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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."
I want so badly a dvdburner to backup stuff with, cd's are often to small for some of the content I'm backing up, however it would be a waste of my money to invest in one now even though I can afford it, for the fact that these are Not standard....sigh...only time will really tell.
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
DVD-R will win, because it has almost 100% compatibility with existing DVD players. DVD+R (from what I understand) is not nearly as compatible. Sort of like CD-R versus CD-RW.
Well truth is I have both an A03 and an A04 drive so I am hoping DVD-R will win. There is also the simple fact that DVD-R seems to be most compatabile in most non computer hardware playback machines.
If dvd-r != dvd+r and x=dvd then what is x?
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Some people are going to end up being mighty sorry when they blow a thousand dollars on a burner and they don't have any disks available to burn...
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Too easy...
Since the best selling one is in DVD-R, DVD+R will win out, causing those people to have to buy new DVD-Rs if they want to trade DVDs.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
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.
My question is: Can any of the DVD's written by these burners be played in a standard home DVD player? Sorry, I just crawled out from under a rock and haven't been following the DVD format wars or anything. I don't want this to pirate DVD's, I was thinking more on the lines of capturing video to disk, then burning it on a DVD.
No matter where you go... there you are.
When I'm making that $$$ again and a $200dollar DVDR doesn't make me think about "Gee if I buy this I can't eat my ramen"
That's what I am wondering, who invented DVD+R and DVD-R in the first place? What are the technological and usuable benefits of either of them?
I think it's more of a side-by-side comparison than roughly say: DVD-R has fair chance becuase the bestseller uses it...
Any format that won't play on Linux.
I have the Sony DRU-120A (DVD+RW / DVD+R)
:(.
+R(W) is supposed to be nicer because it matches the DVD-ROM spec closers in regards to luminosity, so it would be more useable on older players.
BUT
Currently +RW is kind of expensive ($5-$8 / blank?) and +R is flakey:
B's Recorder Gold screws up file dates (MAME won't recognize the files).
And Nero DVD Burning ROM will work, but only if you hack the registry to make it recognize the drive.
Linux support? Who knows
-Tom
This all happened with CD-Rs.
Remember CD-E? That went away and so will all DVD systems besides two. One for writeable, and one for rewrite.
-twb
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"?
slashdot!=valid HTML
It's Pioneer in the -R camp vs. Sony, HP, Ricoh, Dell, Yamaha, and Philips in the +R camp. The reason that -R is more popular currently is because +R is only relatively recently available.
Why aren't they creating standards like DVD*R, DVD/R, DVD^R, DVD\R, etc.etc.etc.??
But.. can't you then just turn the disc upside down?
-Matt
Whichever is cheaper to implement will win. It seems DVD-R is more prevalent right now, and it will probably stay that way. And if DVD+R has poor compatability and no advantage over DVD-R, I don't see why anyone would use it. I haven't read much on this, though, so there may be some advantage DVD+R has that I don't know about.
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?
--- This meme is memory intensive
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.
/dev/hdx device with mknod (mknod hda b 3 0 worked for me).
/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.
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
The reason for needing both the
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.
RFC2119
The one that will win is whichever one I don't buy when I can't hold out any longer.
The DVD consortium, the bunch that came up with the DVD standards (DVD video, audio, RAM) also came up with DVD-R and RW. Sony, HP, et all, came up with DVD+R and RW.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
The best thing about standards is that there's so many to choose from =)
On the serious note, I'll have to go with DVD-R -- Pioneer's got a lot of clout.
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
After all, coins normally come up either heads or tails, but rarely land on their edges ;-).
I do backups with a couple of extra hard drives. Bought a docking bay for them so that I can pull them out and put them safely away when not in use. I use Ghost to image the entire drive one in a while, just to capture all the installed apps, and Second Copy to make daily backup copies of user files.
Heres the Deal. First off The Dvd-r discs are far more compatable with DVD players than Dvd+r's are. This has been proven by countless testings compairing both the Dvd-r and Dvd+r drives. Second The DVD-R spec is backed by the same forum that supports the Cd-r and rw spec. Third Price these Pioneer drives are already around $240 to purchase online. And now if I'm not mistaken there is a lawsuit against the companies supporting the Dvd+r spec. Because they promised a simple firmware upgrade for the dvd+rw drives so they can burn the dvd+r discs. Anyone out there pissed about that one....lol Anyway instead of a firmware upgrade, they are makeing the consumers shell out more cash for a NEW dvd+ drive so they can start burning the VERY LATE Dvd+r discs.... Very very sad indeed. My Money is on the DVD-R standard period! I Love my Pioneer A03 drive.
