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Media Hardware

The Most Compatible DVD Format: DVD-R 269

Posted by timothy 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."
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The Most Compatible DVD Format: DVD-R More

The Most Compatible DVD Format: DVD-R

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  • mmm (Score:3, Funny)

    by _Shorty-dammit ( 555739 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:24PM (#6485065)
    beta

    • Re:mmm (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vaylen ( 566986 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:59PM (#6485284) Journal
      I would say the biggest incompatability is the authors grasp of the english language. But seriously, I think it's time we all accept that neither format is going to die at this point and just focus on buying PLAYERS that will best play all formats... The player is the cheapest link in this chain anyway. At that point, people can decide to record on - or + based on their preference for the price/feature aspect of the media... "Do I want to pay .50 less for my disc or do I want to be able to rewrite files on the disc without erasing the whole thing?" Every situation will be different. There's no excuse for a player to come out today that doesn't fully support both formats, and THAT is where our focus should be.

      • Re:mmm (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Natalie's Hot Grits ( 241348 )
        "There's no excuse for a player to come out today that doesn't fully support both formats, and THAT is where our focus should be."

        Why is there no excuse? Here is one:

        DVD+R/RW is a proprietary patented format invented by Sony corporation to push DVD FORUM's DVD-R specification out of the market. They did this by making a drive (and patenting it and licensing it) that is capable of burning both formats, but crippling the DVD-R capability to half speed of the DVD+R on the same drive (4x +, 2x -, or 8x+/4x-).

        • Re:mmm (Score:5, Insightful)

          by vaylen ( 566986 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @04:14PM (#6486493) Journal
          "Why would you want to spend extra money to be compatible?"

          I would want any player I buy to be compatible with Sony and Philips as well as Panasonic for the same reason that I want any memory card reader I buy to be able to read Compact Flash and Secure Digital and Smart Media AND Memory Stick.... Because I can't control what people write things on or with, but I can control whether I can read them or not.

          Stop wasting your time trying to kill a format that will not go away and just embrace what is and make sure it won't cost you the ability to watch a DVD because you are stuck on your principles.

          Use your $$$ to buy the writer/media you prefer and let that be your vote in the format war, but refusing to push for readers that don't choke on one disc or the other is silly. They're just readers. Panasonic making their readers choke on DVD+R discs is no better than M$ making Netscape choke on content from its website. Be better than that.

      • Re:mmm (Score:5, Funny)

        by alexburke ( 119254 ) * <[ac.ekrubxela] [ta] [todhsals+xela]> on Sunday July 20, 2003 @11:46PM (#6488573)
        I would say the biggest incompatability is the authors grasp of the english language.

        I would say the biggest incompatibility is the author's grasp of the English language.

  • I have the most compatible format of all. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:25PM (#6485073)
    I carve all of my information into stone tablets unearthed not near here.

    To date, I have yet to find a computer that these tablets are incompatible with.

    Of course, the only thing I *do* with these computers is smash them to bits with my stone tablets when their owners owe my boss money, but you know how it is.

  • Maybe we will se a market standard somewhat sooner (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arcanumas ( 646807 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:29PM (#6485098) Homepage
    Well, it's about time the scene begins to clear a little. Such reviews are generaly pushing people towards buying products that are praised by the reviews , and we may see a standard sooner.

    I would really hate to buy now, and in a while be the guy with that "weird" DVD that lost the market war so long ago.

    • I would buy now if I would need one.

      In my case, the life for hardware is usually at maximum two years. So in two years I would buy a new burner anyway. I believe that this mess isn't clear until that two years has passed.

      And hey, it's under $200 now anyway. The article said something about $300, but the cheapest drives are already under $200.

