actually, there's documentation on TDK CDR media ranging from good quality to poor quality, depending on the manufacturer. as i recall, the TDK "Certified Plus" CDRs were supposed to be good. and, for the most part, the majority of the ones i've had for 4+ years are okay. (a few have bitten the dust, with random visible dark spots, and the data at those places is unreadable. and yes, they have been stored properly.) here's a link for your perusal:

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware...d_tdk_iq.shtml


as far as Verbatim CDRs, i've had mixed results with those, too. the "DataLife Plus" Verbatims i have are still excellent, even after 5+ years. the non-branded Verbatim discs i have are almost all unreadable within that same timespan.

now, i know DVDs and CDRs are different beasts, but if a manufacturer generally made so-so (or poor) quality CDRs, then i don't even bother with their DVDRs... even if they're supposedly "good quality." hence, i don't ever buy Ritek brand DVDRs, even though a lot of people swear by them. of course, a lot of the comments i've read praising the Ritek DVDRs are basically, "burned 200 of them without a single coaster!" even though the following quote was written about CDR media, i think it applies to DVDR media as well:

"Most people think that when they have burned up a spindle and did not get any coaster that the quality of these CD-R's was very good. In fact this is NOT true as this only tells you that the used CD-R's are compatible with your CD-Writer.

Over the years most CD-Writer manufacturers have learned how to make their hardware compatibility with all kinds of CD-R's (even the low budget media!) so it is not strange that less coasters occure [sic]."

[From http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware...quality.shtml]


also...

"Also don't confuse CD-R Compatibility for CD-R Quality as they are two totally different things!"

[From http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware...ml#Conclusion]