The thing that must be realized is that most media is produced by a relative small number of factories, located in several different places.

These factories are mostly present in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, some European locations. There are more, but those are the largest ones. The best media generally comes from Japan and Singapore. The worst typically comes from Taiwan or China (in stores) and Hong Kong (online).

This being said, understand that the media brand means nothing. Apple is a great brand, but they do not make their own discs, instead outsourcing to MXL (Hitachi/Maxell) or MCC (Mitsubishi Chemicals). Verbatim became infamous in 2002 by switching from high-quality MCC ID media to the inferior CMC ID media, although they quickly returned to using MCC. Companies like Memorex, Fuji and Imation all outsource to media vendors. When buying media online always be aware of fake media too (see the fakes information farther down the page).

It is the media ID that is important, as it reveals the disc manufacturer. Unfortunately, this is not written on packaging or anywhere else. Companies want consumers to be oblivious to this sort of behind-the-scenes information. To learn the media ID code, a blank disc must be put into a computer DVD burner drive and the ID read by a special utility. Some burning software reads the code by default (DVD Decrypter, for example, in ISO write mode). There are also a handful of freeware or trialware tools available: 

For Windows: DVD Identifier (free), DVDInfo(free), DVDInfoPro(trial) 
For Macintosh OS X:DVD Media Inspector(free)
For Linux: dvd+rw-mediainfo(free)

Luckily, it does not happen often, but it does happen often enough to be a major annoyance to media buyers everywhere.

Most fake media comes from Hong Kong, as a general rule. Fake media tends to float around Europe and Asia more than it does the USA. Fake media is normally sold in flea markets, on eBay and online. Major brand name media sold in stores is probably never going to be fake.

Use this list as an assistant when selecting what media to buy and use. It shows what generally works as the best media. Individual results may very, depending on the burner and how the media chooses to cooperate, though typically not by much. Read the advanced topics guide after becoming familiar with the basics presented on this page

(1) The following list is in preference order. The best discs are near the top of the list. The discs at the bottom of the list are suitable only for a landfill. PVC is the best of all, WFKA is the worst of all.

(2) Some companies may have listings in different classes because quality is better/worse in other disc formats.
(3) Some long media IDs have been abbreviated, and some RW/RAM codes have been left off the list (too many to list). The "media ID" column is mostly intended for showing the DVD-R and DVD+R codes.
(4) Feel free to use the CONTACT US link at the top of the page, to submit new media IDs or ID corrections.


1ST CLASS MEDIA:
Almost flawless burns with 95-100% reliable results. These discs are suited for pretty much anything. They will usually serve as excellent archival quality media, as well as video masters. These discs are often the most expensive DVD media, so be sure to take advantage of sales, when available. (Trivia: The 5 best discs ever created are probably PVC001001, PVC001002, MXLRG02, MCC00RG20 and YUDEN000T02, with exceptional quality burns.)