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.
More interesting is the old guy that overheard us and mumbled in beer speech: "DVD's!! I haven't even heard of CVD's -- I'm sticking with BVD's..." Which was followed by a few unintelligable sentences concerning underwear and conspiracies.
*blink*
I like the sound of
chmod DVD+R
better than
chmod DVD-R
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Usually, what happens is either:
You have two less frequent variants:
This leads me to think neither DVD-R nor DVD+R will win, and they will be replaced by yet another standard that will force users to upgrade yet again. The manufacturers are obviously OK with this, as this makes more profits for them, at the expense of slowing the initial acceptance of the technology. Consumers aren't complete idiots either, apart from a fringe of early adopters who are used to being shafted anyways, myself included (I own an Apple iMac with a Pioneer DVD-R drive)
I don't know too much about how the different standards work with either other, but I'm assuming a DVD+RW drive would work with DVD+R, and a DVD-RW drive would work with DVD-R, and that there's no cross-compatibility between the + and the - drives. If I'm wrong, I apologize, but if I'm right, then I assume that the + technologies will win out, only because that's what Microsoft says will happen. If you look at this page on Microsoft's site, it basically says they're backing DVD+RW because it's the easiest for Windows to work with, and for the users to work with because it supports "Mt. Rainier" burning. (easy Drag&Drop burning, from what I can tell). If that's the one Microsoft is backing for built-in Windows support, I'm sure you can guess which one will eventually win. Plus, the + technologies seem to have more companies behind them, though the - tech seems to have more of an installed base. *shrug*
I believe the + will win, but not knowing is what has prevented me from buying any so far.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just another vote for the dash.
It's obvious neither one will win.
According to the MPAA, the only people needing that much portable storage are pirates and other lowlifes. Therefore, it's clear that both formats will be banned and you will be arrested for so much as thinking about either one.
This might well not be enough to make on the fly burning possible, but it might be worth a try... I assume the source drive and writer aren't on the same IDE bus?
Ok, yes, as stated, DVD-R and DVD+R are not compatible (by compatible i mean that you can't burn '-R' discs in a '+R' burner and vice versa. However, a DVD+R is a DVD+RW minus the rewriteable aspect. DVD+RW was released first, and then they released DVD+Rs, which are cheaper than the DVD+RW discs. However, not all DVD+RWs can burn DVD+Rs. Only the newer ones can.
Info on DVD+R/+RWs
Will there are DVD's that don't play in my computer i could care less!
When DVD's start be shipped without zoning, without crypto, then i will start to get an interest in "published" DVD's... till then, it's just a curiosity technology like many others...
Cheers...
A new future format will supercede all current medium.
:T:R:A:N:S:
As long as the resultant disk plays in your DVD player, it doesn't matter what burner you use.
Consumers want more choice! Come on, give it to us!
We want DVD=RAM, DVD~RW, DVD±R, and DVD_ROM!
Don't hold back! We want one, two, and three-layer formats! One, two, and three-sided disks!
We want the kind that come in a cartridge but you can remove them, and the kind that come in a cartridge but you can't remove them, and the kind that don't come in a cartridge but you need a caddy!
We crave the thrill, the excitement, and the suspense of putting a DVD in a player and wondering what, if anything will happen!
Oh, and, please, we'd hate to break the law by recording anything you don't think we should record, so put in something to stop us from doing that.
And we'd really like to get valuable discount coupons in the mail, but only on the stuff we like to watch, so it would be helpful if the player sent a list of everything we watch to get sent to the MPAA, the RIAA, and the Department of Homeland Security so that they could form a dossier, I mean profile of our interests.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
DVD-R is the officially supported standard of the DVD Forum.
I just ordered a DVR-A04 for $299 I've seen the OEM for $249. The quality DVD+R drives were in the paper this weekend for $449 (HP @ CompUSA). The DVD-R disks ($2-$3) are near half the price of the DVD+R ($5-$6) disks. DVD-R has near 100% compatibility while +R is at about 70% and if you have an early model DVD player it has almost no chance.
I have used the DVR-A03 for over a year and have had no problems.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Local stores are selling 1x DVD-R media for $2.50 a disc.
Local stores (if I can find it) sell DVD+R (don't know what speed -- I didn't care that much) for about $10 a disc.
