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DVD-RW Incompatibilities?
rekkanoryo writes "It seems that there is some trouble brewing in the DVD-RW camps. According to CNET, new, faster 4x DVD-RW media may not be compatible with older DVD-RW drives. The DVD+RW camp is confident this won't be a problem for them, but the -RW backers think it will sometime in the future when even faster media starts to appear. Also mentioned is a dual-layer DVD+R capable of holding up to 8.5 GB of data per disc and the problem with really old DVD+RW drives not being upgradable to support write-once DVD+R media."
Why isn't there a standard format that can be adhered to so that a DVD RW here is a DVD RW there?
If standards existed, a company that built an incompatible extension into their technology wouldn't be able to legitimately call their device a DVD RW.
I have been pwned because my
dont you think they would have made sure this is backwards compatible? i mean come on, how many customers are they gonna piss off with this. i bet this is their corporate motto: " sux 4 u! "
It seems like consumer DVD writing technology is coming out a bit too fast now. The format is fracturing more than it's uniting...
Whatever happened to the standard bodies who are supposed to prevent this?
So there will be problems with read support for the old drives, too, not just unable to write to the new media, right?
That hurts, really.
My valuable pr0n collection! Now I have to start all over again!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This is why I'm sticking to CD-RW/CD-R for now. There are so many different formats in the DVD-RW market that it doesn't make sense to buy one now and then, *poof*, it's incompatible with everything else.
Who gets to set the standards? There are several groups, each of which think that their system is the best. Why should all but one group be excluded? Why not just let the market decide what the 'standard' is?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I just bought a Lite-On LDW-411S dual format drive. I hope I'm not affected by this. I wish I had read the article before hand, but as of now I haven't had any problems with -R, +R, or +RW discs yet.
--
For great deals on DVD burners and other electronics, click here!
This is somewhat off-topic and for that I apologise. I am interested in hearing what people use in Linux for DVD+ or -RW burning, that is for burning of data DVDs rather than video DVDs. I have yet to find any decent software in Linux but I am likely just not looking hard enough. I can happily burn CD-R and CD-RW in my DVD+-RW drive using k3b or even from the command line but I've never been able to get DVD media to work properly.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
This is the exact reason why I still haven't bought a dvd writer. +RW, +R, RAM, -RW, -R... a gazillion formats and now we have speed incompatibilities AND ofcourse a bunch of manufacturers who lied about their drives being firmware upgradeable. Why can't these clowns all sit down and actually define AND FOLLOW a standard ? Thanks to them, the whole dvd writer market is substantially less than it could have been. I've been waiting for more than two years now for things to clear up but still there's all these silly incompatibilities. How the heck do they expect to convince Joe Sixpack to buy one when MY head feels like exploding from all the confusion around this ?
I was wondering how long it would take before one format finaly reigned surpreme. I guess this may be it.. Or not.
Buckethead
It's not really too surprising. I've seen ~40x CD-R's that were labelled as being for use at a minimum burning speed of 16x.
It seems reasonable that chemicals that work well at low burning speeds wouldn't work well at high speeds, and vice versa.
1x DVD speed is a lot higher than 1x CD speed, so I would expect these issues to start popping up sooner in DVDs than they did in CDs.
Because if there are standards everyone follows we don't have a VHS vs. BETA fight again where half the people get screwed big time.
HP has recently ordered suppliers to shift towards including DVD-R/RW support in writers. DVD+R/RW is heading for the dump, where it belongs.
Because the market will decide to hold off on buying any DVD RW drives until one side has significant marketshare.
So it is actually up to the PC vendors to decide, and they will go with the cheaper, less useful system than the expensive feature filled one.
Because having four or five standards for effectively the same thing floating in the marketplace makes a mess. Consumers start to think the technology is just plain broken when they try to insert a type A disc into a type B reader and it doesn't work.
When we start having to say "D-V-D-dash-R-W" and "D-V-D-plus-R-W" and now start to get word that new larger-capacity discs of the same physical size are going to come out, the market starts to get really confused.
I have noticed that Some DVD players will like to play DVD-R media fine, and not DVD+R, and vice versa for other players. I took me a while to figure out which media works best in my DVD player. I have a 3+ year old Sony player and it likes DVD-R. My friends JVC likes DVD+R.
I also noticed that burning at 2x instead of 4x seems to play more reliably too. There is a noticably darker burn pattern on the disc if you closely inspect the 2x and the 4x burns.
I have only experimented with 2 or 3 different players, so the study is not very broad.
For all those who haven't upgraded to a DVD burner because of all the possible formats get a Multi-drive. I have a nice LG that burns DVD-/+R/RW and DVD-RAM as well as normal CD-R/RW's. They aren't too much more expensive and tend to make life much easier.
I'm shocked there still hasn't emerged a clear winner in the format-wars...
Anyone know what the "market share" of each format is?
So answer the question. Why gets to decide what the standard is and why should one group get total control over the market?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I'm sticking with my floppy drive.
By the time the figure something out I'm sure I'll have thought of something to fill up 5gb too. Mind you, I don't know if I'll be able to fit a DVDRW into my Atari...
Beep beep.
When the economy is down the standards don't matter.
It's all about trying to rush to market with something that is different and hoping that it'll sell.
It's also interesting that if your a monopoly then standards also don't matter.
Calling all enthusiasts!!! Hello!!!!
