Many branded CDs and DVDs are not manufactured by the brand name holders themselves. That is, the production of these media is outsourced to other companies of which are mostly located in Japan, Taiwan, China, Singapore, India, Austria, Korea and Malaysia. Yes. Those are mostly eastern countries. However though, many experts have claimed that the best ones are coming from Japanese manufacturers. Japanese companies such like Mitsubishi Chemicals, Mitsubishi-Kagaku Media are the current outsourcers for the brand name Verbatim. The Maxell brand is another that is sourcing its blank DVDs and CDs from the Japanese company Hitachi. In addition, another popular and reliable branded media, JVC, is another Japanese company that outsources its blank media to a Japanese company called Taiyo Yuden. Sony is another manufacturer of blank CDs and DVDs which sells them under its own brand. TDK is another manufacturer that sells its blank computer media under its own name. However, TDK is based in Taiwan. There are many other brands that compete with the brand names just mentioned but in most claims by experts, they do not match the quality of the mentioned brands.