1st Blu-ray burner - interested in opinions or suggestions for burning software

[Deleted member 245375]

Ok, got a Panasonic UJ-240 slim laptop Blu-ray drive and it's the first Blu-ray drive I've ever owned period so this is new territory for me. I've done a bunch of reading about the Blu-ray format (I got this primarily for use as a backup tool albeit I did buy a few Blu-rays at a pawn shop a few days ago just to make sure the drive works as expected). I grabbed a pack of cheapy Blu-ray blank discs at Fry's yesterday (some no-name brand called "TruSound" and according to OptiDriveControl they are manufactured by LG (the glitches in the image below were caused because I resized the ODC window, it's not coded very well for graphical issues and the speed test in the second image was a pressed Blu-ray, "Fantastic Four" the older version of the movie with Jessica Alba, not the 2015 epic failure reboot so I know the drive is working great since it's a 6x reader):

Anyway, I know from reading over at the MyCE forums (previously known as CDFreaks) that Panasonic blank media is pretty much the defacto best BD-R media you can get but, I can't afford $8+ for one single disc (which is how much those are at Fry's). The 10 pack of these "TruSound" discs was $8 so I don't mind that cost even if things don't go as planned. I'd love to have a big stack of Panasonic 25GB SL BD-R sitting here for backup purposes but that would be incredibly expensive in degrees I can't justify - the data I intend to back up is important, sure, but I could just get a hard drive or two I suppose. I'm just making sure I do get the data backed up in a variety of formats and locations which is generally considered to be the best backup strategy of all aka the "don't keep all your eggs in one basket" methodology.

So, I'm looking to use these strictly as optical data backup - I don't intend to use these for making actual Blu-ray "movie" discs, just for raw backup storage discs. I don't intend to max them out to the last possible bit as well, and I will be using a strategy that features PAR technology for creating error correction checksum sets so even if I end up having some damage to the disc, like a scratch or something, that I'll still be able to recover the data because of the PAR error correction which is pretty damned awesome stuff.

If anyone else out there uses BD-R media strictly for data backup purposes I'd like to ask what software you use to do the burning like Nero, ImgBurn, BurnAware, etc. Also, I read someplace (but I can't find the damned article now) that said something like Blu-ray BD-R media being similar to DVD-RAM and CD-RW in some respects where I can write data to the discs in sessions meaning I can add data to a disc whenever I want instead of having to set aside 20-24GB of data and burn it all at one single time.

If that's true that's a very positive thing that I'll make use of but as this is my first foray into Blu-ray (literally never owned any Blu-ray movies prior to 2 days ago) this is literally all new to me so I figured I'd ask my [H] breathren for some suggestions and tips.

Any info is appreciated, thanks.

 

[BlueWeasel]

I'm sure the guys over at CDfreaks would consider it garbage, but I've had good luck with cheap Ridata 4x media purchased from Amazon. It burns fine at 6x in my LG burner. Like you, I just use BR for data archiving, and I don't rely solely on a single disc of cheap media. If it's important, it's burned on a disc and a second (or third) copy somewhere else.

As far as burning software, just use whatever you like. I use the free versions of BurnAware and ImgBurn and it has worked fine for me. There are plenty of other, great free options and it really comes down to preference.

That's a good idea with PAR files...haven't seen those since my newsgroup days. Just curious -- how much percentage wise does having PAR files add to the data...10%, 20%, etc.?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Here's the link to the Ridata 4x discs: Amazon Link

I generally buy whatever is on sale and gets decent reviews. The Ridata seems to go on sale frequently at Amazon or the Egg, and it's pretty easy to find it for $0.50/disc or less.

 

[chenw]

AFAIK, Panasonic ceased making their famous discs :/

 

[Deleted member 245375]

DOH, totally forgot I created this thread so, sorry for the late reply: I use 15% recovery for the sets, and I cap things at roughly 20-21GB based on testing of some of the media I bought (not the greatest but it works, has issues if I burn a full disc past the 23GB point so, based on recommendations I decided having 16-20GB of data backed up with the recovery is good enough.

 

[Zepher]

I use ImgBurn and made one BD data disc with nearly the full capacity and it worked. it was a Verbatim disc that was left over from when we did wedding videos.

 

[chenw]

AFAIK, if any disc have major issues not related to its burning quality, often it happens towards the outer region of the disc. Similar things happen with disc degradation.

That is also why that, despite using fairly expensive discs, I still don't burn beyond 20 GB mark unless I have a good reason to. Otherwise I either burn it to two discs or compress/reduce the size of the files.

Oh, and one more thing: it appears that PC's will only get Ultra HD Blu-ray readers/burners later down the line, there are reports of existing drives recognising the file structure of these UHD discs, but is unable to read them, so I am treating them as SoL discs for now.

 

[defaultluser]

I trusted Verbatim Mitsubishi DataLife back in the days of DVD, and it still hold true today.

So do these people:

Which blank BD-R and BD-RE are best to use? - The Digital FAQ

You can get DL for $2.50/ disc or SL for $2.00 a disc in packs of ten. So not outrageous, if you're just buying a small amount. Twenty bucks won't put you in the poor house!

Amazon.com: Verbatim Mitsubishi 50GB 4x Speed BD-R Blu-ray Recordable Disk 10 Pack - Ink-jet printable - Each disk in a jewel case: Electronics

Amazon.com: Verbatim 25GB 6x Speed BD-R Blu-ray Recordable Disk 10 Pack in Jewel Cases Ink-jet printable: Electronics

Or you could go big and pick up a 50 disc spindle for fifty bucks:

Amazon.com: Verbatim DataLifePlus 25 GB 6x Blu-ray Single-Layer Recordable White Thermal, Hub Printable Disc BD-R (50-Disc Spindle) 97338: Electronics

If you're buying at Frys, they probably charge higher prices for whatever they carry.

 

[chenw]

I bought Panasonic mainly due to the fact that Panasonic discs only come from one manufacturer: Panasonic, so the different batches with the same labelling will have the same identifier codes (For my discs, is's MEI-T02-001), whereas IIRC, Verbatim uses several manufacturers, which is primarily why I avoided Verbatim.

I also avoided multi-layer discs because the way it records (it records all the way from the centre to the very edge, then back in on the next layer), made it more vulnerable to disc edge defects than burning them on multiple discs (burning them on separate discs would at least allow one disc not burnt from the edge).

That being said, all blu-ray discs, with the sole exception to Single layer LTH discs (all multilayer discs are HTL), should be much sturdier than DVD's or CD's when stored properly, as the recording medium is inorganic material, making them more resistant to environmental effects, especially UV).

I digress, for burning software, I use ImgBurn as well, so far no problems with it.

Pity I couldn't get a hold of Liteon burners though, would have liked the ability to do burn quality scans...