This question I get asked on a daily basis and it is difficult to give a direct answer.

I test all my discs by burning a full DVD video of 4.37gig (the maximum that can be fitted onto a DVD-R) and then I play it back in up to 10 DVD players to check for speed of initialization, quick chapter skipping, smooth picture search and smooth playback - paying particular attention to the last 10 minutes which is the area on the disc I find the most susceptible to sticking.

I try to find some sort of standard that I can work to for comparing the different discs and "Nero CD Speed" (using the file transfer test) gives a good visual indication as to the readability of the disc. I found that if the discs were read at the normal speed for my drives I would get a perfect graph for the majority of the good media so I had to find another way for making a comparison so I applied a firmware hack (thanks to HIJACKER) to my Toshiba M-1712 DVD-ROM reader to enable me to read the discs at 2 to 3 times the normal speed.

The resultant graphs at these read speeds are a lot more erratic and easily show up the different variations in the burn.

I have compiled a chart of the TOP DVD-R media I have tested, placing them in order of quality and speed of readability. I will update it as I get new media to test.
Unfortunately the above mentioned chart is no longer available but my latest media tests can be found in my Battle of the Burners series.
(NB. DVD-R manufacturers and suppliers if you want your media to appear in the series send me the media samples and I will include you in the chart.)

These results are just one graph of the particular brand out of about 10 that I do for each brand. I analyze my results and select the one that represents the average graph, I find that most of the brands follow a similar pattern so analysis is usually straight-forward.

Looking at the chart as it stands today, you can clearly see that the Pioneer media is almost perfect (one day all media will be like this) taking 5 minutes to read the disc and further down the chart the Bulkpaq is very irregular taking 7 minutes to read the disc.

I still consider the Bulkpaq to be a good value for money disc as the disc can be read easily and playback is without errors.

The discs at the lower end of the chart are from some of the new factories being set up and are only prototype samples for evaluation. At the current time they will not go into full production until the quality improves, but the results show what you may get if you buy from unscrupulous dealers who supply Grey Imported material.

Comments and questions about this review should be sent to flash@dvd-recordable.net.

Added:  Friday, June 06, 2003
Reviewer:  Flash

hits: 37961