DVD-RW Discs

[TEAK36]

Is it just me, or do DVD-RW discs  degrade a little each time you record over them.I often erase a disc and burn new movies/TV programmes onto them,but I find that after about the 7th or 8th burn,the picture keeps freezing,and sometimes my DVD player will not even play the disc at all.I regularly use a lens cleaner in my player,and the discs are not scratched,but nothing seems to work.I then end up throwing away the discs and buying new ones.I have tried lots of different brands of disc, but I have this problem with all of them.Its not my player because when I put the disc into my sons player, the same thing happens.

[boobesque]

each cd-rw/dvd-rw has a lifespan of about 100 burns each. the quality will degrade over the course of these 100 burns but you should notice no real difference in the first 20 or so burns. and this will be negligable anyway, as long as you take care of them. from your post, i believe that your dvd'rw burner is damaging them internally somehow. possibly overheating or writing faster than it should (which would cause overheating anyway)

[Mobius1]

Actually I'm pretty sure that most ISO rated DVD-RWs are meant to be qualified for 1000s rather than hundreds of burns. I know that this was certainly the case for CD-RWs, and during all my time using both of these formats I've never actually come to the "end" of a discs lifespan through usage.

[guy9663]

I'm with boobesque on this. 100 burn cycles is about right. Just bear in mind that when you erase the disc before reburning that also counts as a burn. Thus your 8 burns are doubled to 16 straight away. Reduce the burn rate on you drive and use the best quality discs you can afford.

[Mobius1]

Well, take for instance Memorex's website, which says their DVD+/-RW media can be successfully written and re-written at least "1000" times, or TDK's that says "hundreds".

Now, I know manufacturers are optimistic with these kind of figures, but realistically, I can't see them legally being able to claim usage for the product that is in excess of 10 times as much as what can actually be expected. Can you?

[TEAK36]

Cheers for all your answers.Boobesque made a good point about heat damage.I have noticed that when I remove my discs from the drive, they are often hot, not just a little warm, but very hot.I might try reducing the burn speed to see if that make a difference.