People will not pay $10 a disc so willingly as $2.50. Until DVD+R is less than $2.50 a disc, it has already lost in my mind.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Uh, except the new technologies are not yet available, but there are millions of DVD drives and set-top players already deployed...
Simply because DVD-R can be pronounced as "DVD R", while DVD+R must be pronounced as "DVD plus R". The difference between the name is minimal, so consumers will get confused and go for DVD-R instead, not knowing that DVD+R is something incompatible.
Call me crazy if you want, but I do think that it's this kind of small things that will make DVD-R win.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The current DRIVES won't work with those discs. They use some of the same OPTICS, which would keep startup costs down. But you can't flash a DVD drive with new firmware, stick in a 100GB disc, and expect it to read.
You can't fit a whole movie on a home recorded DVD?R anyway. So what exactly is the practical use?
Since DVD-R is more popular and better, DVD+R will come down in price so everyone and their dog who doesn't have one will buy one "on sale with a $200 rebate from Best Buy" and then DVD+R wins. The best technology doesn't always win out.. Ex: Beta vs VHS
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.
Says the RIAA: When you EQ, you're stealing bass!
All theese formats are just to make more money for companies. If you believe that aforementioned DVD standards were created for your convinience you're damn wrong, there is always money behind. And the companies will do as much as they can to make sure they get your money. I would wait if i were you(unless you really hate splitting big files to number of CD's). After all, no one likes to waste money and shelving couple of hundreds of pounds just to be in the line seems like sheer waste to me...
We have a MacG4 with a SuperDrive in it, but now we are looking for a DVD player that will allow us to view a test disc. We use DVD-R General discs because they are cheap and allow us multiple tries without toasting a $25 disc and then find an error. We're thinking of going to DVD-RW because after a several burns, they are cheaper. We are also not opposed to going to +R or +RW if the cost/benefit is there.
In the Aug 2002 issue of DV Magazine, they review the different formats (DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW but not DVD+R). They look at compatiblity w/players, disc failure rate by disc manufacturer, and other factors. It offers a good read and lots of info if you are interested. They even list players that can accept all of the formats. It has helped us make a decision on a player (Apex makes a nice model).
DVD-R will take the lead not because it is compatible but because it has got the greatest market share. VHS did not beat BetaMax in the specs, it beat it in the market. I have gone DVD-R/RW because it is best but it is already the main player and the rest will fall because they do not have the following. The easiest media to get is for DVD-R/RW so to buy anything else is folly.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
An interesting fact about the "+" standard is that it is incompatable with the current dual AMD boards (MP and MPX chipset). This is a problem that I found out from selling a computer configured with both a ASUS a7m266-d and a DVD+R+RW. When the problem showed up we tryed changing motherboards, then brand of motherboard, and finally brands of DVD+ drive.
HP and Sony both blame AMD. AMD says that the problem lies in a data protocol required for the dual chips that the "+" standard interfers with.
The "-" is fully compatable and works perfect. So my vote goes to the "-" standard because of compatablity and I don't trust Sony and HP. (especially since we saw a bunch of issues with packet writing and the Sony CDRW drive)
..and finally the format wars won't be the deciding factor - millions of DVD players already in homes have decided it for us.
DVD-R plays in nearly all players except for some first-gen Toshibas, while DVD+RW *still* aren't compatible with most brands. If you buy a DVD recorder to make movies for demo disks, portfolios or other transmittabes, or just to send to family and friends (or Sundance), then DVD-R is your pal. And the pal of everyone you send a DVD to.
If you're only using it on your PC for backup, who cares?
just do the math and end up with dvd*2 - r*2?
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.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Too bad Sony never made the MD a data storage standard
Sony did make MD File, an MD-based storage standard, but because the drives were much slower (1x MD == 0.2x CD) than other magneto-optical storage technologies in the same capacity and price range, it died out.
Then you could store MP3s on one and we might have seen MD MP3 players.
"Net MD" players support MPEG audio.
Sony so obscured the MD as a storage medium that I don't even know how much data one holds
ATRAC compression is 5:1.
Will I retire or break 10K?
>DVD is dead
Interesting, considering the recent price drop on APEX DVD players caused such a run of consumers buying them that my entire city (yes, every store, WalMart, FutureShop, you name it) was out of stock for 2 weeks.
Are you lying, talking out of your ass, or still searching for proof on your side? Enquiring minds want to know!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Did any-one else notice - that kila_m seemed - to be trying to subliminally - sway the Slash-dot reader-ship - into picking one - format over another?
