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Choosing Between DVD+R and DVD-R?
Pieroxy asks: "Most people like to make the analogy between DVD+/-R and the old VHS/Betamax/V2000 battle. This analogy is not applicable here, because whether you choose DVD+ or DVD-, you burn DVDs that are readable in most existing DVD players. Even if you buy today, the burner based on the technology that will die tomorrow, all your DVD*R will be readable in most DVD players. That said, what other argument than technical superiority can drive your choice? We know the DVD-R compatibility on existing players is better than DVD+R, we know that DVD+R as well as DVD-R have dual layers plans. What else can help me choose between either format? Are prices that different? Reliability? Speed?"
... DAT tapes or lots of CDs. Wait a while until one standard becomes most prevelant.
DVD as a consumer writable storage medium isn't viable as yet in terms of interoperability and long term retainment.
But if you do that, you get DVD+R+DVD-R which is 2DVD. This leaves you with two ordinary DVDs, instead of the recordable environment you wanted to begin with.
Sony are developing it for retail use, it will be ready in 2 years, mark my words!
--
FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
...according to this excelent review
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights
...and 2DVD is equal to 2VD^2, who's first deriviative is VD, which no one really wants.
[so shoot me if my math sucks, it's been 20 years since I had Calc... I did it for the punch line]
As someone with a DVD player in the "other" category, I cannot use DVD+ media for video. However 8x write speed on DVD+R is pretty impressive! ( I currently have a 1x burner that burns 'A' discs ) In my case, I was going to buy a Pioneer A06 but will wait for the Plextor to appear. Bottom line: Buy a burner that can use either type, and use different discs depeding on application (i.e. DVD+ for data or for players that can use it, DVD- for video / max compatibility)
Are there differences between the expected longevity of media for the different technologies?
Current pricing for a 25-disc spindle on Future Shop (from the same manufacturer) is $55CDN for DVD+R, and $60CDN for DVD-R. Another manufacturer has -R for $70CDN, so maybe +R is the better deal.
In any event, both should play in modern DVD players so if you can get a Dual Format burner you can just go with the cheaper discs at the time.
Microsoft backs DVD+R take it as you will.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
DVD-RW
The original "standard". Major backers are Apple, NEC, Panasonic, Pioneer, Toshiba. Some incompatibilities exist with the emerging Mount Ranier standard, but there is a *huge* user base.
DVD+RW
Followed shortly after DVD-RW. Major backers are Dell, HP, Philips, Sony, Yamaha. Supposedly less error prone than DVD-RW and also more efficient, so faster drives are a more likely prospect and most pundits I've seen tend to favour this over DVD-RW. Used by Philips in their DVD set-top recorders.
DVD-RAM
The most recent standard. Major backers are Panasonic and, um... but Panasonic does use them in their set-top recorders and the format dominates this market in Japan. Much better support for random access recording (doesn't use a spiral track IIRC) so better for timeshifting, etc. Longest (hypothetical) lifespan of 100 years vs 70, and most supported rewritings (again hypothetical) of 100,000 vs 10,000 times. Most of the gains are due to the fact that a cartridge is often required, although this is starting to be phased out.
Ultimately though, if you want to use these disks in your DVD players, all the features don't matter a damn if your disks won't play, so check compatability first! I've also heard that different brands of media can cause issues with some players too. I'm waiting for now, but I think a DVD+RW/RAM drive would be the way to go at the moment. Finally LG does a drive compatible with all the standards, I'm not aware of any other drives that can do this as yet.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
DVD+ apparently supports VBR (Variable Bit Rate) encoding when recording as video (obviously, computer media files with VBR in them will save just fine when using this as a data medium). DVD- apparently does not. This may be outdated information.
:) Okay, admit it, it's dead. Don't touch it. (and put that stick down, Billy!)
DVD+ is now faster. Plextor has their (I think 708A) drive out, which supports 8X recording on DVD+R _ON 4X MEDIA_. Nobody else is doing this, certainly not on -R.
