Pretty much every new computer sold these days comes with a drive that is capable of burning DVDs. The use of DVD media over the years has increased greatly and more and more people out there find themselves in need of buying blank DVD media from time to time.

Sadly, most people out there pay far too much for DVDs and that’s a freaking shame. Let’s try to correct that right now, shall we?

Now what’s a fair price for DVD media?

Well, first of all that’s not the only problem facing people who need to buy blank discs. Not all brands of DVDs are of the same quality. Some brands produce far more coasters (i.e. discs that failed to write properly and are useless) than others. So first you want to pick a reliable brand and then we can talk prices, OK?

While store brands discs (like Office Depot for example) are usually good at saving you money, they’re not usually that good in terms burning or of you keeping that data. Their quality is usually lower than good, name-branded media. It’s ok to save some dough, which is the point of this article but not ok when it’s at the expense of reliability.

Me, I stay away from Office Depot, Staples, Imation, Magnavox, TDK and any DVDs that are just a stack of discs shrink-wrapped together. Shrink-wrapping a pile of discs is a very bad way to store or sell them and a sign of poor quality media (if they can’t splurge 50 cents for the protective packaging what other corners have they cut?). I also stay away from no-name brands I’ve never heard of before.

My personal preference in which a lot of my fellow burn-freaks agree with, is Verbatim discs. In my experience they are the most reliable consistently of all the media I’ve tried over the years. And if you’d like another opinion, you can read an extensive article on blank DVD media here from digitalFAQ.com.

Now how much should you pay for such good quality media? $45? 50? $65 for 100?

Believe it or not, you should NEVER pay more than $20 for 100 DVDs ($10 for 50 packs). That’s the MAX I pay for a 100 pack of Verbatim 16x DVD-R or DVD+Rs whether it’s at the store or delivered to my door. If shipped I always buy from a retailer that provides free shipping and I never, never, EVER bother with those silly rebates. And neither should you.

This price is easily accomplished by watching the store paper or searching online retailers like Buy.com, Newegg.com or shopping engines like Google Shopping or Pricegrabber. And hey don’t forget about those top tech bargain sites I mentioned a few days ago.

If I need dual-layer DVDs (which hold twice as much as standard DVDs at a much higher cost), Verbatim dual-layer media is at least $1 per disk ($50 for 50) on a good sale; so I buy Memorex dual-layer disks instead, which usually run $30-35 for 50 on sale. They’re almost as good as the Verbatim’s and significantly cheaper as well.

Now that you’re armed with knowledge, I think you’ll all agree that now is the time to stop paying too much for blank DVDs!