Bump for another great hot deal from allisolm, combined with some more info. I was at CC, and they also had some "Nexxitech" (I think) brand DVDRs (I think +R?), for the same 25-spindle for $6.95. My local CC didn't have any MIJ TDKs, all were MIT, as were the ESA discs. Interestingly, those "Nexxitech" DVDRs, had printed on their packaging, the same "EDVDMR8X25PK" (I think), that showed up on my CC reciept under the ESA-branded DVDRs. So it seems quite likely, that they are the same thing, or at least come from the same supplier/distributor. (That would explain them both being on sale for the same price as well.)
There were also ESA-branded CD-Rs on sale too, 100-pack for something like ... err, darn, not sure if it was $12.xx or $19.xx. Sorry. (Wasn't really looking for CD-Rs when I went.)
I also noticed something else as well, there are two different style packages for the ESA 8x DVD-Rs - one with a shallow lip on the top, and one with a deeper lip. The "shallow lip" cakeboxes are similar to the Fuji 8x ProDisc DVD-Rs that I purchased at BB, while the "deeper lip" cakeboxes are similar to the TDK 8x CMC DVD+Rs that I purchased at BB as well.
Not directly related, but I also noticed that they had two different displays of TDK CD-Rs, both 50-spindles for $19.99, but one was MIT, and one was "Made in India" (obviously, those were MBI media). The Indian media had a rounded top to the cakebox, no lip along the top outside edge at all. The MIT had a "deeper lip".
Ok, initial visual inspection/impression: "shallow" = top five discs, at least, have visible major defects around the outside 25% of the disc, speckles, and circular scratches. Not good. "deeper" = top disc looks beautiful, next few did too. They look like the TDK CMC 8x +Rs that I have, underneath. Now, I know that CMC has quite a few plants, and it's likely that they may be using different generations of production equipment, and have different output quality. That being said, at least for my limited sample size of two spindles, I strongly suggest getting the -Rs with the "deeper lip" around the outside top rim of the cakebox. The media-code markings on the inner ring look pressed-in as part of the disc moulding or something on the "deeper" ones, and they look crudely etched-on with a dot-matrix laser on the "shallow" ones too.
I didn't get any of the +Rs, curious if there's a difference among them as well.
Edit for updated info: Ugh. If there's one thing that can be said about CMC's media production, it's that their quality of output tends to be highly variable. :| I burned my first DVD from the spindle of questionable-quality media, containing video content that only spanned half of the disc, using one of those topmost discs that had the scratches/speckles around the edge. Ugh. I actually got I/O error dialogs from DVDDecrypter during the verify phase, and red blocks from CDSpeed, using a surface scan of the DVD. That's the first that I've ever had those, using my so-far trusty ND1300A. Upon closer inspection, the burned section shows that there is a severe issue with dye-layer spread near the inner hub (as opposed to the outside of the disc, where it usually happens). I'm guessing that the I/O error occured somewhere at the point of the edge of the "strange dye blob region". OTOH, the "good" spindle - burned three discs so far, out to the edge, and no problems whatsoever. So CMC media appears to be a flip of the coin as far as quality goes. Good luck with these discs, people.