Reddit mentions: The best blank dvd-r discs

Flicknm's comment really need more upvotes. For a graphic designer you can never go wrong with books about design whether its about becoming a designer, books about a specific designer, or simply reference books on stuff like logos/typography/print/websites. Books are probably the best gift you can give to any designer, pro or student.

However a tablet isn't a bad idea as someone already mentioned. If she's got strong artistic ability (drawing/painting at a professional level) an intuous4 would not be a bad choice and would be a valuable tool for years to come. However if she does not feel like venturing into stuff like digital painting or simply doesn't have profound drawing ability a bamboo is more than she'll ever need and also pretty cheap and extremely versatile.

As a student she'll eventually explore packaging design or have to create physical mock-ups so perhaps a set of quality tools like exacto knives with a couple different blades (next to the standard blade I use scoring blades a lot for thick material), large self-healing cutting mat, folding bone for perfect creases on paper (these days you see some with added features like a cutting blade), large metal straight edge ideal for cutting (with corked back), long reach stapler, spray mount, super glue, and my personal best friend: the lead holder (also referred to as a clutch pencil) with a sharpener for it. All of this along with a drafting table will always be useful.

If she doesn't own a wide format printer and you feel she might like the convenience of one I highly recommend an Epson Stylus R1400 printer. I often see these on sale with rebates which will lower the overall cost to $200ish however that's kinda based on luck. It prints great pictures as big as 13x19 inches (great for poster or magazine spread mock-ups). A very handy but rarely used feature it has that made me look like a fucking superstar in classes is its ability to print labels on printable CDs. However, as great as this feature is it takes a bit of experimentation to get the alignment right and to be able to print as close to the border of the CD as possible. This feature is also a huge ink-guzzler but prints beautifully (always use max settings or else colors will look faded). Printable CDs can come in both Matte and Glossy finishes (I'm particularly fond of Taiyo Yuden Watershield CDs).

If your girlfriend happens to enjoy PC games then a gaming mouse could potentially be a fantastic gift. I'd recommend something along the lines of Logitech's G700 gaming mouse. Reason I recommend a gaming mouse is because you can record keystrokes and assign those macros to any of the additional buttons making any work on common programs like Illustrator/Photoshop/In-Design a lot more streamlined. This particular mouse can record up to 5 different profiles at once so she can have her favorite keyboard shortcuts macro'd for pretty much all her favorite programs. This mouse also works as both wired and wireless (which I'd NEVER recommend for gaming lol) and uses a rechargable AA battery and has a little compartment in there for the wireless reciever. Basically this mouse is a godsend to me but even as just a mouse for design work I think its pretty awesome. I highly recommend Logitech products since they're very well made and have great customer service.

Someone already mentioned it but sketchbooks are always nice, as a student I noticed a lot of people weren't into the habit of planning designs on pencil and paper, if she's one of those people then she really needs to change that and have something like a moleskine sketchbook or some other form of sketch diary (get a nice hardcovered one). You can have all the best technology in the world but nothing will ever trump the mighty pencil (again I highly recommend a clutch pencil) since this is where all design HAS TO begin. If she already does that and happens to like drawing I'd look into an Earthbound sketchbook or other equivalent. Basically this is just a sketchbook that has recycled toned (brown) pages which makes it great for adding highlights on drawings with a white colored pencil or gel pen. The norm for designers is almost always plain & gridded Moleskine sketchbooks though. I've seen other sketch diaries that have a dot grid on them which I'd love on a moleskine but I don't think they have anything outside a normal grid sketchbook.

There's also other gimmicky crap out there for graphic designers however I'm just listing stuff that are actually useful and can be appreciated. You can probably just cruise around r/design and r/graphic_design to see those things since that's all I ever tend to see from those subreddits these days.

Hopefully this helps.

I think youre being a little harsh on people who are only trying to help you out. Congrats on your thrift store vintage blank media purchase. (theres something I never thought Id say.) If you're looking to back up a music collection to hard copy for playback on CD players then you're probably going to need a pretty big stack of discs (depending on your music collection, it can get pretty expensive), its an older format and has very limited data capacity 700mb or 70 minutes of music I believe. Because the music is being stored digitally as opposed to analog there is really no difference between discs. Now you spent $10 on 20 discs where on amazon you could have spent $20 on 100 CD-R discs, so it turns out per disc to be much cheaper and you can store up to 6.8 gigs of data or 116 hours of music. AMAZON 100 CD-R $20 BTW another good thing about newer CD-Rs and DVD-Rs is MUCH MUCH faster writing speeds. CDRs now can manage up to 52x and DVDR can do about 16x, where as your thrift shop CDRs can probably only manage 4x

Now if you just want to back up music to hardcopy for archival purposes (to be copied back to a computer at a later date, in case of hard drive failure) then DVD-R is definitely the way to go. 100 DVD-R $22 now you can store 470 gigs of data, which is probably more than enough to back up your entire music library Im sure at only a smaller increase in price that is still cheaper (per disc) than your vintage CD-Rs. If you're an audiophile with an extensive Lossless collection (fortunately for dead heads like me this is a rather easy thing to come by) then DVD-R will allow you to back up your music in fewer discs which would be much easier to handle.

