DVDRW + or - ??

CrazyChemist_2

Hello and a Happy New Year to you all :snow_grin

I've got a new but crap and faulty Dell Inspiron 6000 with a DVD+RW drive, although in the sales literature it stated DVD+/-RW.

I know of DVD-RW and DVD+RW but what is the difference between these and how do you choose which to buy? I'm going to use it for backing up important files and transferring files from laptop to desktop.

Also we have a Goodmans DVD Player at home but was not sure whether this would work with DVDRW? For example if I download some episodes of Family Guy and pop them on a DVDRW could I watch it on the DVD Player? Then erase the disc and put a different set of data on it?

Cheers,

CC :beer:

nearlyrich

This might help it can be confusing....

ollyshaw

DVD+RW and DVD+R are the most compatible types, A DVD+R (finalised) will work on 99% of computers and dvd players. You wont be able to get DVD-R to work on old computers. DVD-RW and DVD-R seem to be a little cheaper for the disks. My drive will handle both + and -, but i alwasy use + for compatability.

Olly

CrazyChemist_2

It's a Goodmans 2200 but isn't in that database.

CrazyChemist_2

Yes my inspiron has those two logos Thanks for that.

Just need to find out about my DVD Player before I order some...

ollyshaw

According to these guys it is closer than i thought.

http://www.videohelp.com/dvd

In my experiance dvd-r disks never worked on older computers, this happened on 3-4 machines, all from different manufacturers.

Olly

allycat999

gizmoleeds wrote:

Really? In my experience it is the other way round.

Totally agree I find that most dvd players/computers will play dvd-r it is the +r that they struggle with. I always use the -r as have less compatibility issues.

jjames_3

Well DVD-R is the official format sanctioned by the DVD Forum. +RW is not -- indeed +R shouldn't even really be referred to with the "DVD" part in front of it.

There are a few very old DVD-ROM drives that will not read DVD-R discs due to the fact that they have the DVD-R booktype preburned onto the leader which cannot be changed, and these players see the -R header and refuse to play them. There is no physical reason why a drive should play +R and not -R, or the other way around. Some +R writers write the DVD-ROM booktype to the blank disc (this info is not preburned on a +R disc) and this is why some very old drives will read them.

Likewise there are some other older drives which refuse +R discs because they see the +R booktype as illegal -- these will often read the -R booktype because it is officially sanctioned.

As I say though there is no reason why any drive should be able to read one and not the other -- it's mainly due to either poorly-written firmware or corporate politics (this still goes on; some DVD-RAM recorders will not read a +RW disc, even though they're happy with +R).

In answer to the original question, there is no particular advantage of either format when writing on a PC. On a standalone recorder it's a more complicated argument; DVD-RW allows much more sophisticated editing than +RW on these recorders (most of the DVD-RAM features are also implemented on DVD-RW VR mode), but this loses compatibility with other players -- in order to record onto a DVD-RW disc in compatibility (video) mode you lose the editing facilities. With +RW you can edit the disc and still have it read on other players, but this editing is nowhere near as sophisticated.

If you come across a player which will play -R and not +R (or vice-versa) it's better to replace the drive IMO given the cost of these things. Any player bought in the last couple of years should be fine with either format.

So don't worry about it, buy +R/RW discs if that's what you need and forget about it. The old argument about DVD-R discs being cheaper than +R is not even true any more, so they're both much of a muchness.