How do I decide which DVD media to buy?

Firstly, make sure you know whether you need DVD-R 'minus' format, DVD R 'plus' format or DVD-RAM media. There
are some first questions that narrow your choice down: Do you want
discs in cases or bulk-wrapped without cases? Do you want a branded,
plain or printable disc? Plain discs with a silver top are more prone
to handling damage but easier to label. Discs advertised as printable
are usually inkjet-printable with a suitable disc inkjet printer. Other
types of disc printers such as thermal, usually prefer glossy-topped
discs.Do you want a write-once DVDR disc or a re-writeable DVDRW disc that allows you to use over and over again? First
class media manufacturers, e.g. Taiyo Yuden, Mitsubishi Chemicals Corp
(Verbatim), Panasonic, Sony and TDK, make highly compatible and
dependable discs suitable for backup and long term data retention. The
difference between discs often comes down to compatibility. The better
the compatibility of a disc, the greater the chance that it will play
in a given machine. This is particularly important if you want the disc
to play in standalone DVD players. In the mid-price range, we
find discs based on a Ritek, CMC, Moser Baer or Prodisc dye to be good
in terms of compatibility - FWS, Tuff Disc, Datasafe, Datawrite and
Bulkpaq often use dyes from these manufacturers for their discs.
Memorex and Maxell brands also make good choices. Sometimes cheaper discs have a slightly increased risk of burn failures
but this is not always the case especially when used at slower burn
speed . We have found that a general rule for buying discs is that
'you get what you pay for'. Brands such as Panasonic, Sony, Verbatim,
TDK and Taiyo Yuden are renowned for the exceptional quality and
reliability of discs that they produce and therefore you can expect to
pay higher prices for these products. Afraid
I don't stock bottom range/value discs as they usually provide very
poor results in burn quality, and compatibility for playback with many
players, these type of discs are usually not approved by many top tier
hardware manufactures so hardwares firmware won't be able to read
lead-in code of the disc which results in poor burn quality or won't
work at all (recorder simply refuses to recognise).I report the
ADVDINFO or DVDInfo information in the description for a lot of discs I
sell on ebay where possible. This lets you learn the dye manufacturer
of the disc (e.g. CMC, Ritek, Prodisc, TY) to assess the results you
might expect . Very useful if you know what discs the manufacturer
recommends for your setop recorder or DVD camcorder. For PC DVD
Burners A free software program available online let you access the
Lead In code (ADVDINFO) as well as perform a few tests on recorded
discs