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The Most Compatible DVD Format: DVD-R
jbridges writes "CDR-Info tested eight types of media (two examples of each media type) using five different recorders, then tested compatibility in twenty-seven standalone DVD players and twenty DVD-ROM drives.
They determined that DVD-R is clearly the most compatible DVD recording format on the market. To assess the compatibility level of DVD Formats they created video content on a DVD writer using DVD-R/RW and +R/RW media. These discs were then played back in other DVD players and DVD-ROM drives -over a 1,000 combinations of drive, media and player were tested."
I would really hate to buy now, and in a while be the guy with that "weird" DVD that lost the market war so long ago.
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I would say the biggest incompatability is the authors grasp of the english language. But seriously, I think it's time we all accept that neither format is going to die at this point and just focus on buying PLAYERS that will best play all formats... The player is the cheapest link in this chain anyway. At that point, people can decide to record on - or + based on their preference for the price/feature aspect of the media... "Do I want to pay .50 less for my disc or do I want to be able to rewrite files on the disc without erasing the whole thing?" Every situation will be different. There's no excuse for a player to come out today that doesn't fully support both formats, and THAT is where our focus should be.
I think most of us have gotten to the point where we don't even care what's cheaper. Everyone just needs to pick one! I know at least 6 people (not including myself) who want to get a DVD burner, yet refuse to since they're unsure of compatability. The industry is just shooting itself in the foot if you ask me. By the time something gets sorted out everyone will have chosen the NEXT big thing (DVD-X++).
Personally I'm drowning in CD-Rs. Being able to cut down on my pile into 1/6th would be a big gain for me.
I just think it would be nice if they provided information on which of players had problems reading the different discs.
Question everything.
If that's the case, what kind of archival life can we expect out of the other brands? 4.7 gigs is a lot of data to go missing if a disk goes bad. I've read that burned DVD's are more fragile than CD's and just bending them while taking them out of the case can ruin a disk.
Are we going to have to re-burn all our data every 10.. 5.. 2 .. years because the marketplace has voted for crap/cheap media?
It has all to do with marketing.
DVD-R/W is the best format to use with other DVD-players and DVD-ROM, and has the cheapest media.
The companies behind DVD+R/W has done better marketing, and have got bigger companies with them, like Microsoft.
And we shall not forget that most people are stupid when it comes to technology (!). This is exactly the same that happend when "we" choose VHS instead of Beta.
Just look at the history of Microsoft. They was allways a step behind on everything but marketing. People saw only posters and commercial with Microsoft products, and became "brainwashed". Of course Microsoft isn't the only alternative, nor the best alternative.
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Fatrix
I'm just curious: Is the cost of backing up all your DVDs less than the cost of replacing the occasional failed DVD?
I'm all for being able to back them up; I'm not trying to make an anti-piracy/pro-MPAA point. But I am curious if the cost is currently worth it.
My guess is that it's not a cost issue, so much as an availability one: I have DVDs in my collection that have gone out of print and were never popular to begin with, so if they go bad, I can't replace them no matter how much I'm willing to spend. Probably no point backing up "Home Alone 2."
Because they are... on a theoretical standpoint. Take a DVD drive that was designed long before there were recordable formats and see which it reads better. Odds are, the +R format will be better supported because it closely matches the format of a pressed DVD-ROM.
Everything they tested was new, modern toys. Did they bother to mention how much of that stuff was explicitly designed to read DVD-R/RW discs? No. They didn't test compatibility; they tested supportablity.
That's just insane. DVD-ram was never intended to be a DVD compatible format. It's like saying "Brand X's hammer is much better than brand Y's screwdriver at pounding in nails". The equivalent to DVD+RW is DVD-RW. Still, neither RW format works very well in stand-alone players. That's what DVD-R and DVD+R are best at.
This is even harder to judge simply because I know for a fact, some of the companies used to prevent their players from playing opposite formats. i'm not sure if this is still in practice, but you can probably find some reference to it on the internet if you look.
