DVD-R Versus DVD+R

[drumsncode]

I'm posting this as a public service of sorts. A few years back I poured over the web trying to understand what the differences were in the two formats of DVD's, "Minus R" versus "Plus R". I finally stumbled upon a very technical article which convinced me beyond all doubt that +R is the way to go.

The article was way over my head, but not so much that I couldn't comprehend that +R is a superior format at the low level, and that it has far better error correction capabilities. And I'm sorry I didn't save the link to the article. I remember sending it to my friends I was so impressed with the breakthrough.

I thought about this today when I was in a store buying DVD+Rs, and a guy was asking a salesman about the formats. I patiently waited like a geek stalking its prey until I had each guy isolated so I could explain it to them without upstaging the salesman.

The bottom line is, if your machine supports it, DVD+R is a much more reliable format. It's so good in fact, that on my Philips DVD recorder, if you have a power outage in the middle of writing to the disk, it can actually repair the damage and allow you to continue using the disk. I have never seen anything like that on a DVD-R. Credit goes too to the folks that wrote the Philips software. They really pulled out all the stops on that one. If I have an outage writing a disk on my Panasonic DVD recorder, I just have to throw the disk in the trash.

Anyway, when people burn DVDs they generally want to keep them a long time, and +R will help insure that happens. Also, do not buy the really cheap DVD disks. I've read horror stories about their shelf life. You'll have great luck with Taiyo Yuden, the best disk around, and I also have had good luck with Sony disks. As with anything, if it's really cheap in price, there's a reason!

[MadMonk]

I've used a lot of DVD media in the last few years and I can't say I've ever had a problem with disks made in either format. I've mostly used DVD-R because some old equipment I have doesn't play well with the +R format. Besides, by the time the disks begin to degrade, I'll have moved on to Blue-Ray or whatever comes next.

[drumsncode]

I've used a lot of DVD media in the last few years and I can't say I've ever had a problem with disks made in either format. I've mostly used DVD-R because some old equipment I have doesn't play well with the +R format. Besides, by the time the disks begin to degrade, I'll have moved on to Blue-Ray or whatever comes next.

I hear ya on the equipment incompatibilities! I have dealt with that too. I upgraded the firmware on my Panasonic DVD recorder, and also that on the Philips recorder. Now I have combinations of DVD-R and DVD+R, written with old and new firmware, and the disks are not fully interchangeable from one machine to the other. Plus, on my computer, various programs that are supposed to be able to read DVD's won't work on various disks. It's a cluster!

To add insult to injury, I ordered some Corel DVD software over a year ago and it never would install correctly on a Windows XP machine, and their tech support was almost totally worthless, just spewing canned responses out of a help-database.

[MadMonk]

I hear ya on the equipment incompatibilities! I have dealt with that too. I upgraded the firmware on my Panasonic DVD recorder, and also that on the Philips recorder. Now I have combinations of DVD-R and DVD+R, written with old and new firmware, and the disks are not fully interchangeable from one machine to the other. Plus, on my computer, various programs that are supposed to be able to read DVD's won't work on various disks. It's a cluster!

To add insult to injury, I ordered some Corel DVD software over a year ago and it never would install correctly on a Windows XP machine, and their tech support was almost totally worthless, just spewing canned responses out of a help-database.

BTW, where's that article you stumbled across? I'd like to read it.

[drumsncode]

BTW, where's that article you stumbled across? I'd like to read it.

I searched my email account for it but could not find it. I tried a bit of Googling, but trying to follow links over a dial-up line is like waiting for paint to dry. There are so many fluff articles on it, and the one I finally found years ago took me most of the day to uncover.

If I get some more free time I'll search a little more.

Edit:
Here's one link I found that mentions the improved error handling of DVD+R. Leave it to good old Wikipedia to bring the goods!

DVD-R - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Matt]

Please, DNC, tell me you're not using all these DVDs to record and archive the local news.

Please.