DVD+ seems to be getting faster, faster than DVD- is.
The media price seems to be at parity, though I've not done extensive checking, just take a peek every now and then at a Best Buy or CompUSA.
If I was going to buy a drive now, I'd go for the Plextor 708A, and stick with the + media (it's compatible with both + & - media, both reading & writing).
DVD-RAM isn't dead, it just smells that way.
You may want to hold off until the whole burning dual-layer thing comes to fruition - I'm not sure how soon that'll happen, though I think someone just recently demonstrated it (Philips?).
I'd definitely go for the Plextor drive right now, though - it's even cheaper than the very nice Sony dual format drive, in addition to the 8X burning thing, which the Sony doesn't do.
A combo DVD+/-R(W) drive will only set you back like $120 nowadays, and the price is getting lower all the time. Might as well just go with the combo drive, and you'll bet set to deal with either format.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Nope. the first derivative of 2VD^2 is 4VD with respect to D or 2D^2 with respect to V.
I'm a bigger geek than you.
To understand recursion,
you must first understand recursion.
I was waiting to jump in, not wanting to get the DVD equivalent of a Betamax, but found a Memorex dual-format burner for about $130 after rebate at one of the local Big Box Stores. My officemate gave me $25 for the 16x DVD-ROM it replaced, so my net is just over $100. By the holidays, that will probably be street price for these things, at which point I expect the single-format burners will just go away, making this whole argument as moot as SCO's case.
Though I don't know why so many of the 'both' posts are getting modded down, I don't see why this isn't a good answer.
.
The price on a +/-R type burner isn't that much higher than the just -R or just +R.
I picked the first sony 500 series that did it when they first came out not because of worries over the vhs/beta type war, but because of the cost of media and availability. Yes, some players are going to like some types more than other. Sure, one of them might be the 'winner' in the long run. But for me, I needed lots of data dumps that I didn't want to use tape for. Which means lots of media. I wanted to be sure I could go with the more economical media of the time and it was an intelligent choice. I've had difficulty getting spindles of +R media at times and have no choice but to go with -R media (unless I'm willing to pay 2 bucks a disk in smaller package sizes).
You don't buy a car nowadays without checking out the mile/gallon, no reason the same shouldn't apply to the ongoing cost of our media consuming devices . .
I guess it all comes down to what you really want to use it *for* to help decide which one is better for you . . . Or course, my argument will slowly become invalid as the media manufacturers and retail outlets catch up with the demand of a still newish consumer product line . . .
get the Sony DRU-510. It handles all standards and the firmware is upgradeable to support future standards. It is pricey, but is also the best one available currently. If you pay more than 300 for the external usb2/firewire version, you got screwed.
At the end of october the new DVD+RW drives will get a feature called Mount Rainier. Drives which are fully M.R. compliant will get a brand sticker from Philips called "easy write" or something like that.
It's a technical story but it comes down to, that you can use Mount Rainier rewritable (DVD+MRW) disks as 4.3 Gigabyte harddisks. In other words, you don't need a special burning program to put stuff on the +MRWs, you just drag and drop it to your drive icon.
Copying, deleting, everything behaves like with a floppy disk.
DVD+MRW has extra disk storage reserved for error correction so it is safe to use a DVD like a HD. However, that is also the reason why you can only burn 4.3 GB on it instead of 4.7
The DVD- standard cannot be made compatible with Mount Rainier.
Also, eventually DVD-RW will become more expensive because a disc has to be made unwritable by machine at a certain small area of the disc, you can see the lines with the naked eye. This has to be done with an extra step in the manufacture of the discs and so will increase the price. The movie industy wanted that extra feature to prevent 1:1 copies of movie DVDs.
Using a seperate program to be able to use storage is a bit strange if you think about it.
Hope I made up your mind for you.
- -- Truth addict for life.
