A late entry into my blank media reviews has provided perfect burns! Taiyo Yuden, an internet only order, unless you live in downtown Tokyo (and if you do, e-mail me, maybe we can work out some kind of trade deal!), is Taiyo Yuden. I ordered a set of 50 of them and they were about $55.00 with shipping and handling. That makes these the most expensive discs I have tested, but when you consider that they do the job they are supposed to, the far cheaper Memorex discs that DON'T do what they are supposed to are really the more expensive proposition.

Basic Description This is a spindle pack of 50 discs. They are 8X and they have white ink jet printable surfaces that print to the inner hub. Taiyo Yuden is also available in quantities from 100 to 600 at a time.

Speed 8X discs burn fast, I used my copy of The Incredibles to test the Taiyo Yuden discs. From the time I put this 2 hour movie plus extra features into my DVD Burner, to the time my newly minted backup copy popped out was less than 15 minutes. That's reading the original disc, changing it for the blank disc, and burning the blank disc. Keep in mind that this is as much a function of the burner as it is the disc. Taiyo Yuden discs will work just fine in faster 16X burners (which is what I have) and slower 2X burners with proper firmware updates. I cannot personally vouch for the slower burners, it's what I have read.

Burn Quality I burned some data on one of these discs just to make sure it worked well for data. Jpegs, MP3s and a multitude of WORD and Publisher documents backed up in record time with no errors. However, even my Memorex DVDs will do that. The real test and what I have been looking for in a perfect disc is the ability to make perfect back up copies of Video. I can attest that many blank DVDs have a problem with this.

The Incredibles is a movie of digital perfection by Pixar. (Read any number of reviews by other epinionaters, or top ten lists in childrens films for confirmation of this). It's also a long movie, which means my program DVD-X has to compress it to fit it on this disc, a tricky process. The Incredibles was burned with 42% compression. How did it come out? Perfect! Every pixel computer generated by PIXAR was present. The sound was spot on, the menus all worked fine, film makers audio commentary was all present as were the Spanish and French language tracks. I had some fun listening to the movie in Spanish for a while just to make sure! Bottom Line, Taiyo Yuden provided a perfect burn. Now my son has a backup copy he can watch anytime and I don't have to worry about fingerprints or scratches on my original disc. I burned a second disc with all the extra features, and it also came out perfect! Domo Arrigoto Taiyo Yuden!

Printable Surfaces One quality I have looked for in DVD media is an ink jet printable surface. I do this because after making a large number of perfect backups on Maxell DVDs I inadvertently RUINED them all by applying stick on DVD labels. After much research online, I found out that labeling DVDs caused many many people problems. It really doesn't affect data DVDs, just video DVDs. I chose Taiyo Yuden as one of my contenders because it has a printable surface. The DVD is white, and it has a printable surface right to the center hub. Some DVDs only allow you to print to the outer hub (think the hub on a CD, thats the outer hub on a DVD). I like this, because it makes the DVD look more professional. The surface allows you to print high quality photographs or razer sharp text onto the DVD surface. I scanned in the cover of my Incredibles DVD and printed "Nick's Copy" on it, and both the graphics and the text look great.

Overall Value This was my second favorite burnable printable blank DVD. It burned perfectly. The only reason I don't rank it Number One is the cost. The Verbatim DVDs also delivered perfect burns with center hub printable surfaces for about 13 to 15 cents cheaper per DVD. Not a lot for a few, but when you buy 50 to a hundred at a time, it can add up. However, if you for any reason have a problem with Verbatim, spend a bit more, and you can get Taiyo Yuden.

Blank Media (DVD+/-Rs, CD+/-Rs)
Here you can read about my quest for the perfect blank media to burn back up DVDs, CDs and data.

Verbatim 52 X printable CD-Rs (50 spindle pack)
Memorex Printable 8X DVD+Rs (20 spindle pack)
Memorex Printable 16X DVD+Rs (50 spindle pack)
Maxell 8X DVD-Rs (25 spindle pack)
TDK 8X Printable DVD-Rs (25 spindle pack)
Verbatim 8X Printable DVD-Rs (50 spindle pack)


Recommended: Yes