      • Re:Maybe we will se a market standard somewhat soo (Score:5, Interesting)

        by arcanumas ( 646807 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:47PM (#6485223) Homepage
        If you need anything , you buy it at the time you need it. This applies for more than DVD-R/RAM/RW .
        I , however , am a poor poor college student. I can not spare 200 Euros as easily as most people. Plus, i don't REALLY need stuff like that (even though i REALLY want it). :)
        And the 2 year limit is relevant. I mean, my main box that i am writing right now is brand new, only 2 years old. and my other box is a 486 which , acting as an X-terminal , is perfectly ok. So, to me 2 years is nothing. To others 2 years i a life time.
        (Well 2 years is a lot to me too but i pretend i don't mind :)

        Not to mention that i will have invested time and money in the media (the disks) that in a worst case scenario will be totaly useless once my device breaks and i can neither find support nor buy a new device.

  • Pioneer (Score:3, Informative)

    by EtherBoo ( 636012 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:33PM (#6485118) Homepage Journal
    Last time I checked, Pioneer, one of the companies backing -R/RW, started adding support for DVD +R/RW on their recorders. Also, -R/RW seems to be the cheaper media wherever I check. Sadly to say, but it seems the -R/RW may be on its way out the door.

    • Re:Pioneer (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Natalie's Hot Grits ( 241348 )
      "...-R/RW seems to be the cheaper media wherever I check. Sadly to say, but it seems the -R/RW may be on its way out the door."

      You don't know how far from the truth you are...

      DVD-R media is cheaper because there are no royalties attached. DVD+R is owned by Sony corporation and they charge outstanding patent royalties on the drive technology and media manufacturing process of DVD+R/RW.

      DVD-R v2.0 is the official DVD Forum Specification. The same people who created the DVD-ROM and DVD Video specification wh

      • Re:Pioneer (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 20, 2003 @06:20PM (#6487161)
        you also don't know how far from the truth you are.

        There are royalties on DVD-R media and DVD+R isn't owned by Sony. It's got patents from many companies combined, (like -R/-RW) but is mostly owned by Sony and Philips with Philips having the larger half. (Just like the CD).

        +R is hardly a cheap knockoff, it's designed to be superior [cdfreaks.com] to -R for multiple reasons, like listed in the link, including hardware defect management and being less prone to error.

        by the way, minidisk is still amazingly popular. just not in the US. japan and asia, for example, you can find almost as many minidisk products as cd products (including media). just the cd media is larger.

    • DVD-R/RW Is Dying. (Score:4, Funny)

      by cygnus ( 17101 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @06:06PM (#6487101) Homepage
      Last time I checked, Pioneer, one of the companies backing -R/RW, started adding support for DVD +R/RW on their recorders. Also, -R/RW seems to be the cheaper media wherever I check. Sadly to say, but it seems the -R/RW may be on its way out the door.

      This Is Because DVD-R/RW is dying.

      i saw five people buying DVD+R/RW media this week. this is unequivocable data that shows DVD-R/RW is on it's way out. alan greenspan was once questioned about DVD-R/RW. he accidentally farted at the time, which can only be construed as a negative opinion. if you lay out all the DVD-R/RW discs sold since it's inception, it only covers half the area of Rhode Island. shortcomings like these are why nobody uses DVD-R/RW anymore.

    • DVD-R is the only format that the DVD-Forum [dvdforum.org] endorses. I don't see a hint of +R or +RW anywhere in there. Just because Sony, Microsoft, or any number of other manufacturers are endorsing +R/+RW means nothing. Just because there are more drives in the store being purchased as +R/+RW means nothing. One could easily make the same argument for the +R/+RW only camp in introducing -R/-RW compatibility in their products. Besides that, +R/+RW media is both more expensive and newer. The -R/-RW media has been ar

  • plus (Score:5, Funny)

    by iosmart ( 624285 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:35PM (#6485129)
    who likes to say "dvd plus arr"?? "dvd arr" works much better! and if you say "dvd dash arr", do you also say "cd dash arr" and "cd dash arr double you"? then again no "cd plus arr" exists...

