Actually with NEC you can pretty much get away with any quality of media, I have only had one brand not recognised and one burn fail on my NEC 2500 and that was my own fault. Believe me I have burnt some realy crap discs in mine includng Burn Star.

As this seems to be the case with NEC writers you will need to think more about longevity and economice. Good quality discs are more expensive but tend to last longer thus needing to be re-burnt less often. Whereas cheep discs tend to be poor quality and degrade faster thus needing to be re-burnt more often.

In this case would agree with have and disagree with maine. If you are practicing playing about with settings and software I would use cheep discs, even G05s as they are not to be kept for a long time and thus it is not expensive if you get things wrong. G05s give a good burn but fail quickly. When you have found software you are comfortable using and the best settings for it then go on to the more expensive media.