DVD-R vs DVD+R

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.

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CD/RW Link

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

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

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

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.

 

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.

 

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.

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.