  • Sony good (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:35PM (#6485139)
    As we decided that Sony is good this week, it's nice to see that according to the review, the Sony DVD players play almost all discs well [cdrinfo.com], better than any other manufacturer.

    Unfortunately, that's not the creator of the player I just bought...

  • Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:35PM (#6485141) Homepage
    Given that DVDRW drives are $160 or less, DVDrom drives are $80 or less, DVD players (for the TV) are $100 or less, what does it really matter? All new ones are compatible with anything, so if yours happens not to work go out and buy one that can.

    The only problem with that is laptops, but slimline DVD-CDRW combo drives to retrofit to laptops are now under $200 (last time I checked, which was several months ago) and I can't immagine that a DVDRW is that much more.

    Even if your drive doesn't work and you don't want to throw it away, it's possible a firmware upgrade will let it read all -R and +R media - worked for my NEC laptop. In fact it seems that some -R[W] and +R[W] writers might be upgradable to multiformat, like the Pioneer DVR 105 (identical hardware to the 106) just as soon as the hackers finish working out what needs changing in the hex image.

    • Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jbridges ( 70118 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @04:13PM (#6486486)
      Of course it matters, if you want to buy new drives to read the discs, why use a backwards compatable format at all?

      The whole idea is burning discs others can read. Or are you going to buy all your clients, relatives, friends or customers new DVD drives when they cannot read your DVD+R discs?

      The review was much more negative about DVD+R than the upfront review numbers say. The consumer DVD players that wouldn't read DVD+R were not obscure, but some of the most popular brands!

    • Re:Does it matter? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ruie ( 30480 )
      Actually, if you mark your DVD+R disc as DVD-ROM (there is a special number that tells that), there is a very good chance that your laptop will be able to read it.


      Mine (Inspiron 5000) refuses to read disks marked as DVD+R, but has no problems with disks marked as DVD-ROM, even though they are the same in every other respect.


      See "DVD+RW/+R for Linux" [chalmers.se] for more details.

  • Standard Answer #6 (Score:5, Funny)

    by bryanp ( 160522 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:36PM (#6485142)
    I'm tired of writing the same replies to people who say "I'll wait until they're cheaper and a single format wins." So here, I'll just link-whore myself to my own earlier posts -

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=71465&cid=6465 127 [slashdot.org]

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=70097&cid=6378 178 [slashdot.org]

    • Re:Standard Answer #6 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:46PM (#6485216) Homepage
      I picked up a Pioneer A05 (rebranded) for about $150 after a rebate. Just couldn't pass up that offer. It's now using an unofficial firmware to remove the 2x CSS read mode so I can rip my own DVDs (for backup[1]) at 7-8x. My only beef with DVD-R is that there's no official standard for 4x media, which makes it somewhat hard to come by and fairly expensive. You can find really good deals on branded 2x discs, though, which sort of makes up for it. If the 4x discs come down in price, great, I'll start buying those, but otherwise, for the price I paid, I'm not complaining.

      [1] And before people accuse me of piracy, I am only backing up DVDs I've purchased. I've been the victim of multiple RSDL Rotted DVDs, and had I backed them up prior to the layer separation, I wouldn't have had to re-purchase the discs.

      • Re:Standard Answer #6 (Score:2, Insightful)

        by MyHair ( 589485 )
        I'm just curious: Is the cost of backing up all your DVDs less than the cost of replacing the occasional failed DVD?

        I'm all for being able to back them up; I'm not trying to make an anti-piracy/pro-MPAA point. But I am curious if the cost is currently worth it.

        • Re:Standard Answer #6 (Score:5, Insightful)

          by koreth ( 409849 ) * on Sunday July 20, 2003 @02:02PM (#6485693)
          My guess is that it's not a cost issue, so much as an availability one: I have DVDs in my collection that have gone out of print and were never popular to begin with, so if they go bad, I can't replace them no matter how much I'm willing to spend. Probably no point backing up "Home Alone 2."
          • Probably no point backing up "Home Alone 2."