I hope thats a detailed enough answer to help you make an informed decision on how to back up your media, and in the future please dont bite the heads off of people who are really only trying to help you out.

That's less than minimum wage... Especially since I was rounding down. Assuming you could efficiently use each disc (archive then split into 4.7GB pieces) you'd need 213 DVDs for 1TB of data. At 5 minutes each, that's 17 hours and 45 minutes. So, assuming you sat there ready to swap discs every 5 minutes, you sit there for an entire day (unless you don't sleep). If that's $100 worth of work, you just worked for $5.63. Of course, that's only the first time you have to restore. Writing to the disc is going to be slower. If you have to do an initial backup of 1TB, it'd take ever longer plus the cost of 213 DVDs. Here's 200 Memorex (better go with a good brand because DVDs degrade over time) [on sale for $50.] (http://smile.amazon.com/Memorex-DVD-R-4-7GB-Multipack-Spindles/dp/B00KONGBME/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1409148190&sr=1-1&keywords=200+DVD) So really, looks like it's not all that much cheaper than using a HDD. [Here's the first result for a 1TB drive] (http://smile.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST1000DM003/dp/B005T3GRNW/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1409148320&sr=1-1&keywords=1TB+HDD) on Amazon. $55.

DVDs don't last forever. You better be careful to backup in such a way that losing one DVD doesn't ruin your entire backup. All to save $5.

There are archival DVDs that are designed to last ~100 years.

http://www.amazon.com/MAM-Mitsui-Gold-Archive-DVD-R/dp/B000FAJQHS

>Edit: He told his ex he kept everything. I guess in the same way I'm aware he has everything from us. I still find it creepy fyi.

Okay, I'm glad you realize it's creepy. I didn't want to say anything, lol.

Yeah but you can also buy a 5GB DVD for 30¢. You think movie companies want to give up over $5 of profit on every DVD?

Didn't really affect piracy, though, if that was their motivation. You can get GameCube-size DVD-Rs for $0.50, they were used by digital cameras at the time. Just about any DVD burner could burn them and GameCubes with modchips could play them (this GameCube modchip was $25). It was no harder than regular DVDs. And the GameCube could still play regular DVD-Rs when modded if you took the top panel off with a screwdriver.

It's a pretty easy assumption when you can buy a blank DVD for less than a quarter retail.

Verbatim 4.7 GB up to 16x Branded Recordable Disc DVD-R 100-Disc FFP 97460 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003ZDNZT2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_suxGxb5N2EPW5

They can, there is really no such thing as a "xeno clone" since it is an open sourced design. The issue, is that there are a LOT of variables. Even beyond the potentiometers, the media you use (blank dvds) and even the DVD burner you use can have an effect. There is really no single true way of getting it to work. For me, I had to get some very specific media, then it worked perfectly. It does seem that Ritek RiData discs have a better than average success rate... but it could be any number of things preventing it from working for you.

Like this or have they made a better make of it? And are these dual layered? From what I understand, dual layered is preferred. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00081A2KY/

CD-R's DVD-R's, etc. vary in manufacturing quality. The following link is about the best you can get for archival quality.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000WTO352/ref=twister_B003ZK6U5G

Further reading here:

http://www.linuxtech.net/tips+tricks/best_safe_long-term_data_storage.html

Update: Wanted to update this with a new product I learned about (1000 year lifespan of data)

http://www.amazon.com/Millenniata-4-7GB-M-Disc-Write-Forever/dp/B007H30YG8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414124435&sr=8-1&keywords=m-disc

• box art - http://www.steamgamecovers.com/
  
  
• discs - https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-DVD-R-4-7GB-Recordable-Media/dp/B0009YJXMI/ref=zg_bs_1036658_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=B161TVZRKTAGTXP2JSR3
  
  
• disc cases - https://www.amazon.com/Maxtek-Standard-Double-Capacity-Outter/dp/B00BLB4L7K/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1536145054&sr=8-8&keywords=disc+case+pack
  
  youre welcome

Properly stored archival quality DVD's should be good for over 100 years.

https://smile.amazon.com/Verbatim-UltraLife-Archival-5-Disc-96320/dp/B000WTO352

You will never need to worry about a virus hitting your backup, either.

