There are 3 main brands of dual layer BD-R that are worth paying attention to on most ecommerce today - Verbatim (the goat), Smartbuy, and Optical Quantum. There are a few other no-names like Ritek's own Ridata line, but for the most part of you're looking for currently produced BD-R DLs those are gonna be the ones that pop up.
Everyone says to go with Verbatim. They're the best, everyone says in every forum, all the others are just coasters, only Verbatim has maintained good quality all these years later!
And I'm inclined to believe them. They do seem very nicely made, they have those curved disc edges and usually feel as if they're a slightly thicker/heavier polycarbonate than competitors. But they're also expensive. Like, exponentially costlier than any alternatives.
A 25-pack spindle or Verbatim BD-R DLs currently on Amazon breaks down to $3.13/disc USD before tax and/or shipping. That's rough.
Meanwhile, a Smartbuy spindle of just 10 discs breaks down to $1.62/disc! Holy crap, that's so much cheaper! The 10-disc from Optical Quantum is $1.90/disc, and both of these prices go down the more you buy (obviously), so if you're willing to drop the bucks, the per-disc cost becomes insane!
Optical Quantum's 50-pack is $1.80/disc, and Smartbuy's 50-pack (which is hilarious just 5 10-packs) is $1.43/disc! These deals are absurd, there has to be a catch, right?
Well, kinda sorta? There are plenty of Amazon reviews under Smartbuy and Optical Quantum over the years complaining about coasters, fluctuations in quality, and people reporting how one spindle will be great, and the next spindle they order a few months later will look like a completely different disc manufacturer and formulation and have more failed burns. Because Smartbuy and Optical Quantum are not making the discs themselves and just rebranding other companies' discs, they can just switch manufacturers without informing anyone, potentially to a lower quality disc maker. One of Verbatim's pros is that they produce the discs they sell, so you know you're always getting the same product.
But does that really matter today, in 2024? BD-Rs are basically finished, as a product. I've burned 20 Smartbuy BD-R DLs and each one burned and verified flawlessly. I just bought an Optical Quantum spindle and am currently burning my 5th disc without issue. They've been exactly as reliable for me as Verbatim media, and at a literal third of the price.
I think part of it could be attributed to my top-of-the-line Blu-ray drive haha, but I also don't think that's entirely it. I also suspect that burn speed has a lot to do with it. BD-R DLs advertise being able to be burned at up to 6x or 8x speed. But of course, the faster you burn, the less reliable the burn, and (potentially) the more difficult the reads.
I've never burned a disc faster than 4x. I don't push my luck, ever, with any disc. I never burned a Verbatim disc faster than 4x, and I've never burned a Smartbuy or Optical Quantum disc faster than 4x.
4x is the perfect balance between speed and quality, methinks.
A full 50GB burn at 2x (the slowest most discs and drives support) takes 90 minutes.
A full 50GB burn at 4x takes only 45 minutes. From there, you get diminishing returns. 6x is 22.5 minutes? I guess that's better, but you're really pushing your luck. 8x for 11.25 minutes? Sure you can bang out discs all day, but at what cost? What good will your speed be if none of those discs read back smoothly? 45 minutes is perfect because disc burning is a non-interactive thing that runs in the background anyways, so I don't really benefit from more time savings than that. Disc burning is a thing where you dial in your settings, click Go, and then walk away from your computer and come back later and it's finished. I'm not that impatient, and I'll be happy to let the drive take its time if it means I get reliable burns on any media I use.
Or maybe I'm just crazy and paranoid. Either way the point is, the forumites are exaggerating just a touch, at least from my anecdotal experience you really don't need to spend 3 times the money on Verbatim media. Especially if you're not like backing up critical data to blu-rays, and just - like me - burning cracked commercial disc backups to them for yourself and friends.