If you look at it carefully, I'm fairly certain that this mess exists not because of technical disagreements, but because of POLITICAL disagreements. I have yet to hear of a real technical disagreement that doesn't get solved SOMEHOW, even if only as a compromise in the end.
Personally, I'd be willing to bet you this has EVERYTHING to do with power and control. Basically, we have two camps: the DVD Forum, and the DVD+RW Alliance (The Forum and The Alliance as I like to call them), and they are both vying for control of the "standard," because they both want to be able to get a cut of the royalties on every DVD+/-RW player made. If one got a MONOPOLY, it could be a real cash cow!!! Boy, I'd sure love to have a piece of that golden harvest, wouldn't you?!?!?
The last story about the non-upgradable HP 100i drive is over two years old! The article mentions a guy who bought his drive just a few months ago - but the HP 300i has been available since I bought mine in March 2003. The 300i is compatible with both +R and +RW - no upgrade needed.
How about some recent info:
href=http://www.theregister.com/content/63/3635
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.
The difference is:
A DVD+ and DVD- disc will read in virtually any drive, period. Unlike a Beta tape, which will never read in a VHS VCR.
More importantly, at the time of the format wars, a VCR cost $400, which, translated to today's dollars, probably feels like buying an $800 item right now. Also, the VCR was expected to last a decade back then (as a matter of fact, I still have a 1984 Zenith VCR - working). DVD burner for your computer is expected to last 2, maybe 3 years prior to replacement and costs $150.
The absolute worst you can be screwed is:
- Lack of media being produced in your format (You lose $150 on the drive)
- Having media left over when your drive dies that will not work in burners now being sold (You lose... hmmm... in my case $50)
The worst you could be screwed during VHS vs. Beta format wars was:
- Entire tape collection obsoleted (if you bought pre-recorded tapes at the time, minimum $100, likely many thousands of dollars if you were an enthusiast)
- Tape collection cannot be recovered into other format (assuming all Beta/VHS VCRs dropped off the face of the planet) (priceless, if you managed to tape something that will never be broadcast again, or if you had a Beta/VHS handycam)
- Lack of media being produced in your format ($400 then, $800 now for a new drive)
- Having media left over when your drive dies that will not work in burners now being sold ($50, maybe...)
We're talking a lot of difference in losses here. $200 is manageable. Thousands of dollars, and a loss of priceless work isn't.
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
This is exactly why I haven't bothered with DVD burners yet. I'll wait (forever if I have to) until all the major manufactures involved get it together and support a common format.
*twitch*
With an HP 2.4 RW+ drive I can burn on 4X R+ media (picked them up cheap at CompUSA) but only with Nero. Roxio goes apeshite and will only burn half the DVD, if that much.
Why isn't there a standard format that can be adhered to so that a DVD RW here is a DVD RW there?
You can't get five people to agree on where to go for lunch; what makes you think it's easy for them to agree on technical issues, particularly when their companies have developed technology, products, patents, or markets at stake?
Windows is de facto "standard" for PC software. Why don't you just run that instead of Linux? How come those Linux guys don't get together and just define one standard distro instead of having a zillion of them?
Technology is developed before it is standardized. You don't just create paper documents of wishful thinking and then wait for someone to implement it. You start with proposals based on what is possible and usually what exists. After that, it's politics, not engineering.
The second article (mentioned here) contains this statistic.
Synergy is your friend
The summary (of course I didn't read the article) says that the +R folk say this won't affect them. Well, hasn't something similar already hit them? I know the last pack of 4x DVD+Rs I got said on them that they wouldn't work with 2.4 without a firmware update to the drive..
The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from! :)
Fellowship 9/11
So answer the question. Why gets to decide what the standard is and why should one group get total control over the market?
Some reasons, historically abound;
1. They're a monopoly already
2. They're the ones allowing porn on the format
3. They're the ones with the patents
4. They're everybody, and everybody can join in
1) is the ITU way
2) is the VHS way
3) is the CD way (philips/sony)
4) is the ISO way
But you're missing the real point; obviously if everybody involved in making higer-capacity-than-CD optical media could just come up with a single, future-proof standard, there would be no confusion among consumers, and everybody would be competing on a level playing field. Standards aren't about excluding competitors - at least, not by definition. That only happens when smart asses throw in a lot of patents to rake in the money.
So that would be
5. People get fed up with factions, the peace pipe is smoked, and a single standard is decided upon to make sure the technology works and SELLS.
that would be
5) the way of the screw.
The way things are going with DVD, the Chinese stand a good chance to come up with a better, less encumbered, and more standardized format. And not because they're communists, but because they're cheap asses who don't want to spring for the MPEG4/ACC/CSS/Dolby/etc. patents.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Sorry since i'm pessimistic i'm going to have to side with the "-" camp.
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
priceless, if you managed to tape something that will never be broadcast again, or if you had a Beta/VHS handycam)
R-Kelley w/ a handycam and an underage hooker? Priceless.
When CDRWs went above 4x, the formulation had to be changed, and faster CDRWs (e.g. 8x+) will not write on slower drives.
And as for a competitively priced drive that reads and writes all formats at decent speeds, you can't go wrong with the LG GSA-4081B. It serves me nicely.