            I wouldn't go that far. Future generations will want to know exactly how information was extracted from Camp X-Ray prisoners so effectively.

            I'm betting that they'll be a big demand for copies of that disc in history faculties and military academies in the not too distant future.

        • Re:Standard Answer #6 (Score:4, Informative)

          by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @02:03PM (#6485696) Homepage
          There are other advantages, such as being able to put them in a binder for higher portability. It also depends upon the size of your DVD collection. For smaller collections, the cost isn't nearly as high as you might think.

          Finally, once you start the initial backup, it's under two bucks to make a backup for each DVD you purchase. I don't think that's horribly expensive, particularly when discs go out of production all the time.

          Just a matter of preference and priorities, some people might not want to pay that extra, and that's ok.

      • Re:Standard Answer #6 (Score:2, Informative)

        by Gailin ( 138488 )
        I have the exact same DVD burner, and have had great luck with the Princo 4x Media. Nero recognizes it and burns to it at 4x without a problem, and I have yet to create a coaster (over 110 dvd's burned).

        http://www.allmediaoutlet.com/P-DVD-R-4XP100.htm l

        G
      • unofficial firmware to remove the 2x CSS read mode so I can rip my own DVDs (for backup[1]) at 7-8x.

        Could you explain what this means a little further? Does the firmware circumvent CSS decryption allowing you bitwise access? Or is it something else?

        Also, where could one find such unauthorized firmware?

      • Re:Standard Answer #6 (Score:5, Informative)

        by Natalie's Hot Grits ( 241348 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @04:00PM (#6486423) Homepage
        "My only beef with DVD-R is that there's no official standard for 4x media"

        Actually there is. the DVD-R v2.0 specification specifies 4x write speed in both the drive, and the media.

    • Re:Standard Answer #6 (Score:2, Insightful)

      by archen ( 447353 )
      I think most of us have gotten to the point where we don't even care what's cheaper. Everyone just needs to pick one! I know at least 6 people (not including myself) who want to get a DVD burner, yet refuse to since they're unsure of compatability. The industry is just shooting itself in the foot if you ask me. By the time something gets sorted out everyone will have chosen the NEXT big thing (DVD-X++).

      Personally I'm drowning in CD-Rs. Being able to cut down on my pile into 1/6th would be a big gain
    • Wouldn't burning a two hour movie at 4x speed take at least 30 minutes?

    • Or you could just ignore them. Not every lame post deserves to be debunked.

  • Sony DVD +RW/-RW (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikewren420 ( 264173 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:38PM (#6485153) Homepage
    ...but the Sony DRU-500AX [cnet.com] burns 4x DVD-R/-RW, DVD+RW/+R... clearly, this is the most compatible burner! :)

    "The bad: No Mac support." Opps, nevermind.

    • Re:Sony DVD +RW/-RW (Score:3, Informative)

      by gilesjuk ( 604902 )
      Nope, there's an IOMEGA burner that does all known DVD formats, including RAM.

      Link to info [iomega.com]
    • I always love it when a sarcastic comment gets modded "Informative" :)

    • Re:Sony DVD +RW/-RW (Score:5, Interesting)

      by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdot.stango@org> on Sunday July 20, 2003 @01:23PM (#6485424) Homepage Journal
      "The bad: No Mac support." Opps, nevermind.

      Today's lesson is that when some companies say "No Mac support," they mean, "It works, but we're too fucking cheap/lazy to support Mac users."

      I put three of these drives in graphite G4s at one of my clients, and they work fine. The only problem is that stupid thick front plate on the drive tray that prevents the Mac's spring-loaded, swing-down bezel panel from closing fully. You can just carefully remove the moving portion and the spring, unless you're one of those mythical Mac users who buys the Mac for its looks instead of what you can do with it.

