TDK DVD-R’s- Are they good DVD’d to use for weddings?

[Robert Bec]

Hi

I have been using them for the past 6 months i have probably burned 500 plus dvds and can only recall about 2 or 3 being defective

I have tried so more brands and TDK stand out for me

Rob.

[Christopher Kinsman]

Sounds as if the clients dvd player can’t handle the data rate you’re encoding your DVD with. The company’s who create DVDs are fairly similar. Some drives do handle some brands better. But TDK is such a large co. I can’t image them producing an inferior product. Kind Regards, Chris K.

[13]

I only use MAXELL or TAIYO YUDEN, I have found then to be the most reliable. But it douse sound like your bit rate is to high.

[Jd]

Thank you all for your feedback!!

I use Final Cut Pro 5 but I burn in iDVD . Is there a way to change bit rate somehow with this workflow?

Thanks and any help appreciated!

~jd

[13]

not with iDVD

Use compressor and DVD SP. I have always told people to create custom menus in DVD SP, why use iDVD any 10 year old can make a DVD in iDVD. As a professional you want something that will stand out, and be unique.

[Reg Gothard]

My strategy for burning DVDs (with 100% success on well over a thousand discs so far) is to burn them slowly.
My faulty/return rate was about 3% about 2 years ago. I read, asked, experimented… and as a result am using Taiyo 8x DVD-Rs burned at 4x on Pioneer DVR-109 burners.
I had been using Ritek, then moved to Maxell at the same time I reduced my burn speed and changed my burner(from a poorly-supported LG burner). Since then I’ve changed to Taiyo discs. Although I changed burner, DVDs and burn speed, I’m positive that the burn speed was the thing that really fixed my problems. My rationale for that view is that it explains why every brand of DVD has both fans and hate-mail – ditto for most decent brands of DVD burner. The fans are burning DVDs slowly, and the hate-mail writers are burning them quickly. (Sweeping generalization, but…)
Some people advocate that we should burn at 2x (despite the abilty to burn at 8x, 12x, 16x), but I’ve found that 4x is slow enough.

I also keep my bitrate down below 6000 for the most part. I’m not sure if this helps though. I remember reading somewhere that in order to call itself a DVD player, a machine has to handle a minimum rate of 8000 (it might have been even higher). I just need time to do some more messing around with constant vs. variable rates, and high vs. low rates, and then I’ll start getting adventurous with bitrates…

But to re-iterate – my recommendation is to burn DVDs slowly.

[Gary Chvatal]

I master on DVD-Rs as well. When my clients say the DVD is skipping I copy it onto a DVD+R and it fixes the problem 99% of the time. There are still compatibility issues with burned discs and some players.

[Mark]

I have found, as Reg, that burn speed is critical. i have an older Pioneer player that I use for testing my disks (along with other players). The Pioneer plays anything burned at 4x very smoothly. When I burn at 8x I get choppy playback.

I only use TDK-R disks. I have used a lot of them and am very happy with the reliability and compatibility.