Which DVD Recordable Format Will Win?

kila_m writes: "Their is a format war going on between two recordable formats 'DVD-R' and 'DVD+R.' Both formats do virtually the same thing i.e. are readable in most DVD-ROM drives - but a '-' disk is not recordable in a '+' drive and vice-versa. We have a review of the Pioneer DVR-A04 - the worlds best-selling DVD writer and based on the '-' format. I would like get an view of what recordable format Slashdot readers prefer or think is going to win."

Comments

Buy Today

[deathcow]

I have the one-earlier model. The A03. I use it for two things: 1) to burn videos that play on my set top DVD player, and 2) to burn 4450 megs of whatever per platter.

What more can you ask for?? The A03 or A04 is THE machine to buy. If your interest is item #1 or item #2 mentioned above, go for it.

DVR-A04 Advice

[Helmholtz]

I just recently (a week ago) bought a Pioneer DVR-104, which is the OEM model of the DVR-A04. They are _exactly_ the same drive, but the pricing can vary from as little as $20 to as much as $100 depending on where you look. The only difference is the box and software, which if you're a Linux user isn't going to do you any good anyway.

Also, for those of you that are using devfs with this drive. If you get funky errors whenever you try to burn a DVD, sputtering about Hardware Errors, Illegal Requests, and/or Invalid whatevers. You will need to manually create the /dev/hdx device with mknod (mknod hda b 3 0 worked for me).

The reason for needing both the /dev/hdx and the /dev/srx devices at the same time is because you need to run hdparm -d 0 -r 0 /dev/hdx. This will turn off Read Only and DMA. I know it seems weird that you'd want to turn off DMA, but if I don't I can't burn DVDs, CDRs burn just fine however. Of course the /dev/srx device is so the burner software can actually burn to the CD.

I might add that all of this is with the 2.4.19 kenel, so those of you still using the 2.2.x kernel might not run into this. Once I got the hdparm thing set, everything ran nicely. Hopefully these tips will save you some grief, as I spent a couple days digging through google, and was luckily given the hdparm tip from a fellow I emailed off a mailing list I found who had described the same issue.

Another small caveat, if I try to pipe mkisofs output into dvdrecord, the burn will fail. If I make the iso file first, and then call dvdrecord, the burn is successful. Once again, I don't know if this is something specific to my setup, so it's just an fyi.

After those issues were cleared up, though, the drive seems to do perform very well. I've been busy clearing off disk space all day long.

Re:I think this question will be decided

[Pathwalker]

$14-$15 for a blank DVD?
Where are you buying them from?
Even Apple sells them for $5 a disk, and Meritline sells cheap bulk packs of DVD-R disks for less than $1 a disk.

Incorrect - they're much the same

[Namarrgon]

You're confusing DVD+R with DVD+RW. DVD+R is very similar in compatibility with DVD-R, perhaps a touch better.

DVD+RW has much lower compatibility than DVD-R or DVD+R - as does DVD-RW. Both rewritable formats use a recording surface with a lower reflectivity than the write-once formats, confusing some older DVD players into thinking the disc is dual layer instead of single.

Earlier DVD+RW drives were dismissed as less compatible solely because they were unable to burn write-once discs, unlike the competing DVD-R/RW drives. Second generation drives such as the HP dvd200i will happily burn write-once and rewritable media, same as the DVD-R/RW drives.

The reality is, although DVD+R/RW has a theoretical edge in compatibility due to its lossless linking feature, both formats are actually very similar in results. Just be sure not to get the older drives that can't do DVD+R.

Re:Incorrect - they're much the same

[Namarrgon]

Now all DVD+R has to deal with is overpriced burners and expensive media

It's true they are a little more expensive - though I've seen 2nd-gen Ricoh drives for $284 on pricewatch, and DVD+R discs for under $3 from www.shop4tech.com. I wouldn't really call that overpriced.

But frankly, I'm happy to pay a little extra. The DVD+R/RW drives are simply superior. I couldn't bear to wait an hour and a half to burn a rewritable disc - but that's what you're stuck with if you buy a DVR-A04. My 200i will do it in under 40 minutes, and the next-gen DVD+R drives will do it in under 25. Add that to the other advantages, and I'm a happy camper :-)

Yes, you can

[Namarrgon]

You can't fit a whole movie on a home recorded DVD?R anyway.

Sure you can. Maybe not the movie, multiple soundtracks AND featurettes, trailers, interviews etc, all at the original quality, but just the movie is no trouble.

The bitrate for DVD-compliant MPEG2 video is between 2 Mb/s and 8 Mb/s, but most pre-recorded movies vary around 3-5 Mb/s. That gives you between 119 and 199 minutes - more than enough for most movies.

Alternatively, you can encode your movies in a tighter format like DivX. I've seen remarkably good quality from a 90 minute movie squeezed onto a single CD, let alone a DVD. You can fit 6 of those movies onto a single DVD, and play them back on your computer any time.

I personally use mine for recording TV shows that I can't find on DVD yet, like Family Guy. I can fit 6 episodes in standard MPEG2 format, and the quality is as good as I recorded it at.

Re:DVD+RW?

[Namarrgon]

All *2nd-generation* DVD+RW drives will write to DVD+R discs, and AFAIK all current DVD-RW drives will write to DVD-R discs too. Note that 1st-gen DVD+RW drives (e.g. HP 100i) will not write to DVD+R discs.

Neither standard will write to the other's media, of course. However, both standards will happily read each other's media.