What is the best DVD recording medium?

Another word of advice. Though I did not mention it in my original post - I own a 13 year video editng and media duplication company. In just the past few months Phillips, Sony & Hewlett Packard have entered the DVD recording market with DVD+R recorders. THE DVD+R Discs they use ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH MOST COMMERCIAL DVD DUPLICATION EQUIPMENT. That means that if you put together an edited program and want to have it duplicated later on; most DVD replication companies will charge you an extra fee to transfer the DVD+R disc to something they can use for duplication BEFORE any duplicate discs are manufactured.
If you are seriously considering the purchase of a DVD recorder; I suggest you buy a Panasonic or Pioneer DVD-R/RW machine. All DVD-R discs made by these machines at 1 and 2 hour recording speeds are directly compatible with commercial dupliction equipment. And there are a lot more of them out there, In fact, Panasonic and Pioneer are already producing second generation DVD recorders.

Its ok and I got a good deal. Frankly it is frustrating that there are multiple standards. it makes it difficult to assess to determine the best mode. Thanks alot for the input.

By the way, after doing some more online research, I learned that you should not record DVD's at anything other than the 1 or 2 hr recording time options, otherwise they will not play back on any other machines. Also, there is debate over whether recording on DVD-R is better than on DVD+R in terms of being able to play back on other machines. I did not realize that the -R and the +R were different media! And finally, some programs and movies and esp. PPV may broadcast with a copy protection flag and not allow you to copy to TiVo or DVD recording machines. I don't know if it's worth investing in a recording machine yet. Have you found yours useful for your purposes?

I am dubbing other DVD's, old video stuff, ect.

That's good news, I guess, considering all of the copy-protection going on with music recordings. But I can't believe the networks would allow me to record all of the upcoming 6 Feet Under, Season 3, shows on Tivo or Replay, and then burn my own DVD set of the season, when they carefully time and place their own DVD set on the market for premium dollars ($100 list for the upcoming DVD set of Season 2). Are there any types of program material you CANNOT dub onto a DVR recorder like your Panasonic? For instance, can you dub other DVDs? What are you planning to use your Panasonic for? Also, do the DVD-R blanks hold a lot of hours of content?

I don't see why you can't and in fact Panasonic just came out with a unit that has replay built in.

I don't see why you can't and in fact Panasonic just came out with a unit that has replay built in.

Hope I don't hijack your thread, but I was curious: can you use a DVD burner to record programs you've saved on a TiVo? You can transfer those programs to a VCR, but obviously transferring the Dolby 5.1 programs or movies directly to a DVD-R would be SO much better! I'm sure there's a preventive mechanism, but wondered if you knew for sure?
Thanks.

Record on DVD-R for inexpensive one time recordings. Record on DVD-RAM discs if you need to re-record material. DVD-R discs manufactured by Maxell, TDK, Apple, and Sony have the lowest data error rates and best quality control. DO NOT get sucked into buying "unbranded" low-cost DVD-R discs. They are generally of poor quality and the recordings - those that actually work - show it.
ALWAYS record at the one or two hour record speeds. Recording DVDs at slower recording time speeds will yield discs which are generally unplayable on most DVD players.