DVD Burning - Seriously, I want names

Who is responsible for the awful balkanization of DVD (and CD) recordable media? I just brought home a short stack of Maxwell DVD-R's. The Mini's internal Superdrive will recognize the discs, but fails to actually burn to them. My Sony 710A external burner states it supports DVD-R's - but OS X refuses to see them as anything but CD-R's.

You know what worked? Tapes. I never had the problems with my VCR that I had with my recordable DVD player (which we elected to simply throw into the dumpster than risk someone else using it) and I certainly never had this kind of trouble burning mix tapes.

Argh. Want proof? Check out Sony's support page which breaks down not only what discs might work, but which manufacturers to boot. Right, like I'll remember that at my local CVS.