Does anyone know of anywhere that you can pick up dual layer DVDs cheaply? They seem to be ridiculously expensive still...

I thought nearly all DVD are dual layer. Isn't that what the slight pause is u sometimes gets in the middle of films as it changes from one layer to another?
As far as i know the price is no different - what DVDs have u seen that are so expensive?

>>>> Does anyone know of anywhere that you can pick up dual layer DVDs cheaply? They seem to be ridiculously expensive still... <<<<

Do you mean DVD+R DL discs? If so you can pick them up for as little as £2.30 each - although personally I recommend the more expensive Verbatim media:

http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/acatalog/dbllayer.html

They will cost significantly more the single layer discs though for the foreseeable future. Only a handful of companies make them as thus there isn't the competition from the Chinese imports to force the price down.

Hi James,

Do you know what the capacity on double layer discs is? Do u reckon they'll be a big market for this type of higher capacity disc, 'cause I thought Blu-Ray/HD-DVD were only just around the corner...

A single layer disc is 4.7GB. A dual layer is twice this so 9.4GB.

I suspect there has been pressure trying to prevent the dual-layer's coming out cheaply because of the ease of copying movies.

The initial price of Blu-Ray/HD-DVD burners is going to be several thousands of dollars and the discs may be about $50, so I don't think anybody needs to hold off buying any equipment yet waiting for these products.

I would agree here with jeff and say that it isn't worth holding on for blu-ray/hd-dvd. However, I've read a few interesting pieces lately which seems to suggest blu-ray/hd-dvd burning may not be as expensive as first thought.

The hd camp recently announced they'd be providing recordable hd at launch only for the blu-ray camp to announce the same days later. It took a while for dvd-r to become available to the mass public but this time round it's going to there at, or very soon after, launch. Due to the fierce competitivism between the formats it's entirely possible there will be a price war and that could reflect well for us as consumers.

Unless of course we blow our money on the losing formats product...

This is very interesting..

http://www.tomshardware.com/business/20050616/index.html

My money's on holographic storage in the longrun, but on a disc that can store 50GB in the shortrun (next ten years).

I'd have to agree but suggesting hd/blu-ray will last 10 years may be optimistic(!). I think that the holographic medium is very interesting. Though this is merely speculation at the moment it'll probablyy interest you:

100 Terabyte Disc!

Brucie have a look at this link.A 30gb holographic disc in 2006 for a dollar!! Imagine the possible consequences of this, it's staggering.

the truth about dual-layer is that it is *not* like the DVD films you buy... A 'bought' DVD is reproduced by a 'pressing' technique similar to that of audio CDs...

If you read reviews of the new 'dual layer' recorders coming out, the first thing is that the are *not* readable in any but fairly new DVD players..... Its just a high capacity format, not based on commercial DVDs..

Embarrisingly I've only just realised that the slight pause I've been experiencing when watching most recent DVDs is not due to a spec of dust affecting playback but during the change fromthe first to second layer. My head is bowed in shame!

I mean what WERE the chances of every DVD I watched having a spec of dust on and momentarity pausing...ha ha.