Why are there no TY-made DL discs?

There is TYG11 (8x DVD-R DL) but not DVD+R DL, because the dash format is much more popular in TY's home market Japan.
Generally, the dash format is more popular with DVD recorders, and TY wants to target this market.

That may be true but why aren't they available anywhere else?

Because Taiyo Yuden's home brand That's is only sold in Japan, Korea and Greece. And the only OEM atm is Maxell Japan.

Where can I get these from (as TY or Maxell)?

Are you sure you really want -R DL media, regardless of quality? -R DL media has MUCH lower compatibility with standalone players than +R DL media. I would suggest sticking to Verbatim if you need high quality DL media, unless poor compatibility is of no concern to you.

I suspect only in Japan.

scoobiedoobie is right : you're probably going to have compatibility problems with DVD-R DL discs. Take a look at the DL section of CDFreak's own drive reviews - with almost every review, DVD-R DL discs fail to play on at least one DVD player.

You're better off sticking with Verbatim DVD+R DL discs.

hmm

That's brand of TYG11s are much more expensive than Mitsubishi's and most of others. It will cost us 1,050 yen per one disk if we order them from thatscd-r.jp.

Wait a minute. That does not make sense.

I thought that DVD-Rs had a better compatability rate with DVD Players than DVD+Rs?

So technically, shouldn't this rule also apply for the Dual Layer discs aswell?

+R DL has a better compatibility rate than -R DL on normal players (not the same as with +R/-R). But if your standalone recorder only supports recording to DVD-R DL as most of them do -R DL is the only way to go. Otherwise stick to DVD+R DL.

Nope. The same rules don't apply to both DVD-R and DVD-R DL. The DVD-R DL standard actually came out after DVD+R DL one did. That is why outside of Japan at least, DVD+R DL discs enjoy better compatibility - DVD-R DL is a little bit too new of a standard compared to DVD+R DL and still not very well supported by most DVD player manufacturers.

+R-DL is partly more compatible coz it can be booktyped to DVD-ROM, which were playable for ages, since first +/-R dvd players. Still would be nice to try a few 8x -DL

That is not always the point, FidelC. It is only the booktype here, the mediatype cannot be changed and some (many?) players don't care about the booktype...


www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers is a good source for more info.

Well actually here in Japan DVD+R DL enjoys better playback compatility.
The only problem is that Toshiba only records to DVD-R DL, Hitachi only records to -R DL , Panasonic also only to -R DL, Pioneer on 3 of their 6 standalones +R DL and -R DL and the other -R DL only and Sony is +R DL except of 1 model allowing DVD-R DL and +R DL (Standalones).
Another problem is that as far as I know DVD+R DL has no support for CPRM and DVD-R DL has. Over here in Japan Digital television only allows copys to CPRM enabled Media. Since in 2011 all analog broadcast will stop in Japan newer standalones with digital tuners will propably more or less drop DVD+R support....
But for normal Playback on normal Players DVD+R DL is still the way to go.

I only use DL for files, so player compatibility is not an issue.

koba,

sounds interesting. Analog TV is about to be stopped in 2011? Even here it is announced to be stopped before 2010... I expect it will be dropped in 2009.

/OT end.

It's the same in the UK aswell.

Government are planning a huge digital switchover around 2010.

OT
The government has decided to drop all analog broadcast (even analog satelite broadcast) and every TV,VCR etc with analog tuner in the stores has a special sticker on it with the warning that analog broadcast will stop in 2011. If you still want to use older TVs you will need to buy special digital tuners which you can then use to hook up your old TV and VCRs etc....
/OT