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They're just like Cd-Rs and CD-RWs except they come in DVD size.

Are they good or too unreliable?

They can be reliable, but the old adage remains: you get what you pay for. Cheap DVD-R[W]s may not last very long. Delamination may be a serious issue with them as with many CD-R[W]s.

If you need some archival grade discs, Mitsui discs are considered the best out there (Kodak used to make excellent discs, but cheap bulk packs drove them out of business ) You will pay a price premium for these good discs, so be warned.

TDK has a line of scratch-resistant discs (I can't recall their name) which should be resistant to delamination as well.

I've been using Maxells for archival purposes. Have you heard anything about them?

And what is the realistic chance of delamination anyway?

Depends on conditions. My brother has numerous year-old cheap CD-R discs that have never been outside (or exposed to high levels of UV) yet have delaminated within a year. Most annoying. OTOH, we have some ancient discs that keep on tickin'...

As for DVD-Rs (I'm assuming that's what you're referring to), I don't know as much. For those, I'm assuming that Mitsui keeps their high quality and I've heard good things about TDK's "Hard Coat" line. As for Maxwell? No idea, sorry. I'll look around.

Check out CDMediaworld For all sorts of info abot cd and quality.

Oh hand here's the review for maxell.

That information looks rather old ... for example, the Fuji discs are mostly made by Taiyo Yuden these days (if it says Made in Japan, anyways).

I've never had a problem with Maxells in any form. Even old-fashioned 3.5 Mag Floppies (remember those?)!

Right now I have a 50round drum of Sony CDR-80s, and the only problem I'm having with 'em is that they're not too tolerant of people putting their dirty fingers on the read side of the disks. Otherwaise, they're A Otay!

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:I've never had a problem with Maxells in any form. Even old-fashioned 3.5 Mag Floppies (remember those?)!

Ugh. These days I find that most discs are shoddily made. We have some ancient 3M disks still going strong, but new ones I buy fail rather soon.

Right now I have a 50round drum of Sony CDR-80s, and the only problem I'm having with 'em is that they're not too tolerant of people putting their dirty fingers on the read side of the disks. Otherwaise, they're A Otay!

There's a program called CDRIdentifier that lets you find out who actually made the CD - I doubt that it is truly a Sony.

Interestingly, NIST is developing a standard for 'archival grade' CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.

phongn wrote:Interestingly, NIST is developing a standard for 'archival grade' CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.

Excellent! I shall make liberal use of these archival-grade CDR(W)s!