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I should be getting this burner tomorrow, but probably won't get any more DVD media for a month or two from now. I was wondering what would be best. Is Taiyo Yuden the best for DVD media? I know their TYG03 16X media was a problem.

What's the best media with the 1655 for each category?
1. DVD-R 8X
2. DVD+R 8X
3. DVD-R DL 8X
4. DVD+R DL 8X
5. 16X either DVD-R or DVD+R

I will most likely be ordering it from rima.com. My home DVD player is a Sony and my computer stuff is shown below. Thank you.

1. DVD-R 8X -> Verbatim 8x DVD-R
2. DVD+R 8X -> Verbatim 8x DVD+R
3. DVD-R DL 8X -> Verbatim 8x DVD-RDL (good luck finding any!!)
4. DVD+R DL 8X -> Verbatim 8x DVD+RDL
5. 16X either DVD-R or DVD+R -> Verbatim 16x DVD±R

It could be argued to be Taiyo Yuden for the first 2 though

dolphinius_rex wrote:It could be argued to be Taiyo Yuden for the first 2 though

Yes, yes it could..

Or Verbatium DVD+R 16x media, burned at 8x:


Dolph, will the 8x Verbatiums burn better than the 16x ones @ 8x? I don't think I've ever tried those before. Newegg always has 'em...

Edit: Opps. Wrong pic posted. Fixed.

Hard to say, consumer drives can't do a decent enough job reporting errors to make a differential worth opinionating off. And I don't have enough "time" on CATS to do that kind of testing.

Maybe I should take out my Taiyo Yuden suggestion for the 8x media....
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 141#161141

dolphinius_rex wrote:Maybe I should take out my Taiyo Yuden suggestion for the 8x media....
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 141#161141

Yes...yes you should.


And so should I

Of course, that happened like 10 minutes after I posted that one above

Ooops, it looks like the 1655 only burns DVD-R DL at 4x.....at least that's what it says on the box (got it about an hour ago). I may be switching to DVD+R anyway as I don't have a Toshiba home DVD player anymore.

A few more questions:
1. Looks like the 1655 takes DVD+R lightscribe media. Has anyone used lightscribe?

2. Can lightscribe burn CD album covers?

3. What's good CD-R lightscribe media?

4. Is lightscribe really worth it and does it decrease the life of the disc?

Thank you.

Lightscribe can only "print" to the top surface of the disc.

Disc wise, stick with Verbatium's for DVDs & CDs; Memorex's LS DVD's suck. Their CD-Rs seem OK, though.

LS shouldn't decrease the life of the disc at all.

Worth it? Maybe, maybe not. It takes forever (the old LS discs, about 1/2hr at best quality, the new 1.2 media, about 20 minutes).

The older stuff appears to burn darker, too. There's also a visable differance between CDs & DVDs - CD's are darker. Lightscribe is capable of some incrediable detail, too.

Maybe these will help....please excuse the crappy quality





I use it sometimes, but not very often.

Looks like Lightscribe is something you don't want to do if you have a colorful cover.

Inkjet would be alot faster/better in that case.

The one cd above, my friend did the cover artwork for (on my PC, since he has a 300MHz K6-2 ).

The orginal is basically the same color as the lightscribe version! Worked out good

MonsterMan wrote:Inkjet would be alot faster/better in that case.

But Lightscribe is water proof and smudge proof

Really, inkjet is good for some applications, and Lightscribe is good for others. It depends what you need it for really. I have 2 lightscribe drives, and probably 40 or 50pcs of lightscribe media, and I have yet to burn any of it

OK, my stack of DVD-Rs is getting really short right now and it's time to get new DVD discs. I'm thinking of getting some DVD+R DL 8X and some DVD-R 8X (or DVD+R 8X). I know sometimes if you get DVD+R you have to do something special with your burner before the burn or something. Should I just get DVD-R and not worry about that?

Also, anything more specific on the labels I need to look for besides Verbatim 8X discs for the DL and single-layer ones? Thank you.

EDIT: I was thinking about ordering this for the DVD+R DL.......
http://www.rima.com/Merchant2/merchant. ... e=DVDPLUSR

This if I ordered DVD+R......
http://www.rima.com/Merchant2/merchant. ... e=DVDPLUSR

And this if I ordered DVD-R.......
http://www.rima.com/Merchant2/merchant. ... ry_Code=DM

How does all that sound?

i like verbatims 16x.

I ended up ordering the DVD-R 8X discs and the DVD+R DL 8X discs in those links. Will I need to set the booktype or something different for the DVD+R DL discs when I'm backing up movies or doing something else?

My lord, I just realized I haven't hooked up my new BenQ 1655 burner yet! Just kinda waiting for a large block of time to open up.

well, other then the fact that those are 2.4x rated DVD+RDL, and they won't burn at 8x on your drive, and the fact that Rima seems to charge quite high for Verbatim media.... you should be fine. I would have gone for the Verbatim DVD+Rs over the DVD-Rs though.

