Which do you use and why? Which would be best for me? I just want to back up my FLACs reliably to something realistic and to me, CD-R isn't too friendly with my hundreds of CDs to archive. I've already started ripping with EAC and FLACing them. They're on my HDD and I want to know which is better media to use: DVD-R or DVD+R. I also make lossy conversions to MP3 using --alt-preset cbr 80 [because my portable (iRiver iMP-550) can't handle VBR without having annoying problems (showing wrong time and file position) seeking through my single-file album MP3s] for my portable and I get some 20 hours or so on a single 700-MB CD.

PS: I just got a Plextor Premium (black).

Within the next month I'm going to start using a RAID-5 system, and DVD-R's stored off-site. Dual Layer disc's are still to expensive, but once the price comes down I'll start using them.

I've been using DVD+R for backups since 2003, and used DVD-R in 2002. So far, none of the discs show any errors, and they have generally been a cheap and reliable way for me to back up audio and other types of data. For the time being, DVD+R DL is way too expensive and unreliable to play with right now....let them sort out the compatibility issues and prices before going that direction.

DVD+R usually perform better, you should probably try to write the book type to DVD-ROM for compatibility though.

And I would only use Mitsubishi for really important stuff, check out CD Freaks.

DVD+R or -R shouldn't matter too much in principle, because they are chemically and physically similar enough that none of them has a longevity advantage.

It much more depends on the combination of DVD burner and the media. Some examples from a recent review in c't magazine, where they tested some lesser known 8x media with some well-known burners:

BenQ DW-822A (B3IC)
- good quality with this DVD+R 8x media: 3A Media, Maxell, Intenso
- good quality with this DVD-R 8x media: 3A Media, The One, Sony, TDK
- bad quality with this DVD+R 8x media: Skymedia, MAM-E
- bad quality with this DVD-R 8x media: MAM-E

LG GSA-4120B (A101)
- good quality with this DVD+R 8x media: 3A Media, MAM-E, Intenso
- good quality with this DVD-R 8x media: MAM-E
- bad quality with this DVD+R 8x media: Skymedia, Maxell
- bad quality with this DVD-R 8x media: 3A Media, The One, Sony, TDK

NEC 2510A (2.15)
- good quality with this DVD+R 8x media: 3A Media, MAM-E
- good quality with this DVD-R 8x media: 3A Media, MAM-E, The One, Sony
- bad quality with this DVD+R 8x media: Skymedia, Maxell, Intenso
- bad quality with this DVD-R 8x media: TDK

Pioneer DVR-A07 XL (1.16)
- good quality with this DVD+R 8x media: Maxell, Intenso,
- good quality with this DVD-R 8x media: 3A Media, MAM-E, The One, TDK
- bad quality with this DVD+R 8x media: 3A Media, Skymedia, MAM-E
- bad quality with this DVD-R 8x media: Sony

Plextor PX-712A (1.03)
- good quality with this DVD+R 8x media: -
- good quality with this DVD-R 8x media: 3A Media, MAM-E, Sony
- bad quality with this DVD+R 8x media: Skymedia, MAM-E, Maxell, Intenso
- bad quality with this DVD-R 8x media: The One, TDK


If you study these results, you'll see that one media works good with one burner and is a desaster on another one. This is true for much of the media on the market. So you can't make a general statement about one brand; you always have to look at the combination. Wether we look at DVD+R or DVD-R makes no difference. Also, it's very crucial to keep the burner's firmware up to date, because in the next version, they might have implemented a proper strategy for one of the "bad" media, lifting it up to the "good" media ranks...

Don't want to be anal, but the 712A did not receive a "-" for 3A DVD+R.

Additionally, one should study the different writing speeds on the various media types to get a better overview (as an example, the near-perfect result for the 2510A and MAM-E DVD+R was achieved at 2,4x whereas the bad result on the 712A was achieved with 8x writing) ...

The 712A definitely has some problems at 8x but will write with unmatched quality at 6x or 4x ... there are some threads over at cdfreaks in the plextor forum covering this issues.

Nevertheless, the ct review was one of the most comprehensive and informative media reviews I have ever read.

Edit: Typo

Sorry, that's right, it did receive an "average" rating. So it's neither good nor bad.



That's true, but they let the burners choose the burn speed, so i have to say that Plextor needs to put less optimistic speeds in their firmware, while NEC has done it right. And who knows if the NEC wouldn't have this good result under 8x or if the Plextor would have a perfect one at 2,4x...



I believe you, but why buy an expensive Plextor where i have to burn at 4x, when i can get another burner that can write with good quality at 8x?



I hope you didn't miss the previous ones

JeanLuc or CiTay, does any of you have the c't 5/04 (p. 132), 10/04 (p. 138) or 14/04 (p. 148) and could post the results of those tests? Unfortunately, the library here is Karlsruhe is closed until mid. September.

Sorry, that are far too many results for me to post here, and i think c't wouldn't like to see that either... Isn't there a library in a neighboring town.. or maybe one of your friends is a c't subscriber?

OK, my Dad's company is a c't subscriber so I'll ask him to have a look at those releases.

Hm ... I do own two 52x CD rewriters ... and I still write at 16-24x for lower BLER. And remember, from the point of transfer rate, 8x DVD writing equals 72x CD writing on a medium that will store 6.4 times the data on the same area. For me, reliable 8x DVD writing is not an option.

As a side note, I did not encounter any problems with quality media on my 712A at 8x since Firmware 1.04 ... and ct is still using 1.03 for their reviews ...

What I especially liked about this specific review was the table with the mechanial properties of the different media types ... ;-)

But of course you can't compare it like that. Sure, the amount of data written per second has been increased, but not the rotational speed of the disc. Quite the contrary: 8x DVD+-R burning uses roughly the same RPM range as 24x CD-R burning! It's well within the physical safety range for good quality burns. About the write speed (KB/s) itself, well, the DSPs have much improved and can handle it with ease. The chemical process has evolved enough to make perfect burns possible with several combinations, as evident by c't reviews. When there's a good combination of burner and media, it's not so necessary to slow down to 4x, from a quality point of view.

Do the other 3 c't reviews also contain information about the DVD media, like the current one does?

Yes, but not all tests included the detailed mechanical properties of the media, only the graphical maps of axial errors were shown sometimes.

Thanks!