      ~Philly

  • DVD-RW (Score:4, Informative)

    by Cee ( 22717 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:42PM (#6485192)
    According to this chart [cdrinfo.com], DVD-RW also seems more compatible than DVD+RW...

  • DVD Plus R (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cowclops ( 630818 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:42PM (#6485193)
    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.

    • Re:DVD Plus R (Score:2, Informative)

      by Luscious868 ( 679143 )

      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.

      You're spot on. I've got a Sony DRU-500A that can burn DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW and 9 times out of 10 I use DVD-R/RW. I've got a few friends that have DVD players that won't play -R/RW so occasionally I'll burn +R/RW if I'm buring something for them.

    • I have an NEC ND-1100A drive (DVD+R/RW) that I bought for under $200. I bought a stack of 100 Ritek 2.4x DVD+Rs for about $1.30 per disc, which seemed very reasonable to me. I remember when CD-Rs were over a dollar a disc, too, and at the time I thought that was worth it for copying^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbacking up music and games.

      I've copied^H^H^H^H^H^Hbacked up 35 DVDs since I got the drive. I have a Pioneer set-top player that I'd guess is 4 years old anyway, and a Playstation 2, and both play the movies without

  • The Washington Post's Comparison (Score:5, Informative)

    by tabdelgawad ( 590061 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:43PM (#6485197)
    Coincidentally, the Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro has an article in today's web edition at

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1 45 34-2003Jul19.html

    discussing his recent experiences testing a few consumer DVD recorders. He notes that the current contenders in the non-PC market are DVD-RAM/-R and DVD+RW/+R, while DVD-RW is outside contention "thanks to still-insane prices". He notes that even though DVD-RAM has better features, "The most important factor, however, is compatibility, and here DVD+RW beats DVD-RAM soundly".

    So are we going to end up with consumers buying +RW/+R standalone recorders, while computer users line up behind -RW/-R based on comparisons like CDR-Info's? I really thought this coming christmas would bring DVD recording to the masses, but with this standards war continuing, I'm not so sure anymore ...
    • That's just insane. DVD-ram was never intended to be a DVD compatible format. It's like saying "Brand X's hammer is much better than brand Y's screwdriver at pounding in nails". The equivalent to DVD+RW is DVD-RW. Still, neither RW format works very well in stand-alone players. That's what DVD-R and DVD+R are best at.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:46PM (#6485218)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:50PM (#6485230)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Not to mention the fact that neither the numbers in the article or at dvdrhelp.com are particularly decisive as to format. 85-90% vs 90-95% compatibility is probably not the most important factor in the -R/+R decision, and the -RW/+RW compatibility data is inconclusive. I found the media cost data in the article more interesting: that's a major factor in my purchasing decision right now.

    • There are two major flaws with all of these statistics; one of them is hinted at in the cdrinfo article, but the other is not.

      The first is that if you take a weighted average by player market share instead of just a straight numerical average then the numbers lean much more heavily in favor of DVD-R. In fact under such a weighted average I would expect even DVD-RW to beat out DVD+R.

      The second flaw is that averaging across disc brands is completely irrelevant for most users' actual usage patterns. Most

  • what about DVD-RAM!!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:50PM (#6485232) Homepage
    how cold they justify not including this oh so important format!!!!
  • Even 87% seems "ok" to me.

    In the future, either both numbers will go UP, or, both numbers will go down (depending on how far in the future...)

    Eventually all computer media becomes an obsolete format.

    Although my paper tape seems to be holding up rather nicely. Anyone have a working Teletype? It Think it might be some really good ASCII porn!

    • I just got rid of my teletype a few years ago.

      I had a full system Burroughs B700 and a full B730, terminals, drives, cpu's, manuals, everything.

      You booted it from punchtape so you could then load the OS from those UFO sized disks..

      I saw someone had written an app to scan papertape in on a flatbed scanner and decode it to a readable format.. So, someone did find a way to timetravel and get papertape ascii art back from the otherside.