No, that's the only Verbatim 8X DVD+R DL that they sell. I think the pic may be wrong. I got this info from the list of Verbatim DVD+R DLs. If this is wrong, then let me know and I'll call those bastards up this afternoon.
Here are those same 95310s at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817130008

I'll probably only burn them at 4X anyway at least for the first couple.

Will I need to set the booktype and/or something different for the DVD+R DL discs when I'm backing up movies or doing something else?

dolphinius_rex wrote:

But Lightscribe is water proof and smudge proof

Really, inkjet is good for some applications, and Lightscribe is good for others. It depends what you need it for really. I have 2 lightscribe drives, and probably 40 or 50pcs of lightscribe media, and I have yet to burn any of it

Then use watershielde or aqua guard disc's.
No really lightscribe has no real advantage when it comes to applications.

SkaarjMaster wrote:No, that's the only Verbatim 8X DVD+R DL that they sell. I think the pic may be wrong. I got this info from the list of Verbatim DVD+R DLs. If this is wrong, then let me know and I'll call those bastards up this afternoon.
Here are those same 95310s at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817130008

I'll probably only burn them at 4X anyway at least for the first couple.

Will I need to set the booktype and/or something different for the DVD+R DL discs when I'm backing up movies or doing something else?

95310 -> spindle of 2.4x MKM001 (can burn up to 8x on some drives but not your benq 1655)
95311 ->5 pack 8x MKM003
No spindles of 8x MKM003 exists at the moment.

So, let me get this straight. After I asked about media for this BenQ 1655 drive and was told Verbatim was the best and the drives specifications say it supports 8X DVD+R DL burns, now that I ordered some rated for up to 8X it won't work at 8X. Bizarre!?
Will it burn at 4X on that DL media?

So where do I find some Verbatim DVD+R DL 8X media? Or do I just order the 16X media? (both that will burn at 8X on the BenQ 1655)

Verbatim advertises their 2.4x media is being capable of 8x speeds with certain drives. Unfortunately, many retailers take this as being rated at 8x which is confusing as hell considering Verbatim also offers true 8x rated media.

I've been buying my 8x DVD+R DL media from Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817130007

I noticed that Newegg also advertises their 2.4x as 8x and their 4x DVD-R DL at 8x. With so many companies doing this, you gotta wonder if Verbatim is doing the same.

OK, that clears that up. I just ordered some of those also.

So do I have to reset the booktype or something like that to burn on these DVD+Rs versus DVD-R burning?

RJW wrote:

dolphinius_rex wrote:

But Lightscribe is water proof and smudge proof

Really, inkjet is good for some applications, and Lightscribe is good for others. It depends what you need it for really. I have 2 lightscribe drives, and probably 40 or 50pcs of lightscribe media, and I have yet to burn any of it

Then use watershielde or aqua guard disc's.
No really lightscribe has no real advantage when it comes to applications.

But then you have to deal with crappy TYG03 media (in both cases!) Not to mention the insane price

Ian wrote:Verbatim advertises their 2.4x media is being capable of 8x speeds with certain drives. Unfortunately, many retailers take this as being rated at 8x which is confusing as hell considering Verbatim also offers true 8x rated media.

I've been buying my 8x DVD+R DL media from Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817130007

I noticed that Newegg also advertises their 2.4x as 8x and their 4x DVD-R DL at 8x. With so many companies doing this, you gotta wonder if Verbatim is doing the same.

Verbatim had a typo on their original price list that listed the 95310 as 8x media... this caused a LOT of problems. Bestbuy was the first company to have access to it (before it was on a public price list) and they took it at its' word. The U.S. Price list got it next, and NewEgg followed suite. The Canadian price list got it a little later, and that's when I got them to fix it (and is also why I now get the U.S. price list as well as the Canadian one ).

The *ONLY* Verbatim DVD+RDL SKU that is 8x in North America is 95311, and it's a 5pk in jewel cases.

If anyone is curious, Bestbuy will not change their SKU listing, even if it's wrong. Someone in the USA should probably try to sue them for false advertising (It has been fixed on current price lists for some time now, so they SHOULD be aware!!)

As it is, most drives can NOT burn 2.4x Verbatim DVD+RDL at 8x... only a small handful. Most can burn them at 4x or 6x though. Oddly enough newer DVD burners usually limit the media to 2.4x or 4x at most now though.

SkaarjMaster wrote:OK, that clears that up. I just ordered some of those also.

So do I have to reset the booktype or something like that to burn on these DVD+Rs versus DVD-R burning?

Booktype on DVD+RDL media is automatically set to DVD-ROM by just about every drive (I can't think of a drive that doesn't do this). The BenQ DW1655 will set DVD+R single layer to DVD-ROM also automatically I believe.

I'll be using ImgBurn for the final process (the actual burning). Is there any way to tell what the BenQ 1655 is burning at with the 2.4X DL media when I set it to max burning speed?