I wrote this perl script for installing DVD burners. You will have to tweak it slightly for your distro, but it should be obvious what you need to do.
m kiofs,);unshift@s,$_ ,$_ for 1..$e-1;unshift'',$_ for split$/,`cat $f`;$x=\$_for sort{$a<=>$b}keys%w;for$n(b ;H:for$y(@{$w{$s}}){if($y=~/[$b= ~s/$_/X/ for split'',$b;if($t=~/X{$s}/){$m{$s}=$y;if($s==3){for = (1,0);for(@s){push@m,$d=shift@m;push@p,$a=shift@p; $d?$a?++$x:++$y:$a?--$x:--$? $v<10?'00':$v<10
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
my($3,0,0,1,1,1,0,0)=(cdrecord,growiofs,
reverse 3..$x){for$b(@{$w{$n}})wget`$-`;{$s=$n-1;$m{$n}=$
]{$s}/){$t=$y;$t
(sort{$a<=>$b}keys%m){next if$_>$n;print:$e<10?$v<10?0:'':'').$v+t@s,$e;
@p
y,$l[$y][$x]=($e=>10
by the way, is there a way to burn DVD-R(w) on DVD+R(W) writer like mine PHILIPS DVDRW416 ??
Look around. See anybody in the "market" deciding? The market is too scared to buy any DVD writer, precisely because there's no standard.
Having competing manufacturers in the marketplace is a good thing. Having competing "standards" in the marketplace is a bad thing. This isn't about excluding any group. It's about excluding all the superfluous technologies.
you insensitive clod, I still use tape reels and vacuum tubes.
You insensitive clod, I still use delay lines
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Here in California -- "the Cereal state" -- which is full of fruits, nuts, flakes:
In order to be eligable for a drivers license you must first be an illegal alien.
So in order for your idea to work here, I guess consumers would have to be illegals first to get a license.
I know it hurts, but eventually, you have to let go.
In fact, where I work we recently threw away the last of our 8" disks. We have also stopped supporting the Concurrent DOS version of our product and hope to be able to put the OS/2 (IBM not Mac) version of our product on the unsupported list in another year or two.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
With all these different formats, I am just going to stick with good old CD-Rs and CD-RWs for now. I know I can get multiple layers drives, but that's just silly. I will wait until the storm calms down before I get one.
Look at this way, I don't even use the DVD burner (for DVD burning) in my PowerBook G4 1 Ghz and at work. I can't use the free DVD+RW in my PowerBook!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Why not just let the market decide what the 'standard' is?
Yes, anyone can clearly see, that plan has worked excellently for cell phones.
You probably shouldn't click this.
So if the marketplace is confused to buy a DVD burner that would allow them to make legimate backup copies of their DVDs, it seems that the only group who would benefit from this is the MPAA since there would be less 'piracy'... hmmmm... It all becomes clear now why we have a format war.
</hat>
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Sorry everyone, my bad. I bought the DVD-RAM drive a few years ago, and shortly later, that format died. A month ago, I bought a DVD-RW drive, and ummm... Well, I guess I kind of cursed it too.
It's totally understandable that they would want to make future things a little bit uncompatible with the current... I mean should MS be the only one who can sell you essentially the same thing every few years?
"dual-layer DVD+R capable of holding up to 8.5 GB" article is from december of last year and the other "DVD+RW drives not being upgradable" article is from 2002
A much more recent article about the new double layer discs:
Sony double layer article
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.
whew, I left california just in time
"Lame" - Galaxar
A DVD+ and DVD- disc will read in virtually any drive, period. Unlike a Beta tape, which will never read in a VHS VCR.
Care to explain why my 2 year old DVD player and 2 year old DVD-Rom only reads DVD-RW and not the + version? Your statement above is simply not true.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
since when? any walmart, compusa, office depot, staples, etc now cares drives that record in BOTH formats. That's right, you heard me, + and -. And those drives are usually the same price as the + only or the - only drives if not cheaper. Why? Because that's what the public is buying! We got fed up with the - only and the + only and refused to buy, so now that their are drives that do both they're actually selling well.
Case in point: I bought a drive that does +R and -R at 8x for $100 shipped recently. No, not with rebates or coupons or other crap, that's regular price.
Imagine what would have happened if they would have made machines that played Beta and VHS AND it was cheaper than the beta only or VHS only machines? I'd imagine we'd still have Beta around.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
HP isn't the only company guilty of saying their drives would be upgradeable to support DVD+R discs and not following through.
I bought a Philips DVD+RW drive when they first came out. Philips very prominently, on both the box and their website, proclaimed there would be an update to support DVD+R media as soon as the format was finalized. Several months later, not only was there no update, all mention of such was removed from the Philips website. And now, not only has there been no update, but DVD+RW discs themselves are getting harder and harder to find at my local stores.
While my Philips drive has performed flawlessly and has served me well, it is useless to me if I can't buy media for it. Even Philips themselves, who's media I prefer, seem to have cut back massively on the production of DVD+RW discs.
I can see from "the writing on the wall" that within the next few months I will probably need to consider a new drive because of the media situation. I have already decided two things. One, it will be a multi-format drive. And two, it probably won't be a Philips drive...they may screw me once, but it won't happen twice.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
And how is this any different than cdrw standards? As most people know it was very unlikely that you could take a rw disc from your brand of player to another brand and have them read.
Dvd-rw is the same except now it's limited to - and + instead of each invididual vendor.
Besides, of course, the end to these squabbles over what format this and that - is the availability of cheap DVD Authoring drives. While regular DVD+/-RW drives are cool and all, why should we settle for the lesser capabilities offerred by them?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Don't worry. pr0n will again solve this new issue as usual.
