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

Heh

[zapfie]

Wow, that's not going to be confusing to consumers at all! That's like selling two incompatible fuels, one called "gasoline" and one called "gasaline". Couldn't they have at least picked a better name difference than "DVD+R" and "DVD-R"?

Coexistence

[Cryogenes]

With VHS vs BetaMax people had a good reason to try and choose the same format as everyone else so they could view each other's tapes. However, once a DVD-R or DVD+R is recorded it can be read by either kind of drive. So people will simply choose the cheaper one.

As long as both kinds achieve a user base (and I think they already have) media will be available for either. It's not like one of them is going to die.

Do you believe in death after life?

Apple Superdrive is DVD-R.

[timmie...]

Whether this will have an enormous impact on whichever is ultimately commonly accepted is another matter.

I should be noted, however, that many of their other choices of things to ship with before anyone else (CD booting, built-in networking, USB) have become pretty much standard for most non apple hardware now.

Re:DVD is crap

[Tom7]

Uh, except the new technologies are not yet available, but there are millions of DVD drives and set-top players already deployed...

DVD-R has the edge on price

[inkfox]

From my searching, DVD-R seems to have the edge on price, especially for the media.

Unless the prices were to suddenly drop on the DVD+R burners or media, it's hard to see DVD-R not winning.

Of note - while they don't quite drive the market, they do make a difference: The Apple SuperDrives are DVD-R. I'm not sure there are any Apple DVD+R offerings.

Also of note - I bought a DVD+R drive early on, not knowing any better. I wish I'd gone with DVD-R or waited for one of the few drives which handle both.

DVD+R *is* compatible!

[Namarrgon]

DVD+RW is just as compatible as DVD-RW, which is to say, compatible with supposedly 70% of players out there.

However, DVD+R is just as compatible with DVD-R, i.e. with nearly 100% of players.

Both rewritable formats suffer from lower compatibility because older players are confused by the media's lower reflectivity into thinking it's a dual layer disc.

However, both write-once formats use a normal-reflectivity media, and both are more or less equally compatible. In fact, DVD+R has the theoretical edge due to its lossless linking method of writing, which is more like printed DVD-Video discs.

The answer is simply, don't buy a 1st-gen DVD+RW drive since they couldn't write DVD+R discs. However, the 2nd-gen drives (HP 200i, Ricoh 5125 etc) do burn write-once DVD+R discs, and are at least as compatible as DVD-R as this list shows.

I'm getting very tired of all the misinformation and FUD floating about this issue, and I'm starting to wonder who's behind it all...