Wonder, if any one can speculate on the reason:

One brand of DVD+Rs play fine on my Sony DVD player (Sony 5500, 3-4 yrs old) but another brand's DVD+Rs aren't recognized. Are there different categories of DVD+Rs??

(Both play fine on PC DVD player).

Perhaps my Sony DVD player is not compatible with DVD+R, as it's an older model, but then why does it play one brand of DVD+Rs??
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Another Q:

What's the life of DVD+Rs (Single Layer ones)?? Why I ask is, what good will it do to make back up copies of our DVDs on DVD+R if these DVD+Rs too stop playing after a year or two??

Thanks.

Rana

yes, DVD+/-R come are manufactured by numerous companies... the cheaper discs are normally manufactured by companies such as princo and prodisc etc... and are generally poor quality.. they do the job, i.e. burn data onto disc, but are very tempremental on some older hardware... they also tend to stop working after a few weeks.. best bet wud be to purchase some quality manufactured discs by companies such as Ritek... u can normally distinguish ebtween the two by the colouring of the dye... Ritek Discs are normally darker in dye, whereas princo and the likes are lighter.. the darker the disc the better...

Again, answering ure final question.. recordable DVD media isnt really perfect.. i got discs which were burnt about 2 years ago and still work perfectly.. however i got discs i only burnt last week that dont work.. its pot luck.. just use quality media, and store it in a case and u shud be fine.. if u leave them lying around they get scratched very easily and stop working..

Question 1:
No DVD player is compatiable with all brands of DVD+R or DVD-R, especailly for 3, 4 years old DVD player. So choose the brand that your DVD player can play.

Question 2:
Depends on how often you play it, how careful you handle it and the brand of DVD+R(DVD-R) I recall I read somewhere that "Pioneer DVD-R media provides 100 years' life expectancy". Sure there is something advertising. But I think a decent brand of DVDR under careful handle should have 10 years life at least.

totally agree with this....ritek media is the best i've never used anything esle as long as the dye is darker and its done by ritek u can't go wrong there even better than the so call orignals done by EROS or VIDEOSOUND/SPARK

Just to add my vote for Ritek, if you're in the US, buy Ritek from Newegg.com (very cheap prices for 50 pack) and you can't go wrong. I bought 50 DVD-R for $38.99 and haven't had a problem with any of them.

I saw fry's electronics selling GQ brand for $25/50 pack and r 4X!!

Probably Memorex, which refuses to play on my Denon. I've had 100% compatibality success on the Ritek's and no disc errors, so I don't bother switching to save a couple of bucks.

Use DVD-R. Greater chance of compatibility, especially on older players. My 5 year old Toshiba and 7 year old Pioneer DVD/LD combo player will only accept DVD-R. Riteks are good for every day use...but if you want the best...get Taiyo Yuidens. I have about 100 TY DVD-Rs that I keep for special occaisons. For data, I tend to use DVD+R.

-Bh

Agree with using DVD-Rs ... greater compatibility.
Rather than DVD-RW I like to use DVD+RWs for movies which I dont want to keep since you dont need to format them before writing everytime, they easily overwrite.
I have a 1.5yr old Panasonic RP81 which plays DVD-/+R/RWs easily from brands like Memorex (suprisingly) Fuji, Sony, Maxell and some unbranded stuff.
I have a Pioneer DV-414 which also plays almost anything, I say anything because for reason Pioneer doesnt like Memorex discs.
Regarding the life span of DVD-/+Rs is like Faddy bhai said its Pot Luck.

I have a Panasonic about 1.5yrs old which plays everything as well.
DVD+/-R, RW. I've used a lot of unbranded DVD+R and DVD-R media and had not problems so far, but with my Samsung 5yr old DVD player which won't play any DVD-R, or RW media. It will play DVD+R media, (some times) only to get stuck half way.

I have a new Sony DVD player coming soon which can play everything like my Panasonic.

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences and wisdom regarding DVD Rs.

I, and perhaps many others, want to find a solution for Time Bomb Indian DVDs of today. DVDs released 2-3 yrs ago, mostly are still playing, but the current releases of DVDs rot away in a few months usually. As indicated in the replies above, backing up on DVD Rs too is good for only a couple of yrs. Backing up on PC Hard Drive is no solution either as it takes up too much memory space, accomodating ony 10 DVDs codes on one Hard Drive.

Looks like, Indian DVDs are not for collecting. They are marketed for limited plays/ limited time only. Or for Rental, where a DVD sees 20-100 rentals before it rots away. Rental store making hefty profit.

So, any idea on how to make your DVD collection last.

Secondly, how long should the DVDs in your collection last. 1 Yr, 5 Yrs, 10 Yrs?? Remember, High Def DVDs are coming too, in a not too distant future and we'll be upgrading our collection all over again. Well, present day Low Def DVDs play for a limited time, I wonder what will be the life span of HD DVDs??

Looks like High Def VHS lasts longer than DVDs??

back it up on vhs master and copy to dvd r every so often when needed

This is what will happen when HIGH DEF DVD's arrive.

EROS will start making proper HIGH DEF DVD's for the 1st year or so then go back to making DVD like hollywood does today, but will label them as HIGH DEF DVDs when they are not, and all other compaines will follow like Video Sound, Venus/Rainbow, etc.

One must remember that Indian DVDs will always be behind.

We won't know about Yash Raj Films till we see some DVDs under the new DVD company they are starting.

Hi Def DVDs from Vintage Source.
Hi Def DVDs from NTSC VHS tapes of video transferred from PAL source.