DVD-R vs DVD+R

Question

I am confused. I have never burned a DVD before and want to try it on my Dell machine. I went to buy blank DVD discs but I never thought of the diferent formats. How can I know what to buy, DVD-R or +R? I want to copy a lot of family photos from my hard drive (about 7 CDs worth) and I also want to rip some DVD movies for the grandkids and I need to know what to buy. Will either format play on other DVD players?   Thanks!

Predator · Answer

Hi Bumpy,

First it depends on what format your DVD/RW supports, Dell at one time sold drives that supported only the DVD+R and DVD+RW media, so you will need to check this.
There are Pro`s & Con`s to which format is the best, if you have a dual format drive, then you can test yourself, buy in small quanities at first and see what your DVD players work best with.
You can jump over to Video Help and search for reviews on your players.

As far as ripping Dell movies, if you are talking about Hollywood, Commercial discs with the embedded Copy Protection, this is currently illegal in the US, (the Copy Right Law does not apply) and Dell does not allow this subject discussed in their forum, sorry.

Best Regards

God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do
and the eyesight to tell the difference.

CD/RW Link

Message Edited by Predator on 07-16-2005 07:41 PM

klbf · Answer

also dvd+/- dl dual layer- or double layer+ could be a possibility as they are 8.5gb , so thats wprth checking if your drive supports them

Predator · Answer

Ditto with KLBF, good point !!Best Regards God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the difference. CD/RW Link

jgayman · Answer

My 2-cents. If you want decent compatibility with other drives and set-top DVD players stick to DVD-R. The blank media is dirt cheap. Also, stick to name brand media.... like Maxell and Verbatim. A lot of the brands you'll find in the local office supply store are marginal at best... i.e. Memorex and TDK.

Also, I advise you hold off on the dual-layer media unless you have a very good reason for using it and know ahead of time it will work in the destination drive. Blank media is still rather expensive and compatibilies issues are common.

And last but not least... whatever media you use, if you want maximum compatibility burn at slow speed... perferribly 1X. I know, it'll take longer but the media will be more reliable.

Most of this advise assumes your burning your own video DVDs. For data-only you can get away with burning at higher speed.

jgayman · Answer

Correct, TDK was a top name brand in the audio cassette world but not so in the DVD arena. They are a bottom feeder much like Memorex. Unlike CD-Rs, there is a lot of variance between DVD brands.

The top name brands for blank DVDs are Maxell and Verbatim and they are used by many of the top DVD duplication shops. The top non-name brand is Ritek/Ridata.

purplepat · Answer

I should defer to those here who are 'in the know' as far as what brands to buy, but I certainly consider TDK a 'name brand manufacturer'.  TDK (along with Maxell) were always the leaders in top quality cassette audio tapes.  I have never had any problem with TDK stuff, although in cassettes I always bought their higher grade stuff for maximum fidelity (not that DVDs come in grades like audio and video tape).  I just used my Dimension (with a Philips drive, no less) and TDK DVD +R to transfer some old VHS stuff to DVD, and I couldn't have been happier with the results.

osprey4 · Answer

Here is a good site to check media quality and compatibility: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia   Memorex do fine in many cases. I would not recommend Ritek. Verbatim are the consensus best.

Bumpy1952 · Answer

I really appreciate your reply. I have yet to try to make any attempt but I will do so soon. I had already purchased MEMOREX DVD-R so I will use them. I just never thought of DVD-R or +R until I was at the store and saw them next to each other and I asked the store employee and he told me to be safe he would use the (-) R version.   I have a DVD player but it is old (bought on the day that Princess Di was killed) and since there was no DVD writable back then my book does not list what type of media it plays. I will be using a DELL to make my copies, if that matters any.   Thanks again!

osprey4 · Answer

The conventional wisdom some time back was that DVD-R was better for tabletop DVD players than DVD+R, but this is NOT true any more. It all depends on the DVD player.

Storage, Drives & Media

DVD-R vs DVD+R

Was this post helpful?