Re: DVD / DVD+R /DVD-R / DVDRW. Are they all really distinct media formats?


"Bill in Co." <not_really_here@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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M.I.5¾ wrote:
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"Rahul" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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I'm always confused by DVD terminology when buying media to write on.
There's DVD / DVD+R / DVD-R / DVDRW and I'm not even sure which more!

Are these all really distinct technologies and formats? Or are some
subsets
/ supersets of others? Or maybe its only backward compatibility
issues?
What's the best way to figure out what format my Laptop supports? Do
they have varied sizes? Does it matter whether I'm writing data or
movies
etc.? I faintly remember there being lead-in / lead-out issues....

I've never faced the problem that I bought some commercial movie etc.
on
a DVD and my Dell Laptop ( Inspirion E1505)'s inbuilt DVD reader
/writer
couldn't read it. Its a dual boot so are there any Linux-vs-Win
issues too?

Are these distinctions only relevant when writing disks at home as
opposed
to commercially stamped disks? Or maybe when reading on hardware other
than "computers" (etc. DVD players etc.)

First: the easy bit. The 'R' media is write once. The 'RW' media can
be
erased allowing its re-use.

A little more complex is the difference between the '-' discs and '+'
discs.
As far as you the user is concerned, except for some uses there is
little to
chose. Some older video DVD players will refuse to recognise the
DVD+RW
discs (but will recognise DVD+R). This was the result of a deliberate
attempt by Toshiba to discourage the '+' format. Once rumbled they had
to abandon it.

For DVD-R and DVD+R, there is no practical difference other than the
latter is written faster by some drives.

AND that the DVD-R discs are more compatible with some older players.
(BTDT)

I've already covered this point. There should be no difference. I am
not
aware of any player that will not play DVD+R discs (even first generation
players play them flawlessly) unless the player's laser has
deteriorated -
but then they won't play lots of formats.

Well, that's not the only reason. Come over and see for yourself. :-)

It was the DVD+RW that gave all
the problems but only because players were deliberately rigged to refuse
to
play them.

Well, as I said in my other post, evidently there is some difference. To
recap:

We know the DVD+R discs are manufactured at least in some way different
from the DVD-R discs, but whether the problem is with reading the disc
themselves, or the way it is written to the disc, I can't say. But one
thing I can say: I have on at least a couple of occasions had discs I
made using DVD+Rs that could not be read by my older DVD players, whereas
when I made them using DVD-R discs, they worked perfectly. And yes, the
DVD writer was able to write both types of discs.


As I said before, the difference in the technology relates purely in the way
the disc is written. It is related to providing the write laser the ability
to accurately position burns subsequent to the first burn. Once the disc is
written, as far as reading the disc is concerned there is absolutely no
difference between them.

There was also some article covering this very point that I read some time
ago on the net, so it's not like it was just my case alone. The
recommendation then was to use the DVD-Rs for better backward
compatibility, and from what little I have seen, they were correct.


Again as I said before, this recommendation arose because quite a number of
video DVD players wouldn't read DVD+RW discs (the DVD+R didn't exist at this
point). Thus the story quickly spread that the '+' format wasn't fully
compatible with all DVD players. It was only when the DVD+R discs appeared
that it was discovered that the players that wouldn't play DVD+RW discs,
quite flawlessly played the DVD+R discs. This totally went against the
claimed reasons for the incompatibility. On investigation, it was found
that some video DVD players were reading the compatibility ID byte off the
disc (something that video players had no reason to do). If the ID byte was
'0' (DVD_ROM, DVD-R or DVD+R) or '1' (DVD-RW) then the player would play the
disc, but if the ID byte was '2' (indicating a DVD+RW disc - or more
accurately, indicating that the disc was byte eraseable and writable) the
player then executed a software routine that made the laser and motor behave
as though a non readable disc had been inserted, finally giving an error
message about incompatible format.

It was quickly realised that it was Toshiba players that did this and less
quickly realised that any other badged players where the player mechanism
was made by Toshiba. It should be remembered that it was Toshiba that
resisted the introduction of the '+' format, and Toshiba who was behind the
refusal to allow the '+' format to use the standard DVD logo on drives and
discs. Once Toshiba had succeeded in excluding the '+' format, it became
obvious that the DVD consortium would receive no revenue from this 'rogue'
format and so Toshiba had a vested interest in ensuring its demise. Once
the culprit was identified, the news travelled with Internet speed around
the planet and Toshiba suddenly found itself facing a consumer boycott*.
Toshiba had to a bit of backpedalling, and now their video players will play
DVD+RW format discs, but the their video DVD recorders continue not to
support the format, though to be fair to Toshiba the DVD+VR video recorder
format for DVD+RW is very different to the DVD-VR format for DVD-RW and
somewhat less flexible.

* In fact the Richer Sounds chain actually stopped stocking their goods
because no one would buy them.


For DVD-RW and DVD+RW there is a subtle difference in that the former
is
eraseable at the block level only. The latter is eraseable at the word
level. This means that individual words can be erased and overwritten.
It also means that if used for video, more video can be added to the
end of
existing video and the two played through seemlessly. This cannot be
done with the '-' format.

If you are planning on using packet incemental format (Nero's InCD or
Roxio's Drag-to-disc), then DVD+RW will be much more reliable than
DVD-RW.

Does any truly sane person use the packet writing stuff? Too many
potential problems there. :-) InCD and DirectCD, thanks, but no
thanks.


Whilst I agree with you, many people do. DVD+RW discs give few problems
with packet writing unlike DVD-RW and CD-RW. But if your drive supports
DVD-RAM use that instead.

I'd rather just stick with the tried and true DVD-R discs, which work on
about anything.


Virtually all my video DVD discs have been produced in DVD+R format and I've
never had a complaint. The only time I use DVD-R is for material that is
recorded on my DVD recorder. But even here, I will often record to DVD-RAM
and then transfer to DVD+R using authoring software if necessary. This also
allows me to add the widescreen flags which few, if any, video recorders
support when producing standard format video discs.

All of my data discs are DVD+R or DVD+RW.



.

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