"Bill in Co." <not_really_here@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:OIXbXJS4IHA.4908@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> M.I.5¾ wrote:
>> "Rahul" <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:Xns9AD2D4A1AAB546650A1FC0D7811DDBC81@207.46.2 48.16...
>>> I'm always confused by DVD terminology when buying media to write on.
>>> There's DVD / DVD+R / DVD-R / DVDRW and I'm not even sure which more!
>>>
>>> Are these all really distinct technologies and formats? Or are some
>>> subsets
>>> / supersets of others? Or maybe its only backward compatibility issues?
>>> What's the best way to figure out what format my Laptop supports? Do
>>> they
>>> have varied sizes? Does it matter whether I'm writing data or movies
>>> etc.?
>>> I faintly remember there being lead-in / lead-out issues....
>>>
>>> I've never faced the problem that I bought some commercial movie etc. on
>>> a
>>> DVD and my Dell Laptop ( Inspirion E1505)'s inbuilt DVD reader /writer
>>> couldn't read it. Its a dual boot so are there any Linux-vs-Win issues
>>> too?
>>>
>>> Are these distinctions only relevant when writing disks at home as
>>> opposed
>>> to commercially stamped disks? Or maybe when reading on hardware other
>>> than
>>> "computers" (etc. DVD players etc.)
>>>
>>>
>>
>> First: the easy bit. The 'R' media is write once. The 'RW' media can be
>> erased allowing its re-use.
>>
>> A little more complex is the difference between the '-' discs and '+'
>> discs.
>> As far as you the user is concerned, except for some uses there is little
>> to
>> chose. Some older video DVD players will refuse to recognise the DVD+RW
>> discs (but will recognise DVD+R). This was the result of a deliberate
>> attempt by Toshiba to discourage the '+' format. Once rumbled they had
>> to
>> abandon it.
>>
>> For DVD-R and DVD+R, there is no practical difference other than the
>> latter
>> is written faster by some drives.
>
> AND that the DVD-R discs are more compatible with some older players.
> (BTDT)
>

I've already covered this point. There should be no difference. I am not
aware of any player that will not play DVD+R discs (even first generation
players play them flawlessly) unles the player's laser has deteriorated -
but then they won't play lots of formats. It was the DVD+RW that gave all
the problems but only because players were deliberately rigged to refuse to
play them.

>> For DVD-RW and DVD+RW there is a subtle difference in that the former is
>> eraseable at the block level only. The latter is eraseable at the word
>> level. This means that individual words can be erased and overwritten.
>> It
>> also means that if used for video, more video can be added to the end of
>> existing video and the two played through seemlessly. This cannot be
>> done
>> with the '-' format.
>>
>> If you are planning on using packet incemental format (Nero's InCD or
>> Roxio's Drag-to-disc), then DVD+RW will be much more reliable than
>> DVD-RW.
>
> Does any truly sane person use the packet writing stuff? Too many
> potential problems there. :-) InCD and DirectCD, thanks, but no
> thanks.
>

Whilst I agree with you, many people do. DVD+RW discs give few problems
with packet writing unlike DVD-RW and CD-RW. But if your drive supports
DVD-RAM use that instead.