Be careful on this... if the person buying it is technically savvy, fine. If they are not then do not get a combo. The reason is this - there are very big differences in what and how you burn stuff on DVD+R and DVD-R and when you can add extra sessions and when you have to finalize the DVD before you can read it in a standard player, etc. Somebody that is not technically savvy could easily get confused as to why the DVD they burned yesterday let them to X and this one today does not. I have a combo drive, but if I was reccomending one to my parents it would be a single format drive. Only get a combo for people who can and will take the time to learn the differences in the two formats so they know which is best to use for which project.
+/- RW's offbrands for just over 100 bucks. Pioneers for 130 ish, and the sony's for close to 150.
You will have to buy a new burner to write dual layer media. So either side having dual layer *plans* doesn't matter at all to choosing now.
Since I'm posting anyway...personally I use DVD-R. It's the most compatible if you ever burn a DVD for a friend, it's cheapest, and the drives are cheaper and have been out longer with more generations (grab an old Pioneer, dirt cheap and reliable). So I couldn't care less about technical matters.
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Format (+/-) doesn't matter unless you are concerned about read compatibility. If it's just for your own use, then you can get away with anything. Right now, pricing for each type of media seems to have finally gotten to be about equal, so price really should not be a factor any longer. But watch out for older recorders being liquidated at a too good to be true price, these will typically only suport one format, they won't write both. If you are using just for DVD-ROM, data storage, then either should be fine, as both media can be read reliably in most DVD-ROM drives. If you are interested in created DVD video, then the -R media is drastically more compatible with a variety of DVD Video players. Note: we're not talking about Divx movies on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM here, we're talking about video recorded in the same format as a commercial DVD video disc you would get from Circuit City (er, ack! oh, nevermind - that's another story alltogether). I experienced this firsthand as I have both media and have tested videos on DVD on a wide variety of DVD players. I have yet to come across a player that will not read a DVD-R disc at all. The worst I have found is my 1st generation Pioneer Laserdisc/DVD Combo player, it recognizes and plays the DVD-R media just fine, but on occasion seems to get confused and stops playing when using FF. Even a cheapie $50 Apex DVD player purchased just one year ago plays all my DVD-R video's like a champ. But both the above players do not recognize DVD+R media at all. With my +R discs, the people I've given them to in order to have them test in their players, about 20% of them have problems viewing, while no problems reported at all with the video I have done on -R media.
Obviously I should have waited a couple months to buy mine, the Sony in particular I couldn't find anywhere near that price when I was looking.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
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There are still plenty out there that won't. My cheap-o apex seems to be able to play anything. The sony I have in the bedroom plays *most* everything (it doesn't like -rw and a few brands of -r) but a few it seems to play the data faster (its really weird, its like watching it with sound at 10% faster than normal) and my first gen ancient sony only seems to like cd rw and +r's.
It sounds like you are more focused on the video side of dvd burning, I think your best bet is going to be browse on over to http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ where they have lots of good info on various players and which media types and brands work with them in both dvd and vcd type formats. If you have an idea of what type of players your friends and family have, you can get a better guage of which format might be better to go with if you do want to just stick with one. (but why! I want both mustard *and* ketchup with my hotdog even though both are good and non-cancelling condiments in their own right).
The dvdrhelp site is very good for software information used for the dvd/vcd creation process too. Definitely worth perusing.
I read they're calling it "Mount Fuji" at the moment.
- -- Truth addict for life.
i think it would be better said, "in each nostril" -- ignorent fool.
DVD+RW is supported by HP, Dell, Microsoft and IIRC Pioneer.
DVD-RW was supported by Sony, Apple and Compaq. Sony now does dual format drives. As of 10.3, Apple now has support for +RW in their OS (though still not in some apps), and Compaq got brought by HP and now supports +RW.
Mount Ranier (a sucessor to the packet writing technologies people use these days) is based on +RW.
And the compatibility thing may or may not be bullshit depending on who you speak to.
I think we have a winner. Get +RW or a dual format drive.