starting with good quality media will ensure you of quality results.

Remember, low quality media refers to the composite the manufacturer uses. This includes the dye method application and quality control of manufacturing. This does not necessarily refer directly to the price!

Aiming for the best burn!

When you are trying to get the best DVD burn, you may opt to decrease burn speed to 4x. Using a new 16x DL burner you could try burning at 6x. But 8x or over may result in coasters even while utilizing good quality media.

Backup life of a cheap disc

You may believe that data on a DVD backup may very well last forever, but make sure that you do not throw your originals down the drain. Frankly, you may end up needing them sooner than you think. Low quality discs can break down, some even within a year from burning. This is why quality is a key component in any type of DVD burning. Keep in mind that quality is an important factor in choosing all elements involved in DVD burning.