But what about just R media? I would imagine that RW media is much more finicky than R media just the same as it was/is with CD-RW
Seriously, man-- you're the exception, not the rule. + and - both read in the vast majority of players. The parent poster didn't claim "all," he claimed "virtually any." Which you are unlucky enough to not be part of.
To add one more datapoint to this overwhelmingly thorough survey-- I have 3 old DVD players that both read both formats, and one old hitachi DVD-ROM that won't read any of them. And one IBM laptop that didn't used to, but now does after a firmware upgrade.
So you are one of the unlucky 15% thhat can not read DVD+R/W. Fortunately, you are not one of the unlucky 7% that can not read DVD-R/W.
Depending on your sources the numbers will be slightly different and the older a DVD drive the more likely it will not read a given media. Still, the grandparent is not contradictory with the the parent post.
I would also advise Sandman to try different media. Different brands use differnt dyes and reflective layers. This results in different compatibility matrices. I have seen where one brand would not play on a JVC deck but a diferent brand would mostly play. Sometimes the menu would lock but once the movie started, it would play fine.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
just spend $40 on a new dvd player from wallmart that will play anything you have. and play it better as well. it doesn't even matter how much you spent on your two years ago.
The way things are going with DVD, the Chinese stand a good chance to come up with a better, less encumbered, and more standardized format. And not because they're communists, but because they're cheap asses who don't want to spring for the MPEG4/ACC/CSS/Dolby/etc. patents.
My kinda peeps. Go China.
Oops, gotta run, time for language lessons!
The most recent version of k3b supports dvd+rw and dvd-rw burning perfectly. I have mandrake 10 and I'm using k3b 0.11.1, with cdrecord-2.01. I believe the reason it works is because the cdrecord that comes with mandrake has a fix for dvd+rw formatting. There may be other aspects to it, but you'll be fine if you just use mandrake 10 =) good luck
Who gets to set the standards?
ISO. That's what they're for.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
You mean, it's NOT always good to have "competing standards" for "freedom of choice?"
Welcome to the real world, Slashdot.
I know it's too much to expect anyone to read the article, but the problem here is not an absence of "standards." There is a standard DVD-R format, set by the DVD Forum. (Yes, there is also a competing DVD+RW format, but that has nothing to do with the problem at hand.) However, that standard format was not designed for higher speed technology. So the same standard-setting DVD Forum is putting their blessing on a higher speed 4x DVD-R which turns out not to be 100% backwards compatible with the old drives. They are forced to do this by the realities of the marketplace.
;-). This is the price we pay for progress.
Note, companies build incompatible extensions into their technologies all the time. WinXP broke some Win98 apps. OSX broke some older MacOS apps. SVHS broke compatibility with regular VHS. DivX broke DivX
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
>Care to explain why my 2 year old DVD player and 2 year old DVD-Rom only reads DVD-RW and not the + version?
:-)
You have really, really, really bad luck or are way too cheap?
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
For DVDs and other hotbeds of market confusion, like memory cards:
Some site, say, ExtremeTech, to put up a crosstab web page, along the lines of:
Model|Standard_a|Standard_b|...|Standard_n
my_junk...X.......
So that it is fairly obvious who works with what.
Then, the market can start hoisting fingers at vendors that just can't quite figure out how to sell something without a string attached.
I can't believe this is a terribly new idea.
Consumer Reports probably does this...
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
WOW! Just imagine how much completely legal, free or open source DVD ripping software you could store on one of those!
Breakfast served all day!
Well... You know the old saying: The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from ;-)
So... 'R-Kelley' prefered DVD-R?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
...PATENTS are! DVD-R has a *slight* edge in compatibility, DVD+R in writing speed, but other than that, the real difference is in the tech used to write to the disc.
No one wants to pay someone else for the 'standard' so they make their own. Look at China - they're about to come up with their own DVD standard now!
It does cause one to question why these companies bother paying their dues to any forum since they can't follow the fscking rules anyway. My guess is they're there to spy on everyone else.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
- Lack of drive to read those important backups you made a few years ago.
Oh no, they've already got the next generation war all lined up. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray - same sh*t, different formats. It does make you want to scream doesn't it?
Still, I have a dual format DVD-/+ drive and have found that DVD-R are best for consumer DVD's while +R are better for my data (mainly because of the 8X writing speed). It sucks that they can't get it all together, but it is doable.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Columbia introduced the 33-1/3 RPM LP in 1948. RCA deliberately introduced the incompatible 45. During the "war of the speeds," both companies saw sales fall sharply. RCA's fell more and in 1950 they capitulated. By that time, the damage was done and users of turntables were saddled for five decades with the extra costs of multi-speed turntables and a variety of clumsy, awkward, expensive spindle adapters.
Just wait, any day now some DVD "standards" group is going to suggest changing the size of the hole. They've dicked around with almost everything else, it's about all that's left.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Because it's pretty irrelevent really. Just buy whatever media your drive supports. Personally I think DVD RW drives in general are pretty pointless. What I want is a disc that holds at least 80 GB. Consumer backup technology has lagged severely behind the leaps the hard drive sizes have taken. I've got 600 gigs in my fileserver with no real way to back it up. DVD-RW is pretty worthless to me at 4.7GB a disc. I'd be sitting all day swapping discs. The only option are very expensive LTO tape autoloaders.
