jberry wrote:curious....how much more is it per DVD to make a "standard" Verbatim, Maxell, etc surface?
Umm, if you want to compare standard to standard, you're looking at Thermal printable media from Verbatim and Maxell, and both of which offer the exact same surface type then (I.E. Shiny Silver). The difference is that Taiyo Yuden doesn't offer a consumer disc.... they also don't outsource their media like Verbatim and Maxell.
To make Taiyo Yuden look like a consumer disc, you're looking at probably +$0.05 per disc.... if you print maybe 100k or 200k at a time. Depending on what is done with the disc, and the labour involved.
In a time where consumers fight over EVERY PENNY on CDR/DVDR media... not many places want to take this kind of risk.