help finding good media in the USA

[brett]

I've been planning on getting a DVD-R drive for some time, but waiting till the price of media comes down. Now that I can get a Pioneer DVR-104 for $259, I just need a good source of media.

I've looked over all the compabiblity threads. I have a set-top Sony player, a Pioneer DVD-ROM, and a PlayStation 2 that I use to play DVD's. The media that has been reported as working with the PlayStation 2 is:

Verbatim DVD-R 2.0
Mitsui DVD-R 2.0
Vivastar DVD-R for data storage
PrimeDisc (unbranded Vivastar)
unbranded Rietek

I also see that branded TDK media is good, although unbranded TDK sold as Meritline seems to have some problems. I can't find Verbatim media for less than $4. Although Vivastar was reported to work great in the PS2, I've seen the thread saying that people have had incompatiblilty problems and even a write error on Vivastar media. This leaves me with the unbranded Rietek media avaliable at www.caloptic.com. They have it $16 for a 10-pack, so it's worth a try.

Anyway, my real questions are:

Does anybody know of reliable sources (i.e. not eBay) to get TDK or Verbatim media for under $3/each?

Does anybody else have experience with www.caloptic.com, or with unbranded Rietek media in general?

Does anybody know of other highly-compatible media I should look into?

Anybody have a good media source they'd like to share?

[brett]

I've been looking around and supermediastore.com has Rietek 1X for $33.75 for a 25-pack ($1.35 each) or $125 for a 100-pack. They have very good feedback on resellerratings. The only place I could find cheaper was yesbuy.net, which is a Yahoo store with very bad feedback on reselerratings.

I've looked all through the forum and Ritek seems to be the best cheap media. I ended up getting the 25-pack from supermediastore.com. It came out to $40.39 total with shipping (so $1.62 each, not bad).

[thxtof]

I would go either with the Ritek dark purple one at $1.25 or $1.35, depending how many you wanna buy, or the TDK x2 one at $2.65.

Never had any problem with those.

Both can be found on www.meritline.com or www.supermediastore.com



Avoid the Vivastar's one, it's really crap !

[jesoonster]

if you are cheapa-- like me though, I would try the cheapest media to see if they work or not.

1) Princo (go to pricewatch and find cheapest prices).
If you need a small batch to test them out first go buy the LEDA's from www.shop4tech.com (25 pack w/ free shipping is 28.50$).

If those work then go for broke and buy 100 pack or 200 pack princos at different stores. Cost should be around .75$/disc or around .80$

2) Although I don't recommend too highly, you can try meritline's dvdpro disc (the cheapest one). They are SOMEWHAT compatible...and work in many dvd players (all pioneer's seem to take it (don't quote me on this), and most apex...toshibas and sonys have a problem from time to time). THe only grudge I have against them are that they are heavy and their finish isn't great (the sides of the disc are like a poorly sandpapered piece of wood and small grain like things rub off and go onto the disc. Makes me wonder if it damages the player)

If you aren't satisfied with either go for RITEK's in Supermediastore.com (they are rock bottom price)

and lastly if you are interested in saving space when you copy dual layered dvds (most are), then you should try the 9.4 gb primedisc (rebadged riteks?) from supermedia store.com Price is 2.68$ a disc, but i advise you to buy them after you become familiar w/ burning.