Nope, that was quite different. Betamax & VHS were completely incompatible standards. Tapes recorded for one were not readable by the other, so rental stores had to stock movies in both formats.
DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW drives will both read standard DVD-ROM and DVD-Video discs. They will even read each other's write-once and rewritable discs. The only difference is in the media they write to (and how they do it), and since it's much cheaper to stock two types of blank media than two types of pre-recorded media, I think there'll be no availability problems for the usable life of the drives at least.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
The -R and -RAM formats own the consumer video recorder market. The -RAM format has the key advantage of very fast random access time, so fast that you can record and play-back from the same disk simultaneously in real time.
The -R format is currently the most compatible with existing players. Truthfully though, worrying about which format will work with existing and older players is irrelevant. It would be like worrying about CD-R because older players won't work with it. If you need to read the disks, get a player that will do so. I'd be willing to make a bet that withing a year's time there won't be a player sold that won't read both -R and +R and quite a few that will read -RAM (especially from Panasonic).
The only area where there is any room for competition will be in the computer arena, but even then there will be no clear victor for a very long time. With +R drives and media being much more expensive than -R, I think that -R has a bright future here as well.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
If the technically superior format always loses, then why did ISA beat Microchannel? Why did DVD beat DIVX?
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.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
ok fine.. DVD _should_ be dead
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
...which is that nobody cares about the merits of the competing RW specs. Rewritable removable optical media is voodoo technology, sold by the cynical to the guillible, who generally use it until the one bundled RW disk gives out, and then take one look at the relative prices of R and RW media and switch to the former exclusively.
The one question which will determine the winner between DVD-R(W) and DVD+R(W) is "which one produces DVDs that play more reliably in my $125 set-top DVD player?" So far, Pioneer seems to have a very clear edge, but the year is yet young and Sony/HP may yet get their act in gear.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
I wonder if ANY format will REALLY become popular, until someone makes a dual-layer dvd recordable, so that it can hold a (relatively) simple copy of a purchased movie...
After all the "killer app" for cd-r/rw was probably piracy / legitimate copying of commercial cds, I don't really see why it should be any different for dvd recordable.
What's more, it burns discs faster (especially rewritable discs), it's just as compatible, and I've seen drives (the Ricoh 5125A - 2nd gen DVD+R/RW, the drive OEM'd to other vendors) on Pricewatch for as low as US$284.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I don't know why people keep accusing DVD+R of poor compatibility. The fact is, write-once discs of each standard are readable in close to 100% of drives & players, while rewritable discs of each standard are both less compatible. See here for a list.
The older 1st-gen DVD+RW drives that could not burn write-once discs did suffer, since rewritable formats of each type are inherently less compatible, but since 2nd-gen drives became available that could write DVD+R discs, they've been pretty much identical.
As for advantages, how about DVD+R/RW drives just burn discs faster? Especially rewritable discs. They also allow you to append video to a disc without having to reformat & rewrite the lot. There are other advantages too.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I bought an older DVD-R drive. The media plays in all of the older DVD players (that cheap one I bought for my grandma). I think you're safe getting either as long as everyone you know has a relatively modern DVD player, but I didn't want to have to think about that.
Using approximations, DVD-R is 4.7 gigs of space.
Use the '600' rule of thumb to determine maximum bitrate for your movie:
If your movie is 95 minutes long, 600/95 = 6.3, which is the max bitrate for your video AND audio stream. The DVD standard calls for 1.6M/sec max on uncompressed audio, or an average of 0.2M/sec for AC3 (Dolby Digital), which is compressed.
So, if you go with uncompressed audio, 6.3 - 1.6 = 4.7M/sec max for your video stream bitrate, or 6.3 - 0.2 = 6.1M/sec if you encode with AC3.
All encoders are not created equal. TMPGENc is a good free encoder, but takes at least 10x real time to convert your .avi movie to MPEG2.
What kind of disc costs $25?
I do my test burns on a $7 DVD+RW disc, then when I like it I burn it to a $3 DVD+R disc. I dunno where you're buying your media from, but I think they're trying to rip you off.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
There are essentially four different formats here, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW. The RW formats are both less compatible than is the R formats. This is the same as with CD formats. The R formats both offer high compatibility again parallell to the CD formats.