Sure this plays in the grand scheme of how compatible it is, but the remains on whether or not it's artificial or not. While i can't comment specifically on the pioneer/panasonic cases, they do see somewhat strange that they have issues playing them back.
it's hard to really make this claim, especially since they didn't use the same media manufacturer, or a wider variety of media. and the number of burners was also quite limited.
also worth noting is that at least for the stand-alone recorders there are generally other methods you can burn in, to increase compatibility.
Firmware versions were also not mentioned. other sites have indicated that this has an effect for both formats.
grain of salt.
Give it a year or so DVD+RW will eventually take over, just look at most popular pc's coming out to market from Dell ,Hp and Gateway all the models that have DVD writers are DVD+RW. It wont be long before there will be more DVD+RW's than DVD-RW's in the market. This will make media manufactures lower media prices and DVD player manufactures make more compatible units.
Of course it matters, if you want to buy new drives to read the discs, why use a backwards compatable format at all?
The whole idea is burning discs others can read. Or are you going to buy all your clients, relatives, friends or customers new DVD drives when they cannot read your DVD+R discs?
The review was much more negative about DVD+R than the upfront review numbers say. The consumer DVD players that wouldn't read DVD+R were not obscure, but some of the most popular brands!
I would want any player I buy to be compatible with Sony and Philips as well as Panasonic for the same reason that I want any memory card reader I buy to be able to read Compact Flash and Secure Digital and Smart Media AND Memory Stick.... Because I can't control what people write things on or with, but I can control whether I can read them or not.
Stop wasting your time trying to kill a format that will not go away and just embrace what is and make sure it won't cost you the ability to watch a DVD because you are stuck on your principles.
Use your $$$ to buy the writer/media you prefer and let that be your vote in the format war, but refusing to push for readers that don't choke on one disc or the other is silly. They're just readers. Panasonic making their readers choke on DVD+R discs is no better than M$ making Netscape choke on content from its website. Be better than that.
He's wrong because the -R media is cheaper for the very reason that it's sold in higher volumes with greater competition, driving the price down. The low price is an indication of the format's success, not its demise.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Thank you!
I wondered when somebody would mention the technical advantages of DVD+R and DVD+RW. There are good reasons why Philips and partners have taken a different route.
Mount rainier support could - when implemented correctly (grumble grumble, stupid writer programs cannot get _anything_ right) revolutionize the PC world. Finaly a large size format that you can burn easily and take to friends, modify and take back.
Maybe the DVD-R is slightly more compatible and more cheap, but are we going to make the VHS mistake all over again? With the next protocol already?
Cmon guys, vote for the better one of the two!
Maybe the DVD-R is slightly more compatible and more cheap, but are we going to make the VHS mistake all over again? With the next protocol already?
I can't help but feel that your comparison of the DVD format situation is a bit backward.
DVD-R is the VHS in the situation yes? DVD+R is the Beta right? Well which won that one? VHS won, not because it was better, it clearly wasn't, but because it was cheaper and more compatible. Beta was better, but more expensive and quite proprietary.
I keep hearing from people saying that the + format is winning, but I havn't seen any proof of that. People keep saying "The minus format is going at bargain bin prices because it's being phased out," but that falls flat on it's face quite quickly. The DVD-R format was created by the official DVD forum, they're not going to back off easily. On top of that, things get cheaper when they're sold in great quantity...so it seems to me that the "bargain bin" prices are due to the format being the acutal popular choice.
One cannot assume that just because 80% of the DVD writers going out the door at one particular store (or even chain) that THAT is the winning format. If you go to Best Buy, that's almost all they carry so that's what sells. If you go to the local computer enthusiast shops -R outsells +R quite handily. Well guess who's buying and using the DVD writers, Joe Sixpack or Joe Techie. Seems to me that the format war is far from over no matter what anyone says.