      (someone also figured out a way to scan LP's in on a flatbed scanned an
  • We have working prototypes of holographic disks that can hdtv but there is no pub about it. DVD don't do much for me since they dont record HDTV. Recordables took way too long to get to market and now they have the new Blue Laser DVD's coming out that can hold an HDTV video. I will say one word of advice .....WAIT or get screwed !
  • I'm not saying that EVERYTHING Apple does is the best god-given technology on the planet, but the day Apple decided on DVD-R sealed the fate of the the recordable DVD media future. It's not always but often Apple leads the way. DVD-R was easy to see.

    For example, an easy prediction to make today is that within 2 years, nearly nobody will be producing stand-alone USB/USB2 web cams. Virtually all web cams will be 640x480 30fps firewire web cams.

    ---gralem

  • Consider book type (bit setting) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by endeitzslash ( 570374 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @01:25PM (#6485434)
    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. [dvdplusrw.org]

    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.
  • stop these freaking tests on WINDOWS!

    All those tests written up for windows are utterly useless for Linux people.

    Please, someone show us where these drives are tested under Linux!!!

    Damn!
    • Linux people should be smart enough to test their own drives and post the results to a newsgroup. We Windows users are far too dumb to collaborate or think for ourselves, hence this test. </sarcasm>

    • I would think that since ~90% of consumer DVD burning is being done on Windows... tests should continue on Windows.

      Besides... it's more about testing the format than the platform. Windows has far more tools available than Mac or Linux. Sad fact :(

      I love my Mac Powerbook... even has the superdrive (DVD-R)... but there is about 10 times more software available for Windows... and it's easier to use... so that is what I use.

      I watch DVDs occasionally in Linux on my x86 box with mplayer, but haven't even loo

    • Linux tests (Score:3, Informative)

      by David Jao ( 2759 ) *
      Please, someone show us where these drives are tested under Linux!!!

      I do all my DVD burning in Linux (in fact I have never burned a disc in Windows), and I cannot see how the system OS matters at all for compatibility testing.

      The mmc optical writing command set has been standardized since forever. A drive running in a Linux system sees the exact same data coming down the wire as the same drive running in Windows. From personal experience I can attest that my own observations match up exactly with the

  • Very thorough (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rzbx ( 236929 ) <slashdot&rzbx,org> on Sunday July 20, 2003 @01:33PM (#6485471) Homepage
    I just think it would be nice if they provided information on which of players had problems reading the different discs.
  • It seems that Mitsui has stopped making their gold DVD-R media. (Real gold reflective layer) I don't think that anyone else is making gold media for the DVD-+R/RW burners either.

    If that's the case, what kind of archival life can we expect out of the other brands? 4.7 gigs is a lot of data to go missing if a disk goes bad. I've read that burned DVD's are more fragile than CD's and just bending them while taking them out of the case can ruin a disk.

    Are we going to have to re-burn all our data every 10

  • Marketing... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It has all to do with marketing.
    DVD-R/W is the best format to use with other DVD-players and DVD-ROM, and has the cheapest media.

    The companies behind DVD+R/W has done better marketing, and have got bigger companies with them, like Microsoft.
    And we shall not forget that most people are stupid when it comes to technology (!). This is exactly the same that happend when "we" choose VHS instead of Beta.

    Just look at the history of Microsoft. They was allways a step behind on everything but marketing. People saw

    • Re:Marketing... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pocopoco ( 624442 )
      I don't consider the DVD+ companies to have done that well marketing. The first DVD+ drives were RW only, but promised to be able to do R with a firmware upgrade (-this being insane in it's own right. I've burned hundreds of R discs and maybe one or two expensive RW ones which are less compatible for both DVD- and DVD+. Talk about bad design goals). This proved not to be true and a lot of people getting into DVD burning with DVD+ found out they would need new drives. So the DVD+ companies really shot t
    • The companies behind DVD+R/W has done better marketing, and have got bigger companies with them, like Microsoft. And we shall not forget that most people are stupid when it comes to technology (!). This is exactly the same that happend when "we" choose VHS instead of Beta

      The problem with your argument is that +R/RW is the better technology. The only thing -R/RW has going for it is that Apple picked it.