As to which is better + or -, technically the + format has a slight edge. Also, if you want to use the drive as a data storage device not only a movie storage device, then the + format has a clear advantage. The DVD forum wants you to use DVD-RAM for data storage (far superior to both the others for this purpose) but this is not compatible with anything.
I can't say I regret buying my drive. In fact, I tend to use it with a feeling bordering on smugness whenever I burn a rewritable disc 2.4 times faster than the DVR-A04 :-)
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
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...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I've also seen DVD+R discs for under $3, and DVD+RW discs for under $5. Can't complain about that.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I've seen DVD+R discs in numerous places for under $3. I think you're looking in the wrong places.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Neither standard will write to the other's media, of course. However, both standards will happily read each other's media.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
But.. can't you then just turn the disc upside down?
No, you use a technique known as double recording. Put two "-" discs in the "+" recorder simultaneously. The two discs will cancel each other out to the "+" format and work as expected.
As a side bonus, you get two copies of whatever you wanted to write to the disc.
Seriously, who cares? If both the dvd+r and dvd-r play equally well, then it's your choice. Maybe a drive will come out that will record on both medias. That will win hands down on both counts.
The only other factor is speed and price. Also I'd say I'd actually buy a dvd recorder if one of them supported dual layered and dual layered double sided formats. I'd really like to copy my dual layered movies and games and not have to remove stuff from the dvds to make them fit.
And I even made a comment on the last /. article that asked the question of "Time to Purchase a DVD-R?". My goal here is just to back up the comments that have already been posted by others.
1.) The 104 is the SAME as the A04 (EXCEPT for the fact that one uses general purpose disks and the other uses disks for authoring, respectively).
2.) I did some research before I bought my drive, and more DVD drives support -R than +R. Granted some drives may still read +R disks, but it's not advertised, so I consider that unnofficial.
3.) For those bitching about "harddrives are cheaper/use tape backups", stop being asses. I wanted the portability of DVD for a reason, and so did the people who are buying these drives.
4.) That last point being said, those that have bought the -R drives en mass have proved that it's the format they want, and that will drive the market. Kinda like the VHS/BetaMAX wars...
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Given that SONY is pushing DVD+RW, and also pushing broadcast flags and "digital rights management" (and shutting off firewire ports on future Tivo recorders, and mandating broadcast flags in same) one should stay far away from DVD+RW and anything else SONY is behind. Phillips has been leading the push in Congressional hearings at the Commerce Department at other departments against the broadcast flag and drm controls. Panasonic is also behind the DVD-Ram. As for DVD-Ram vs. DVD+RW, the DVD-Ram is better for random access reading and writing, one of the considerations that I am sure slashdot readers take into account when purchasing hardware, and not just Joe sixpack's concern on whether he can watch his pron dvd's.
Sony and Phillips are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to broadcast flags and drm (and fair use rights). Phillips is in the corner of the consumer, and Sony is in the corner of greed. You decide who to support, but you should keep random access performance in mind when it comes to choosing which format to buy. I can't afford two DVD recordable drives, and the one I purchase must give me random access performance for my data, as well as the ability to play DVDs. Due to the design of DVD+RW, and DVD-RW, they both will never approach the random access capabilities of DVD-Ram, regardless of how the manufacturers pitch it to you.
Can't deny that. But for $3 more, my DVD+RW disc is burnt 2.4x faster than your DVD-RW - 40 mins to your hour and a half. Perhaps you should stop wasting your time...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Won't Bluray come out in 2005, making standard
DVDs obsolete?
<shrug>
It disturbs me that the industry can't settle on a single standard, like BluRay or whatever, and lets get on with it. Competing formats aren't good for anyone.
Here is a link to a CNET article that describes a new spec, including 4x recording speeds, and a new 8cm disc.
I mean, why are they doing these incompatible formats. Let's see, we already have something called DVD's which we buy in stores, the technology is currently WORKING. Why don't the frickin' burners burn in this format and get it over with!!!
Or lemme guess, the DVD's we have are a broken standard where the designers haven't thought that maybe someday someone would say : "wwwhhoooa man, this is cool, if only I could make home movies with these." I mean, have you ever seen a VHS tape NOT work if you taped it with a video recorder and played it on another one? Get the point?
These days, with laws like DMCA, Digital Right Managements, DVDs with unskippable tracks and other crap like these, I am thinking that technology is just going to get suckier, not better. The good old days are over I guess...
I would certainly go for the- (minus) format for the single reason that that write once (dvd-r) are in 90% cases compatible with existing dvd players.
