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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."
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.
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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.
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.
It depends on the drive. Most drives should be able to read the media. However, if the new DVD's require a diffrent timing to write them at the fast 4x speed, then older DVD drives might not be able to replicate that sort of setting, thus being unable to read them.
Its like the 90 minuite CDs that you can get (and using Overburn on a 80 min cd, you can make them as well), only drives which allow you to move the laser to the edge of the disk can use them, and there are quite a few drives out there with firmware that prevents the laser from going that far out, thus making it impossible to use those disks.
Hopefully someone will make a damn standerd out of it and have done, its quite annoying having to think about DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, and what drives can take them.
NeoThermic
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
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.
This site helped me get my Sony DRU-510A DVD+/-RW+/-R DVD up and burning data dvds in no time. I haven't tried video, but then again, I bought it for data.
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 tool you want for linux is growisofs in the dvd+rw-tools package. (I undertsand that it supports -r[w] as well).
If you want, you can use the nautilus-cd-burner package, as is also a great front end for data burning and includes support for growisofs.
Very easy, very simple.
When CDRWs went above 4x, the formulation had to be changed, and faster CDRWs (e.g. 8x+) will not write on slower drives.
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
Not sure of the "reputation" of this site, but I found this article pretty interesting when I was psyching up to purchase a DVD burner. Also, I found this article absolutely fascinating.
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.
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
k3b supports DVD burning for data...
Just make sure you have growisofs and dvd+rw-tools. Then compile k3b with +dvdr.
Or those of us with Gentoo:
USE="dvdr" emerge k3b
Daniel
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!
If you are trying to use your drive as a general purpose drive then YES you are right.
...DVD-R is the ONLY choice for maximum compatability with set top DVD players (who cares about PC drives for video creation) and has been demonstrated as FACT for the past 3 years now. EVERY DVD creation house or video creation house uses DVD-R without exception. so if you are to make your own video DVD's... DVD-R it's what the pro's use. and as for the -RW formats... it's really a moot point.. I NEVER used a CD-RW as they have ALWAYS been too damned expensive and fragile. DVD-RW's the the same way... -R media is getting so cheap now ($0.70 a Disc inkjet printable Pioneer Data brand in 50 disk spindles) that DVD-RW is absolutely absurd to even think of getting/using.
but for Video DVD creation, the matter is very solidly decided and easy to do
Oh and if you want to be more confused... what about "blue-ray" that is supposed to come out in a year or twelve with it's 98 different and incompatable formats?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Different issue.
The issue in the article is an issue where the 4x DVD-RW media won't work in a burner that doesn't explicitly have 4x DVD-RW support. This is a physical media issue, due to the changes in the media (to allow for a rewritable DVD- disc at that speed)
The issue you're referring to is a drive based one. Some of the older drives may:
A. Not recognize the faster rated disc as writable
B. Choke on the 4x speed code and go into a loop of some sort.
Firmware updates could correct this and allow you to burn on the faster media (at the slower speed of course).
With DVD-R, there was a serious problem with 4x media in the 2x burners; some of the drives would commit suicide (firmware fixed that issue), another drive related issue.
Use VLC.
Works like a charm. MPlayer never made me happy exactly because of the crappy installation.
VLC on the other hand does all that, nicely and works on my Mac AND on Windows AND on Linux AND Solaris etc. And mostly out of the box, just some RPMs to install in Fedora.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Well, most new burners support both formats, which isn't going to help either side really.
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
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.
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
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.
Please, when you post someone elses idea, give proper attribution to the source!
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/