  • I dare you to go back in time to last night and tell that to me when I was trieing to get my matshita dvd-ram to burn a dvd-r in linux

  • Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)

    by forkboy ( 8644 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @01:49PM (#6485609) Homepage
    Considering DVD+R/+RW touts itself [dvdrw.com] as being "the most compatible format." This is mentioned all over their website, especially in the FAQ. They claim a 95% compatibility rate with all DVD players and drives. Who wants to be the bad guy and tell them they're wrong?

  • I'll never give up my 8mm black and white film!

    The most famous home movie ever filmed (Zapruder) was 8mm B&W, so... so... so... THERE!

    ObHa: Ha!

  • When marking your results, don't use "OK" and "NO" as the indicators.

    They're virtually impossible to tell apart in rapid scanning.

    Use "PASS" (not "PASSED") and "FAILED". The length differences alone will provide ample visual cuing to reviewers.
    • Or better yet, make the "PASS" text in green and the "FAILED" text in red. Or use a graphic of a green check mark and a red X, or anything else.

      I too had a lot of trouble reading the player breakdowns because "OK" and "NO" look too similar (especially with the microscopic fonts most websites use nowadays).

  • bogus (Score:3, Informative)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @03:11PM (#6486105) Homepage
    Any format differences in compatibility are swamped by recorder differences. That is, whether a DVD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW will work in a given player depends on both the player AND the recorder.

    They only used two -R/RW recorders, two +R/RW recorders, and one that can do all of them.

  • Give it a year or so DVD+RW will eventually take over, just look at most popular pc's coming out to market from Dell ,Hp and Gateway all the models that have DVD writers are DVD+RW. It wont be long before there will be more DVD+RW's than DVD-RW's in the market. This will make media manufactures lower media prices and DVD player manufactures make more compatible units.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Until they stop all this DVD-DON/KEY+DOO-DOO and pick one format (or pick more than one, but agree and commit to those formats), I'm not buying any of these devices. Even if I buy a drive that is capable of all formats, each piece of media will still be in only one format. If I back up my files on DVD-R and that gets abandoned after DVD+R becomes the standard, the DVD-Rs will essentially become coasters if my all-capable drive breaks and I can't find a replacement that can do DVD-R.

  • Booktype field + why DVD+R/RW is becoming popular (Score:5, Informative)

    by GroundBounce ( 20126 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @04:41PM (#6486639)
    First point - All DVDs contain a field which identifies to the player the type of media. This field is called the "booktype". There are a handful of players which will refuse to play a disc if it is not tagged with one of the "acceptable" booktypes, even though the player would physically be able to play it. From the various searching around I've done, it appears that from a physical point of view, there should be very few players that can play a -R disc that can't play a +R disc (e.g., they both have very similar reflectivities, etc.).

    Most DVD writers have the ability to let you force the writing of a certain booktype field. Many of the players in the test which failed to read +R discs are likely to have done so because their firmware refused to play based on the booktype field. Setting the booktype of a +R disk to DVD-ROM or DVD-R would probably narrow the compatability gap significantly.

    An excellent technical discussion of this and other issues appears on this page [chalmers.se], near the bottom of the page.

    Second point - DVD+R/RW is becoming more popular because, outside of just compatability, there are some other subtle (or not-so-subtle, depending on your application) technical advantages. The biggest one is the ability to do fine resolution (a few bit-times) lossless linking in all recording modes.

    Again, the above page has an excellent technical discussion of this near the bottom (section labeled "What does the + in DVD+R/RW stand for").

    The bottom line is that due to the way lossless linking is performed in DVD-R in DAO mode (the most video-compatible mode), compatibility is dependent on linking data being "corrected away" by the ECC, whereas in +R/RW, the links are physically so small that a +R sector with a link is logically indistinguishable from a DVD-ROM sector.

