Can someone recommend a brand name of dual layer discs...please.
jaybass

Verbatim single-layer discs have worked for me. I haven't used their double-layer. I bought Verbatim due to a recommendation from the old MacFixit Forums. I had been using another brand (I don't remember which but it was a major brand) and every one of them turned out to be coasters. I have long since discarded them.

Thank you for your reply Jon.
I remember someone praising verbatim discs from the old forum.
I have shopped around but as of now I havn't found any D/L verbatims but no doubt they do make them.

jaybass.

Memorex has worked well for me, but honestly I do not do that much D/L so my results may be skewed

The problem with Memorex blanks used to be (and may still be) that while they may burn OK initially, the disks tend to become partially or completely unreadable as soon as one year after burning. This I can say based on my own experience over the years and that of many others. I don't know if this bad rep is still warranted, but I'm not interested to run the test.

Verbatim has worked consistently well for me for over 10 years, with one exception: I recently noticed that burning audio CDs from compressed formats in iTunes doesn't work on my iMac G5 (late 2005) and MBP (early 2008), both running Leopard: the blanks are ejected untouched. It works swimmingly in Toast, however. Go figure...

It will be clear from the above that I wasn't exactly pleased when Walmart and Sam's Club (my local source for Verbatim blanks) switched from Verbatim to Memorex earlier this year.

And before I forget to mention it, I have used Verbatim DVD+R DL disks with good results: no coasters yet...

I bought my Verbatim DVD+R DLs from SuperMediaStore, and I was pleased with every aspect of the transaction.

The few I've burned have all turned out fine...so far; I didn't burn them long enough ago to have any valid longevity test results to report.

Like joemike I've used Memorex without problems. However, unlike alternaut, I don't have any that are particularly old.

ryck

I wonder why that would be. I can understand why initial recording of any disk might be a problem, due to a poor recording medium, but it seems strange that digital data itself would deteriorate. Could it be something else, like deterioration of visibility through the plastic, causing problems for the reader?

Would be interesting to know.

ryck

In most cases like that the problem is not the dyes or the substrate. It is because the protective coating is air permeable and the reflective media (usually aluminum foil) becomes exposed to oxygen seeping through the protective layer and oxidizing the underlying reflective media. Archival quality discs have a less permeable protective layer and use gold foil as the reflective layer because it is much more resistant (virtually immune) to oxidation.

I've always had good luck with verbatim, all the way back to 4x CD-Rs. Verbatim is rebranded as Bonus and AT&T if you can find them that way, they're cheaper.

I personally prefer the "printable" ones, with the white matte finish on the top. Not for printing, but for the ease of writing on them with marker, clearly, and because they're harder to damage.

These verbatims have worked fine for me.

Amazon

Your query, and some of the responses, got me thinking about what I use so I looked around and found this interesting reading about various recording media.

ryck