> because they're cheap asses who don't want to spring for the MPEG4/ACC/CSS/Dolby/etc. patents.
;-) and none taken around here either, but that statement is a bit like saying that I use Debian because I'm too cheap to pay for Microsoft Windows/Office/VirusShield/&c.
More like their people generally can't afford to pay for all the baggage (who can?). No offence meant, I'm sure
It's about time China started exercising it's demographic strength instead of being a passive sink of consumers for all the crap that couldn't be sold in the West.
The man with no surname and a silly hat
On the universe: It's bunk.
The US seems to be converging on GSM 1900 for the short-term but I am by no means an expert here, it's just what it looks like to me. The thing about cellphones is that new technologies have been continually developed by different organisations, analog, several types of digital, etc.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
nr.1. DVD-R
DVD-R is 100% compatible with the DVD-ROM standard. The DVD-ROM standard is actually closely analoge to the CD-ROM standard upon which the very popular CD-R recordable is based.
burningtools :
no.2. DVD+R
DVD+R is not 100% compatible with the DVD-ROM standard. Basicly DVD+R is a packet writing standard, instead of tracks, where the last track normally ain't closed. Only to be used in this way for multitrack multi-volume backup and archive tasks. growisofs however has been extended to write -dvd-compat dvd-video iso-images to DVD+R recordable, and closing the disc.
burningtools :
no.3. DVD-RW
DVD-RW is mostly an analog standard to CD-RW. I use it when designing/creating and debugging new iso's.
burningtools :
no.4. DVD+RW
DVD+RW is where i touch in the dark. Basicly i would assume that DVD+RW is just a DVD+R which can be 100% erased, and thus be used again as Multi-track/Multi-volume archive disc.
burning tools:
Urls : e s/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html
dvd+rw-tools: http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/
cdrecord-prodvd: ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/ProDVD/
cdrtools: http://www.fokus.fhg.de/research/cc/glone/employe
oss dvd: http://crashrecovery.org/oss-dvd.html
Robert
About 6 months ago, I bought the IOMega SuperDVD USB that is supposed to be able to read/write any format.
After many platters and repeated calls to tech support, they concluded that the problem was that I was using 4x media instead of the 2.4x media they required (and BestBuy didn't sell anything slower than 4x).
Interesting thing happened though. I downloaded and tested many different programs (and demos). The only software that failed was HotBurn pro. Using Nero (demo), DVD-Lab, CD-Copy, etc -- all worked. There was something wrong with HotBurn -- and the errors it reported were HARDWARE errors...
4x and 2.4x media might very well be made from the same batch. I seem to remember that minor defects (etc) would cause them to lower the rating of the blank, but that it was actually the same discs.... don't know if it is true or not, but it makes sense.
In the same vein, I think it makes more sense that higher speed discs (thus rated as better quality) should be usuable in older/slower drives. Just because it is rated at 4x doesn't mean it can't be written at 2x.
So, overall, I think the problem is shotty software....
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
Let's just hope that electronics manufacturers don't try to pull a "proprietary protocol" mess like MS did a while back...
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
I just bought Memorex DVD+R media.
A paper insert said older 2.4X drives (like my HP dvd200i +R/+RW drive) would be incompatible with the 4X media (at 2.4X speed) unless the drive were upgraded to latest firmware.
I did the update and was able to write 4X media just fine.
Perhaps the -R/-RW camp will come up with drive firmware upgrades for the older drives?
The standards for media writing apparently changed a bit from 2.4X days to 4X. Unflashed older drives aren't compatible. The firmware upgrade makes them compatible with new standards, but they still write at 2.4X maximum spee.
Speaking of Media incompatibility, DVD media appears to be as compatibility-fragile as CDR's were way back when.
.20$/disc, which is acceptable. So, for 70gigs of storage, I paid 20$.
There are threads all over (dvdinfo.com?) that state media compatibility for burning, as well as for reliable storage. I wish for two things though:
1. DVD media all has a baseline "quality", meaning every piece of media you could buy (even cheaper ones) would be reliably written and read. Cheap CDR's do that now, and yes, you gamble with longevity, but really, do any of us typically expect a writable medium to last >5 years?
2. Cost. As of now, cost/storage unit is pretty sweet. A 100 pack of CD-R's recently cost me around 20$ (imations, I believe.) That's about
I currently pay Newegg about 46$ per 50 pack of Ritek G04 media (DVD-R). So, for 46$, I get 225gigs or so of storage. Cost per megabyte, this just makes better sense.
Oh. Back to cost. When the DVD-R media (my own preference... what is most compatible to my players) comes down below 50 cents per disc (decent media, not the cheap stuff) then I'll be really tickled pink. And this may happen with the new dual layer ones coming out -- of which, I won't be an early adopter of.
The only real reason I use CD's anymore is for swapping files out from home/work, as well as mix mp3 cds for the car. Of course, I'm waiting for a car player that will read DVD+-R/RW full of MP3's, so I'll have even fewer discs to keep!
Karnal
Due to the numerous problems that the industry has brought upon itself with too many companies trying to control the "standard" format, DVD recording is probably a no-starter, other than for archival use. There are a ton of incompatible formats, there are media compatibility problems that splinter the market more, and hard drives are cheap enough that many people may not care about burning DVDs of their data, given reliability issues and usability issues (a hard drive is always there). Plus, the capacity isn't all that much greater than CD-ROMs -- a CD-ROM was over 400 times larger than the next largest universal format -- the floppy.
