DVDs have been extremely useful in storing data. So far, it has gained a number of faithful followers because of its ability to store much amount of information compared to any other storage devices.

However, you should also try to make sure that they are properly taken care of. You may consider the following pointers:

• Quality of media—Any defects in the media you utilize will result in defects in the written disc. You may even actually see these defects on the underside where or middle of a DVD+/-R. These physical defects are stains, scuffs, scratches, contamination, pinholes found in the metal layer, problems with the plastic, or even places where there is a lack of recording dye.

• As much as possible, don’t place your hands on the underside of the disc. The dreaded ‘gorilla grip’ is a definite no-no if you want a clean burn. Make sure you stretch your hand above the disc’s topside in order to let only your fingers graze the outer edges. You could also opt to put one finger in the center hole and leave your thumb at the outer edge. The reading or writing laser may be distorted due to dirt accumulated at the disc’s bottom or fingerprints on it.

• As hard as it may be for you to put that disc back in its case once you’ve finished with it, make sure that you do. By keeping your discs free of dust you are helping to ensure that your burning will go smoothly. Before the actual burning, check for dust beneath the disc and take care of this by using filtered compressed dry air in order to take it off. You may also opt to very softly wipe the disc with a dry cloth making sure that you do not smear or scratch the surface during the process.

• Don’t wipe your discs in a circular motion. If you must, you may try using warm soapy water to get a disc clean, while making sure that there is no scrubbing involved. Follow with a drying process like taking care of unwanted dust mentioned above.

• Make sure that you plan out your burn. This will depend on the type of disc you want, if you need a disc that will play on an audio CD player make sure that you don’t format it as a ROM (data) disc. Likewise, if you want the disc to be recognized by a DVD Video player don’t format it as a DVD-ROM.

• The Disc-at-Once mode should be used when burning in general. In order to steer clear of buffer underruns which may occur on slow computers, the Track-At-Once mode may be utilized. But keep in mind that link transitions may occur as sectors overlap between tracks. Orange Book (CD-R) specification may allow this but these types of errors between tracks do not make these discs good Master Discs for further replication because of the possibility of CD timecode discontinuity.

• Make sure that you even turn off screen savers during a burn. If you encounter issues with buffer underruns, a slower writing speed would be appropriate. Virus protection software should also be shut down and ensure that no other programs are running during the burn.

• Defrag your hard disks. In general, defragging can keep your PC performance in top shape but it is particularly helpful for those who are into video or audio editing as well as forms of multimedia production. Instead of searching through a number of sections to read and write files and in turn make transferring data slower or result in buffer underruns, it can focus on the burning if it is freshly defragged. Try to keep your hard drive at a maximum of 80% full.

Enjoy your DVDs to a maximum.