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DVD Formats - Which is for Me?

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Karl
Kurtis

Apr. 5, 2004

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Introduction

Because the DVD rewritable optical drives have dropped in price at such a great rate, many folks including myself already have or are seriously considering purchasing a DVD burner. The prices of the drives have decreased, but the offerings for what are available have increased. With so many options, it may be hard to choose a brand, or even the media format. You may have noticed a lot of the lower price range burners are single format, or perhaps you don't know the difference between the different formats.

There are two major formats that most of the DVD burners support. As of February 2004, there were no physical differences between a -R/-RW and a +R/+RW format. While at first this may not seem like a major deal, it can be. If you are looking to purchase a single format writer you will want to make this decision carefully, of course it's usually better to just purchase a dual format burner. In this article I will be discussing more of the benefits that the DVD+R/RW format brings against the previous and still used format DVD-R/RW. I will also be discussing briefly the main benefits of each.

The type of media you should use depends on its intended use and there is one thing to keep in mind: neither format is considered "The Standard." The dominance of one format over the other will mainly be affected by how the market chooses to drive the formats. This situation is quite similar to the time the market was deciding between VHS and Beta almost two decades ago.

DVD-R/RW

The originating DVD format that was compatible with most DVD players is DVD-R/RW. DVD-R/RW supports both single-sided (4.7 GB) and double-sided (9.4 GB) media. Due to the amount of time that DVD-R/RW has been out, many more stand alone DVD player are likely to support them. This format is pretty much your everyday use format. It is advised to use this format if you intend to create home movies, and other applications that would run from a stand-alone DVD player. The DVD Forum is the official supporter of this format.

DVD+R/RW

The new format is DVD+R/RW, which happens to be based on CD-RW technology. This format is becoming increasingly popular. The compatibility rate of this format however is not as high as the older format on stand-alone players. The introduction of the DVD+R/RW was created in the intent that the format would be completely compatible across both DVD optical drives in computers, and drives in stand-alone players. The format also allows for a mix of information on the media, such as not only video, but also data files. This is not to say that the previous format cannot be used for data, it is just to say that the creators of this format felt DVD+R/RW was a much better format to be used for both purposes. The DVD+R/RW format supports both CAV and CLV writing as well as lossless linking. CAV is an acronym for Constant Angular Velocity. This feature pretty much means that the data transfers at the same speed regardless of where it is being read off the disc; as opposed to Constant Linear Velocity which is dependant on the location of the disc being read. CLV is the method of transfer used by most of the older optical drives. The introduction of CAV allows the drive unit to operate without much trouble as it does not have to regulate the motor speed. This is an improvement over CLV which can run into problems on higher speed optical devices because of the brief latency when changing motor speed. Currently most DVD+R media are capable of writing at a maximum of 8x where as DVD-R is still at a 4x specification. The DVD+RW Alliance is the official supporter of this format. A more detailed article on the plus format can be found at the DVD+RW Alliance website here.

Conclusion

Given the benefits, the DVD+R/RW format would be more appropriate for computer usage. Either format will be acceptable in most readers. When it comes to use for creation of videos, with the intent of playing on a stand-alone player, either will work with newer players. Compatibility will be lower for the plus format, but members of the DVD+RW alliance are increasing support in newer devices. Manufactures that are members of this alliance are much more likely to support the DVD+R/RW format in their products. Some of the manufactures that are a part of this alliance are: Dell, Hewlett-Packard Company, MCC/Verbatim, Philips Electronics, Ricoh Company Ltd., Sony Corporation, Thomson multimedia and Yamaha Corporation, to note a few!

To sum it up, if you are in the market for creating home movies and want to distribute them to friends and relatives, the DVD-R/RW will be your best bet. Otherwise I would recommend using the DVD+R/RW format, as the features offered for PCs are more beneficial and it is becoming more widely accepted in stand-alone players as time passes.

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