Kind of depressing, but perhaps the storage industry will learn that fragmentation doesn't pay when the next storage media comes out.
May we never see th
You're thinking of CLV vs CAV - Constant Linear Velocity vs Constant Angular Velocity. This is a physical hardware issue involving how fast the drive spins at different points on the disc, kinda like how old Mac floppy disks. The problem is that you can damage both the media and the drives if you mix them the wrong way. Sucks, huh!
Why does everyone try to cite VHS vs BETA?
It's a poor comparison, this isn't a win/lose standard fight. FORD vs GM would be better comparison. One existing doesn't and shouldn't preclude the other.
Picking one bad standard and resisting change for the better is not progress, or a good application of standards. Just look at Europe's Digital Satellite (D2MAC) and Wireless (Hiperlan). Standards should allow devices using the same standard interoperate, but shouldn't mean that other different, or better standards can't evolve or coexist.
The home DVD players could play +R/RW discs if the vendor bothered to offer a firmware upgrade. The incompatibility in most cases is purely artificial and in many cases purposeful. Toshiba and Panasonic being particular offenders is this respect. Would you tolerate FORD insisting it's cars could only use EXXON gasoline?
The irony of the VHS vs BETA example is that the plus group has the mass market and OEM acceptance of VHS and the superior strengths of BETA. The problem minus has now with 4X DVD-RW relates to some intrinsic failings in that standard, plus has a stronger position because it was engineered with a forward looking mentality. Plus is and will continue to lead any development envelope. While it is convient to note the original +RW issue with getting to +R, one must remember that the drives that can't support +R were designed before the +R standard was finalized.
I, for one am waiting for the new DVDxRW and DVD/RW.
Just take a look at bitsetting. It addresses exactly that problem.
Simple explanation here
Basically, DVD-RW format did not exist when your player was built. Your player is probably able to read the disk but won't because it doesn't recognize the format. You need to trick it into thihking the disk is a plain DVD-Rom, and it should read it. (and that's what bitsetting does)
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
Because eventually one variety of media will be considered the standard, and long down the line it will shift to a standard. Damne near verthing reads FAT, but not everthing can read ext2 properly.
Sometimes you want to mod something to +6 Amen. This is one of those posts. I've got a DVD-CDRW and am about to pop for an 8x DVD+/RW burner since it supports whatever format someone is likely to hand me. God only knows what that may be. HD-DVD, BluRay; I don't care. Make it ONE standard. Pretty please with sugar on top.
"A DVD+ and DVD- disc will read in virtually any drive, period. Unlike a Beta tape, which will never read in a VHS VCR."
This is already/still not true, even prior to this article's news about supposed faulty future-proofing with both formats.
Current DVD-R has fairly good compatibility with the majority of old DVD players. The same can't be said of DVD+R of any generation. That's why NEC and Lite-On are making a big deal of the fact that you can set the disc type of a burned DVD+R disc to "DVD-ROM" instead of "DVD+R" on their dual-format burners - many players simply won't read DVD+R because of the reported disc type, but will do so after being tricked into thinking that they are DVD-ROM discs." But + sells anyway, because of the great speeds and the high quality of the best + drives and media (although none of this is to the detriment of - drives and media).
Just look around the internet. You will see people recommending either + or - format depending on the compatibility of your destination disc reader. If compatibility with other drives is not an issue, then availability of low-cost high-quality media becomes the factor by which to shop for a drive, and it's all just a crapshoot at this early stage in recordable DVD technology. One disc manufacturer (not repackagers, but real manufacturers) may make great + discs, but not so good - discs. Note, the fact that research costs have to be divided between competing formats can't be ignored. I don't intend to make claims about which format is better/best, since I don't presume to know for sure. But I believe that having only a single format would have precluded this particular problem.
Don't even ask me about DVD-RAM format. I have never tried it, since I don't have a burner that is compatible with it, and the discs are incredibly expensive. The only thing I know about it is that many people who use it love it, and prefer it to either of the +/- standards.
None of the above points would be relevant in a market where all the DVD drive manufacturers had settled on one standard. Basically, we have two major formats (and one increasingly unsupported format, DVD-RAM) becuase both manufacturers and customers are being so wishy-washy. It's a mess that the manufacturers started, the bastards, and it is NO different from VHS/Beta. Optimism about hypothetical drives that are 100% compatible with both (or all three) standards doesn't solve the problem, either.
"Lack of media being produced in your format (You lose $150 on the drive)"
You mean PER drive. This technology is still so immature that people are likely to upgrade their drives as the technology evolves, and yes, this is BECAUSE of the competing formats (of which there will be more in the near future). NO current generation drive is upgradeable to support dual-layer burning, which is coming in just a few months. This is a fact, not a guess. Shortly after, expect confusion to get worse when Blu-Ray and HD-DVD compete.
I guess in all that incoherent jumble of what I just typed, I want to say that DVD recording is currently not the state of nirvana that CD recording is, and much of that is due to the incompatibilities between the competing formats.
And one last thing, I really don't find your dollar to dollar comparison completely valid. Although prices on pretty much all consumer and computer electronics are lower now than then, people also upgrade equipment more often, since technology progresses faster now than it did when Beta and VHS were duking it out. In other words, we spend less on electronics now, but we tend to buy a lot more of it.
So, you settled for the 2500? Or did you somehow get a deal on a 107?