    The primary importance of all this is that it allows real-time low-bitrate MPEG data, say from a capture card or from the internet (which will inherently cause buffer underruns due to it's low bitrate), to be directly written to DVD with compatability as high as if the data were first all written to a file and then written to DVD at once. Companies like Dell, etc., must feel that this will become a big consumer advantage because of the large amount of disk space and added inconvenience required to first store the MPEG in files and then write them to DVD.

    There are also some other subtle techincal advantages which can be seen from the above document.

    So, for consumers who want to do things like capture video from their camcorders and copy it to DVD in a simple manner, +R may be the best choice as long as their player is compatable (which it likely is since the compatibility gap isn't that big), whereas for someone who is producing DVDs which are to be distributed to many people with no knowlege of which player they have, -R may be better, although they could always increase compatability of +R by using the booktype field.

    • Re:Booktype field + why DVD+R/RW is becoming popul (Score:4, Informative)

      by TerryMathews ( 57165 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @06:26PM (#6487185)
      It's also worth noting that DVD+RW discs are identical to pressed DVD-ROMs when it comes to reflectivities. The only hanging point is when drives don't comprehend the DVD+RW media identifier. Something that can be corrected on most drives by a program called DVD bitsetter (http://www.dvdplusrw.org/files/dvdbitsetter2113.z ip)

    • Re:Booktype field + why DVD+R/RW is becoming popul (Score:4, Insightful)

      by owlstead ( 636356 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @06:39PM (#6487236)
      Thank you!

      I wondered when somebody would mention the technical advantages of DVD+R and DVD+RW. There are good reasons why Philips and partners have taken a different route.

      Mount rainier support could - when implemented correctly (grumble grumble, stupid writer programs cannot get _anything_ right) revolutionize the PC world. Finaly a large size format that you can burn easily and take to friends, modify and take back.

      Maybe the DVD-R is slightly more compatible and more cheap, but are we going to make the VHS mistake all over again? With the next protocol already?

      Cmon guys, vote for the better one of the two!
      • Maybe the DVD-R is slightly more compatible and more cheap, but are we going to make the VHS mistake all over again? With the next protocol already?

        I can't help but feel that your comparison of the DVD format situation is a bit backward.

        DVD-R is the VHS in the situation yes? DVD+R is the Beta right? Well which won that one? VHS won, not because it was better, it clearly wasn't, but because it was cheaper and more compatible. Beta was better, but more expensive and quite proprietary.

        I keep hearing from p

        • Why VHS=DVD-R (Score:4, Informative)

          by GroundBounce ( 20126 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @08:24PM (#6487704)
          Actually, VHS won the consumer war not because it was more compatible with anything (there was really nothing to be compatible with, other than Beta, which it obviously wasn't compatible with). It won the war because it was more convenient for consumers - it was more convenient because VHS could record two hours in SP mode (a length long enough to cover most movies), when at the time, Beta could not.

          DVD+R/RW has some subtle technical advantages that may turn out to give it a similar edge for consumers, like the ability to directly record variable bitrate MPEG in real time in a mode that is still highly video compatible. It's still a gamble for Phillips et al - nobody really knows whether this will end up being a big consumer advantage, but folks like Dell apparently think so, potentially enough of an advantage to overcome the slight compatibility gap. In addition, that compatibility gap is only going to get narrower (actually, better for both formats), because virtually all players being made now can play anything, and what gap exists is largely solvable with the booktype field

          Still, If I were producing DVDs for distribution to many people, and I didn't want to worry about setting booktypes, it makes sense to choose DVD-R/RW at the current time. This may change though in another few years when almost everyone has replaced their really old players and the compatibility gap has narrowed to statistical insignificance.
  • If they develop another format, how are they going to call it ?

    Provably DVD*R
    or DVD^R

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