I've always went with Plextor model burners. And another company that has never failed me is the lite-on models. Its what I use when ever I'm asked to build computers for people.
Plextor burners comes with the Roxio burning suite. It's all I've ever used. If fr some reason Roxio doesn't do its thing, my backup software I use, is called CloneCD or Clone DVD, depending on what type disc I'm burning.
As for getting the right kind of blank media, at least with the plextor drives, they ive you a list of recommended and tested to work well types of blank media by many different companies so that you know if you buy that type of disc it will work well.
As for companies that make high quality blank media, Taiyo Yuden would be the best bet, but their bank media is a bit more pricey than the norm. Get what yeah pay for.
As for where I do shopping at:
http://www.thetechgeek.com/index.htm For blank media
http://www.newegg.com/ For the burner itself.