Edit: So I guess there's a blu-ray equivalent that is even better. https://smile.amazon.com/Verbatim-M-Disc-BD-R-Branded-Surface/dp/B011PZALWA/ but your blu-ray burner needs to be rated for M-DISC.

> https://www.amazon.com/Maxell-638033-DVD-RS-Color-Carded/dp/B002K8O8JY

Thank you, but they're not mini, so I would have to keep the top open ?

Actually, it does with gold archive disks and is better for long-term storage than most other single storage mediums. They are typically rated to last up to 100 years. https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-UltraLife-Archival-5-Disc-96320/dp/B000WTO352/

I used to burn discs for my Gamecube, back when the Max Drive Pro was the go-to softmod :P

I had failures using various burning programs, but the one that did end up working for me was Express Burn (be warned, it installs adware and stuff). I'm not sure if it does anything special when burning, but it was the only software that ended up in success. I'll note that it still took a few tries and misreads before my discs worked in GCOS. Even after booting, there was always a risk of read errors (I never did POT adjustments on my GC).

When I did burn discs, I used Maxell miniDVDs and the DVD burner that came with my desktop.


I've transitioned to using SD Gecko/IDE->EXI + Swiss nowadays, given the ease of use.

So a bit of a follow up here - i got the new Maxell dvds today and tested out with Metroid Prime and it worked flawlessly. Tried again with Skies of Arcadia Legends and that also worked without issue.

I have it in all 7 of my GCs. I prefer the Japanese models as they had color matching GB Players. The discs arent too bad. I used these:

Philips Duplicator Grade DVD-R 8cm 4X Silver Shiny Mini 50PK Spindle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056BYHAM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_uFQEyb92HYFW6

They always work for me.

DVD R will do.

http://www.amazon.com/Maxell-16X-Write-once-DVD-R-Spindle/dp/B0002J1WTC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1463170700&sr=8-3&keywords=dvdr

1, 2.

Verbatim AZO DVD-Rs, not their Lifetime line of media products.

https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-DVD-R-4-7GB-Recordable-Media/dp/B00081A2KY

i use these for full size dvd-r: https://www.amazon.com/Maxell-638033-Dvd-R-4-7-Card/dp/B002K8O8JY/ref=sr_1_22?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1504899787&sr=1-22&keywords=maxell+4.7gb+dvd-r

Sony 16x 4.7GB Inkjet Printable Blank DVD-R (100-Pack Spindle) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E27LPA/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_-7jNwbHDJY2D6

It's 2014 now.

Very, very little in the big picture (the box, inlays, warehousing and shipping are all still there; there's little saving to be had by only not including a disk). In fact, at consumer price, DVD-Rs are only 14p/disk so the cost saving is very minor, not even considering that EA will get disks at a much cheaper price.

It's also irrelevant. Retailers will still price the boxed copy, and run sales, irregardless of whether there's a disk in the box. It's been done before.

They do have them:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Verbatim-43596-Dual-Layer-DVD-R/dp/B000KFTL4G/ref=sr_1_27?crid=2RKJS8OZ38EU8&keywords=dual+layer+dvdr+blank+discs&qid=1567439451&s=gateway&sprefix=dual+layered+dvdr%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-27

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-microSDXC-Memory-Class/dp/B00V62XBQQ
200GB storage
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Verbatim-43549-16x-DVD-R-Spindle/dp/B000BEZYLA
5GB*16 spindle

So that micro sd is equivalent to 40 DVDs or 2.5 spindles of DVDS.

That's before we even get into the fact that all this duplicated content stored in hard copy is non-rewritable ready to eventually be buried under the ground. What a waste.

I store mine in these, as backup. As for someone knowing if you ripped a DVD or BD? No. I regularly get disks from Netflix, Red Box, the video store, and the library, nobody's busted down my door yet.

As crammond94 commented, SD media launchers are not a perfect solution, even the best SD cards will still lag during demanding sequences. Sometimes it is hard to see the lag, but it is very apparent in choppy audio.

One thing you could do for minimal investment is to burn your own miniDVDs, use your SD media Launcher to load swiss, swap disks to the burned disk, and launch it via swiss without the need for a modchip. Burned miniDVDs generally work as well as the real thing. If you go this route, burn as slowly as possible, or you may get errors on the disk.

Other than that, the most convenient method would be to mod a Wii, install USBLoaderGX and Nintendont, and load gamecube games from an external hard drive. Wiis with broken disk drives are on ebay all the time for ~$15-$20.