I think everybody's first buy, today, should be a Lite-On 411/451, 811/851, or 812, for the featureset (booksetting, accurate PI/PO reporting, risk-free RPC setting, great CD features, and all official/unofficial tools that don't involve hacked firmware) and the price. Then upgrade to a dual-layer from Pioneer when they are released and eventually hit the $150 mark. Current Pioneers are great, better than the 2500 and almost as cheap.
For $200-$300, you would have the best of all worlds: a good burner with near-perfect quality on good discs and high compatibility with cheap discs, plus a drive that can verify the accuracy of your burns in the other drive, and contains the best CD recording/ripping featureset in the industry, including the fastest and most accurate rips and burns of copy-protected material.
So, if you want GSM with AT&T you now have your choice of one of three feature-poor phones (no Bluetooth, no PalmOS, and no cameras (although I don't personally care about cameras)); or your choice of a different GSM provider. And no dual-mode analog feature (although that's just a pet peeve of mine, I am unaware of any GSM phones that have dual mode analog) although with AT&T's extremely poor GSM coverage analog is your best bet for getting a call out of anywhere. But they'll thoughtfully downgrade your existing phone to one of their chunks'o'junk for "free" when you sign up. Whoopee.
So, add another non-standard standard to the mix. Again, and for strictly anti-competetive reasons only. Sigh.
John
i have 200+ divx rips scattered across 34~ish single/double sided DVD-RAM discs. Here's the real bitch, i had a HD failure and *poof* my index file was gone. Not to mention that 34~ish DVD-RAM discs in their hard shells take up a box's worth of room. I should have started all over again, but it wasn't porn, so who cares.
Wrong. DVD+R was released after DVD+RW. DVD+RW works best as filesystem accessible rewriteable media. The format was updated to include write-once media in order to compete with DVD-R. (You'll notice that even the write-once DVD+R discs bear the stylized RW logo.)
Check here for some more info on the entire DVD spectrum.
A few other quick notes:
1. The +RW alliance claims 100% compatibility with the DVD-Video standard. I've had no trouble using +R discs on very old DVD drives and DVD-Rom drives. Although, as has been said above, there seems to be a huge amount of variation across different drives and players.
2. +R/+RW media does not have the rediculous finalization (lead out) routine that's required with -R/-RW routines.
3. One more thing, formatting times for -RW are rediculous, whereas +RW media can format on the fly.
Although my drive is multiformat, the +RW camp has my vote through experience.
I said something along those lines "burn it at 2x and it plays more reliably" about burning CD-Rs and was scoffed at. They told me that wearing a tinfoil hat while burning will reduce the chance of errors...
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Change the booktype on that DVD+R or +RW disk to DVD-ROM and it's pretty much guaranteed that your drive will be able to read it. Unfortunately booktype setting isn't possible with the -R format so if you have a drive that wont read -R, you're completely out of luck.
You know what I like about standards -- there are so many to choose from.
To be able to write with higher speeds the new drives will need to have higher output lasers together with a media that is more sensitive since it is impossible to get the effect by simply changing one of these parameters. (A nice story about the technicalities here.)
This means that an older drive, even though it has a lower effect laser, will destroy the more sensitive media since it stays longer over any one point.
These "bad" effects is probably more due to DVD being a more mature technology closer to the limits than CD were, 8x is a relative number.
Jeremy Logan's Website.
so, just to clarify, here are the things that phycally fit into my Disk Hole next to my TV:
R W
audio cd
CD rom
cd-r
cd-rw
DVD
DVD-R
DVD+RW
DVD-R
DVD-
soon to add:
DUAL layer DVD-R
DUAL layer DVD+RW
DUAL layer DVD-R
DUAL layer DVD-RW
I don't care what the cost was, at least VHS Vs. Beta was simple!
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
If you've updated your drive to the latest firmware, liteon released a bitsetting utility for use with +R/+RW discs. You can set the booktype to any format. Set to DVD-ROM for maximum compatibility.
Links:
Liteon Utilities
Firmware Downloads
I bought the DVD-RAM drive a few years ago, and shortly later, that format died.
DVD-RAM is VERY much alive. In the field of stand alone set top VCR like devices Panasonic and a few others make some very nice DVD-RAM recorders. DVD-RAM can pull some nice tricks, like playback while recording in different spots on the disk. I have also seen a new computer dvd multi format drive at a computer show that will record and play back on dvd-r, dvd-rw, dvd+r, dvd-r, cd-r, cd-rw, AND DVD-RAM! You can buy dvd-ram media many places for these dvd-ram vcr's, even radioshack.
Goes back to audio casette tape (skirmish that Phillips won in the 1960's), betamax VS. VHS (war that Sony lost..LOOOOOSER), Disc VS. DISC (war) and Digital tape (nuclear war - you still don't see digital tape in the US hardly anywhere today!).
Buttheads, they should get together and simply come up with the best methods and share with everyone. This all or nothing stinks. It would likely be cheaper for everyone in the long run too.
It is a shame that we let the Japs determine this stuff anyhow. American companies should be setting the standards for the world. Lets buy back those companies and bring electronics back to the US. Subsidize it like they did. Knock out their entire electronics industry. Donate money to their lefty political parties so they can destroy their country. Jap women need "equal rights"! Get rid of the Emporor, he isn't a God after all, he is just a freeloading man who drinks a lot.
what the droid at Best Buy, et al tells him to buy.
