Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony DVD Minus (16X Speed) 50 spindle

I have used a number of different blank DVDs but these are by far the most reliable. Out of about 70 discs that I have so far used I have had two that failed to burn. In both cases I gave them a wipe with some CD / DVD cleaning fluid and they burned first time. I use these with a Sony DVD recorder so I cannot vouch for other types of recorders but they seem very reliable to me and when I have burned stuff for other people to view on their systems it has been 100% successful.

I've just managed to get through all 50 of mine and I've used them for a variety of things and I haven't had a coaster from my 50.

16x without a problem and that is better than verbatim which never get the speeds they claim.

look no further for reliable dvd-r's!

I record live TV to HDD, edit, then copy at 16x to these Sony DVD-R. In 3 x 50-spindles, I have had only 1 imperfect ; the copy is playable, but it can't be Finalized.
Check Kikatek too for prices. They too are v reliable supplier ; sometimes cheaper, sometimes not.

A caution to the fumblers like me : don't blame failures & problems on the discs until you are really certain it's not your DVR-recorder that is junk. I bought a Sony DVD-player, a Philips DVD/VHS recorder, then a Sony DVD/80GbHDD recorder. The Philips is junk : it often can't read discs it has itself recorded, yet the Sony recorder CAN read these Philips-recorded DVDs ! It's not just Philips : the Sony player freezes & sometimes rejects the DVDs recorded on the Sony recorder !
On the same DVD, don't mix recordings done on 1 recorder with new ones done on another.
I have concluded that there is no 100% reliable product-supplier, at any rate not in this mid-range market. If you check the Customer Reviews on DVDs and on recorders & players, you always find a bunch of happy customers, plus 1 or 2 saying that it's junk.
So my advice is : stick throughout to Sony, & if you have trouble, whack the DVDs AND the recorder in to the nearest Sony Regional Service ctr under warranty -- they're pretty helpful. Don't mix suppliers : you get better service if all the kit is from the same manufacturer.
If you like tearing your hair, buy from cheap manufacturers. Or buy Philips.

None of this is Amazon's DIRECT fault. BUT Amazon is big enough to kick these manufacturers. They obviously are ALL knowingly shipping product where 1 in a few has faults/bugs ; then they rely on the customer & service agent to sort it out. I guess that dumping this nuisance on the customer is cheaper than stricter quality control. The vast sales of pre-recorded DVDs show that DVDs CAN be burnt reliably ; I guess manufacturers cut quality to the bone in the mass market for "amateur" customers. Come on, Amazon, git ya boots on. Refuse to ship the products that are drawing more than a very few complaints. I'd prefer to pay GBP 250 for a recorder & discs that work properly than GBP 200 for one that doesn't -- especially a combination that burns discs that can't be read next month.

I have VHS recorded in 1985 that still work. My worry is whether ANY of these DVDs will be playable in 5 or 10 yrs time (:-{) Maybe we should all have stuck to VHS ...

RJ Stansfield
West London

Using my (Sony) DVD writer drive, I've been attempting to burn backup DVDs using these disks. Out of the 30 disks tried so far, 18 have completely failed to burn. 20 remain on the spindle, and I'm not very tempted to continue trying to use them.

Burning was tried at 4x (the speed of the drive) and, in some cases, I knocked the speed setting down to 2x, so it's not a speed issue. And it's not a problem with the drive itself either, since burning other brands of DVDs, including cheap "WorthIt" ones from Woolworth's which I've just bought to complete this backing up process, works absolutely fine.

These are possibly the worst DVD-Rs I've come across: A 60% failure rate is absolutely unacceptable - and I'd advise anybody to steer clear.

I usually don't buy this brand but last time Verbatim and Memorex DVDs were sold out. So I decided to give Sony a try...wish I didn't. This are 16x DVDs but in my experience, if you burn at that speed, almost half the times they will be rendered useless. So that you know, I use Nero 6 Ultra Edition and my burner is an LG GSA-4163B, all in a XP OS. Other reviewers give this product 5 stars and maybe their software/burner works better with this media. In my case, I bought a 16x burning media that only copes with 8x. It might even be a problem with the lot mine came from. But I never had this kind of problems with Verbatim or Memorex. So be advised... Hope this helps... Cheers!