I usually use Ritek G05 with its deep blue burning surface in my SONY DVD RW DW-U14A,
but for a project I am working on I would like a disk with a stock (retail DVD look) is there a DVDR with a pale burning surface? I’ve got some TYG02 disks that look better, anybody got any recommendations for me?
Hi solidamber, welcome to CDFreaks! 
This has been asked several times before, and here are some links to other threads about similar subjects:
Silver burnable surface (inkjet printable)
Silver commercial-like media - can I obtain that ?
The short answer is, that the closest you can get to a silver bottom surface on DVD recordable media is to use DVD-RW or DVD+RW, because all dyes used for DVD-R and DVD+R are purple, at least until now.
Hi, thanks for the links I did do a search but most go off on a tangent, with no answer, ie confusion about what is the bottom of the disk or go on about cdrs
I know all DVDRS will be blue or purple I just wondered which one was the lightest
Oh, and by the way: Avoid Ritek G05, lots of users have experienced stability and quality problems with those discs.
Light DVDs are generally all crappy. The darker the disc, the better it usually performs. Verbatim and Taiyo Yudens are quite dark.
Ritek is dark but so far it is the absolute worst disc I have ever used. They all become unreadable after a year or less.
Its funny I’ve been using the Ritek 05s for ages with no problems but now you mention it i have had a few disks I burned about year ago become unreadable,
Ritek will burn great, it’s just that after they are burnt they begin to die. I have some G05 that still work from a year or so ago, I have backed them up onto Verbatim.
I would definitely start backing them up because I had no idea about ritek and I ended up losing more than 100 discs from degradation. Those 100+ discs were pretty much unreadable in all my 3 burners.
Its just started happening to me, years worth of 8mm camcorder footage i put onto Ritek after glowing reports on all the forums, and after noting your comments i’ve gone to check my disks and found several now unreadable.
so now I’ve got a load of G05 silver prinables for the bin, and now to order some Taiyo Yuden TYG03?
Try and get some TYG02 or YUDEN000T02 if you can (8x + or -), if not tyg03/t03 will do.
The 03 series is ok for recent burners.
You may want to get a LiteOn burner (famous for their error correction) and try reading your Ritek G05s with them.
Thanks, I was thinking of getting a new burner which model Liteon?
Hmm well any of the 16x are alright. Liteon 165p6S should be good.
My LG is a better reader than my pioneers so maybe the liteon will also be good and read some of the riteks. My LG was able to recover some whereas my Pioneer 109 couldnt even detect the disc! 
By the way, Taiyo Yuden are good but so are Verbatim 16X DVD+R. I have been using them and they work great on my Pioneer 111L and LG4167B.
thanks