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The Most Compatible DVD Format: DVD-R

Posted by timothy on from the mix-and-match-media dept.

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."

3 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. DVD Plus R by Cowclops · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you ask me, the obvious reason DVD-R got more momentum despite "DVD+R" being the theoretically better format on paper, is because right when DVD-RW drives dropped below $400 (i.e. when I purchased my Pioneer DVR-104) is because there was no such thing as DVD+R yet, just DVD+RW.

    DVD+RW media is (was? I don't even know since I don't buy it) expensive and significantly less comptable than DVD-R, so anyone looking to write something that could actually play in their set top dvd player pretty much needed DVD-R. I think the DVR-106's inclusion of +R and +RW is just a matter of making it look more competitive on paper. Thus I end this with a question... for anyone who owns a drive that supports both -r and +r, how frequently do you use one kind of media over another? I wouldn't be surprised if most people that own a -r/+r drive rarely use +r.

  2. Yet + is becoming more popular... by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Kind of annoyed me being at Staples the other day and finding that almost every DVD burner was +RW. One or two were dual format (a Sony and a "Cendyne"), and the one -R, a Cendyne (actually a Pioneer), was at a "clearance" price.

    The way it's looked to me the last few months of looking at these things, +R looks like it has the momentum to end up being the defacto standard. I probably wouldn't care so much, but I've been using Apples for the last six months, and OS X refuses to recognize the format, you have to use third party tools like Toast to make the things operable, and of course there's no way to enable iDVD to work with anything other than the burners Apple sells.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  3. Consider book type (bit setting) by endeitzslash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One important point I didn't see in the article was that many old dvd players will only play disks that have a "book type field" of DVD-ROM.
    See this link.

    My old Toshiba SD2100 is that way. So it wouldn't play DVD+R disks that I made on my Memorex 4X DVD+RW burner (actually a rebranded NEC) until I reflashed the NEC firmware with HP firmware (written for HP by NEC). The HP firmware causes DVD+R disks to be written with a DVD-ROM bitsetting (for maximum compatibility). Those DVD+RW drives that default to a DVD+R bitsetting cause problems with old home DVD players. For what it's worth, I bought a DVD+RW only because that's what I have to use at work and I wanted to avoid compatibility issues.

    Ed.