which liteon? I've got the 1693 and i love it.
regarding which media to use ...
1. it's always on sale, somewhere, sometime. the more you buy, the cheaper the per-disk price, usually. but, I rarely buy more than 50 at once. Got 50 verbatims @ office depot this week on sale for 12.99. and they are decent media.
2. 'decent' media. oh, that is a lot more complicated than one would think, but it doesn't *need* to be. (only if you want it to).
http://club.cdfreaks.com is a great site/forum for more than you ever needed to know about optical drives/media. (in fact, that's where i saw the deal on the ones i got, and found out they are of good enough quality).
regarding quality, as a general rule, look on the cakebox label (if buying them in person) for where they are made. I think, generally. order of preference from best to worst is:
Japan
Taiwan
China
India
aaaand, that's about the best i can tell ya off the top of my head.
regarding +r or -r, afaik nowadays it's more personal preference than anything, but perhaps -r's are more readable in more stand-alone dvd players. I always get +r, just what i'm used to, more common in europe to get those, -r's are more common 1st choice in the US.
and ... yeah, i'll shut up before i start babbling about media id codes and stuff