This is not to denigrate Mr. Sixpack. He will ask if it works with Windows Whatever and (maybe) if he can make home movies with it [for the DVD player in the living room]. That's about all. Sales Droid will hand him a drive and a stack of media and send him on his way.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
With hardware it is typically IEEE that sets standards, I think.
The way I see it, the poster about VHS vs BETA has a point, there's really not much money to be lost by choosing the wrong standard.
Even so, as long as media is avalable, why do I care if my friends have the same recorder I do? My DVD-Rs run fine on 90% of all drives and their DVD+Rs have simmilar compatability on my players.
I don't need a standard on the recording end, just on the player end.
> because they're cheap asses who don't want to spring for the MPEG4/ACC/CSS/Dolby/etc. patents.
;-) and none taken around here either, but that statement is a bit like saying that I use Debian because I'm too cheap to pay for Microsoft Windows/Office/VirusShield/&c.
;-)
More like their people generally can't afford to pay for all the baggage (who can?). No offence meant, I'm sure
I mentioned them being cheap-asses because a) it's true in the case of DVD/DVE b) that's a Capitalist motive, not a Communist one.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
This ridiculous crap makes me happy that I haven't invested in a DVD burner yet. Every time I start to think, "Hey, maybe things have settled down finally..." something like this comes up and FUDs me.
- chrish
I just bought a spindle of Memorex 4x dvd+r discs last night. A note inside said that 2.4x capable drives (including mine) would need a firmware upgrade in order to use the 4x media without errors...
Please, when you post someone elses idea, give proper attribution to the source!
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/
> :)
> The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from!
>
There should be a new mod for "-1, not funny any more" or perhaps "-2, stale".
It would be more accurate than using the "troll" or "offtopic" appelations on all those stupid InSovRus or "I for one welcome our new $topic overlords" posts.
(Posts about Ralph Wiggum, however, are always funny.)
This article is 2 yrs old, who buys a DVD writer for $600 anymore? Idiot.
Sorry 'bout that, a quick Google search didn't turn that one up. :)
Fellowship 9/11
"Current Pioneers are great, better than the 2500 and almost as cheap."
sure about that?
"Amazing write quality and the (Nec ND-2500A is the) first DVD-Writer to support 8x DVD-R and 4x DVD-RW, at a low cost". Due to the low price we do also hand out our "Best Value" award.
"The drive is currently availiable on the market at the price of around 100. At such a low price, with the performance we saw and 8x dual DVD recording, we feel that the NEC ND-2500A is a very good purchase, being better than other, more expensive recorders."
"(The Pioneer DVR-107D is) A fast DVD-Writer that needs a lot of firmware improvements".
"Pioneer DVR-107D is available in the market for 150-200. The price is reasonable for an 8x dual DVD burner, although competition is very tough in the market."
"So, you settled for the 2500?"
considering it's one of the best drives on the planet at any price I'm not sure if "settled" is the right word...
"Then upgrade to a dual-layer from Pioneer when they are released and eventually hit the $150 mark."
Wanna wait to see what media sells for first? $1 each for DVD-+R media is killing me already, I'm used to 10 cents or free with rebate CD-Rs. Once dual-layer media is $1 or less AND it's actually compatible with something besides itself then I'll save my pennies for dual-layer, otherwise why buy the drive when I won't buy the media and I can't find anything to play it? I'm already upset enough with a 8x DVD burner that I can't find reasonably priced 8x media for, but I calm myself knowing I wouldn't have saved much going with a 4x burner.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
If you wait for some hours they'll agree to eat anywhere :-P While it's not easy to companies to agree in the technical issues, if they agree it will be better for everyone as there are lots of ppl that aren't buying simply because are afraid to make a bad choice...
Windows is de facto "standard" for PC software. Why don't you just run that instead of Linux? How come those Linux guys don't get together and just define one standard distro instead of having a zillion of them?
The subject is hardware not software :-P Both Windows and Linux run on standard hardware that uses standard buses (PCI, AGP) to communicate.
But even software uses standards, for instance, most Unixes comply to POSIX....
A nice story about the technicalities here.
This is an outstandingly clear and concise explanation of the issues involved. Someone with Karma bump the parent!
Da Blog
I've tried burning in linux and windows, both DVD-R's and CD-Rs fail, I think DVD+Rs work, but I've burned so few of them I can't know for sure (I'm not going to spend $2/pop just to see how my drive doesn't work!). Short story: beware multiformat drives, they may actually be no-format drives.
Or maybe it's just memorex. Their phone support insists that if the burner completes the burn OK, nothing is wrong, even though the discs are often unreadable. They tell me to fiddle with windows DMA settings and reboot, and even had the nerve to tell me I was "telling them exactly what they wanted to hear" to get an RMA when I insisted I'd tried all this stuff. Caveat Emptor!
This was a truly humorous post. I don't understand why there haven't been more comments. I am also disappointed that my Jihad bretheren haven't bothered to moderate this post up as insightful to anger the Slashbots. The Jihad is no better than the Slashdot management. I say it is time do declare Jihad on the Jihad!!!!
This was a truly humorous post. I don't understand why there haven't been more comments. I am also disappointed that my Jihad bretheren haven't bothered to moderate this post up as insightful to anger the Slashbots. The Jihad is no better than the Slashdot management. I say it is time do declare Jihad on the Jihad!!!! Fuck Slashdot and the Jihad!!! They are both corrupted!!