Besides, i still havent seen dvd+r only dvd+rw. Try reading a ReWritable on anything but dvd+rw writers.
So the -(minus) seems the best for now =)....
still reading?
DVD+RW and DVD+R are formats that were never supposed to be supported in consumer players.
Gasically this is a beta vs vhs thing were the proponents of dvd+r and dvd+rw don't want to pay the licensing fees to the dvd-r guys.
DVD-R is the most compatible format.
DVD-RAM is the best for rewrites and so on. Completely outstrips dvd+rw for performance and longevity and has in fact been around for ages in jukeboxes etc.
Every storage format becomes obsolete in the end. Just use whatever works for you now and be prepared to move your data to something else when the time comes.
How many of you out there in Slashdot land remember 100-base-FAST (HP's competition to 100bT?) Learn from history, friends...
I have an external firewire version of the Pioneer A04 drive, and I'm reasonably satisfied with its reliability and performance.
However, it's pretty difficult finding compatible media that it can use without making a fuss. The blank DVD-R discs sold from the website firewiredirect.com works like a charm and the drive burns them at full speed and the discs can be read in near anything else.
Other brands of DVD-R discs don't work near as well, and sometimes take twice as long to burn. Nero reports zero buffer allocation for seconds at a time when I'm not using the 'good' brand,
and occasionally those discs don't read in any other drive than the A04.
My point, in short, is to be sure you find a supplier of 'good' media for your DVD burner and buy a few samples of different kinds to determine which works best for you. The different brands have different shades of purple colors, the more reddish purple kind works best for my drive.
I started out with a first-generation Philips DVD+RW drive. Totally worthless "standard"... Returned it promptly and bought a Pioneer A03.
I'm somewhat satisfied with the A03 drive (DVD-R), and it looks like the A04 is only incrementally improved. (EG. No reason to spend more money upgrading from A03 to A04.)
I'm quickly starting to see a real problem with all of these current writable DVD standards though. They only support single-sided discs at 4.x gigs.
No matter how illegal it is, one thing in the backs of the minds of quite a few consumer DVD burner purchasers is the ability to make copies of DVD movies. Well over half the time, a movie is too long to fit on a single DVD-R or DVD+R disc, since the commercial DVD is double-sided and holds over 8GB.
It's a major pain to extract everything off the commercial DVD and then go through all the procedures necessary to rip and re-encode the audio streams so you can break it into 2 pieces to burn to 2 seperate single-sided DVD discs. (Not to mention, this makes it cost twice as much to copy the movie, so you might not even want to bother.)
This is probably going to be the #1 (unspoken) reason why a new standard holding 8+ GB per DVD writable disc has the real hope of becoming an official "standard".
A Question for the DVD techies here: Why can't we record using the exact same method of recording used for commercial movies?
Is this a deliverate messure by the DVD patent holders? How do the movie studios record (or test) movies? Can we get one of those drives? how much do they cost and who makes them???
I remember saying over 3 years ago to a friend "I won't get a DVD recorder til the format is standardized. And that should be in 6-8 months." oops.
Yeah ure right, the dvd100i is crap, but then again its first gen. the 200i is must better and that's what we use in our post-production house. Also 4x DVD+RW are planned for the end of this year. 15min DVDs will be nice.
Doesn't matter if it's technically possible or not. The backers of various formats rarely if ever decide to cut the crap and play nice with one another, and they never want to share.
And whenever they try, someone tries to sabotage it.
unlikly. the lack of a standard is with dvd writers not reading so the format will not die just becease of this, it'll do more damage through the people who may want to use dvd's as a backup rather then the other mediums. as for some smaller businesses that need to backup large amounts of ddata would quite likly switch to dvd's otherwise. dvd's have also got too much notice with dvd movies. so they won't do what beta video players did. as well as that there is nothing to replace them in a commercial market. basically everything else with data storage of their size costs a lot more to make and thus buy.
The OEM version of the A04 (the 104) is only $259 at mwave. And as the proud owner of the retail box, I can say with a great deal of honesty that nothing in that retail box is worth having (besides the drive) if you have a) nero and b) dvd playing software (assuming you want to play dvds).
And supermediastore.com has a 100 pack of DVD-R disks for $89 (which work just dandy with the pioneer drive).
How can you afford NOT to own a dvd burner? =)
Yes, but my longstanding collection of fansub anime divX movies won't exactly play right off of a backup tape... DVD-R's are of course, usable for more than just backup...
chmod dvd+rwx
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