dvd+r/rw questions

Your dell will only write +R.

well, actually i already know that.. it's posted everywhere in the forum..

my question is what is the difference of +r and -r media?

The plus and minus represent 2 different recording formats similar to the VHS/Betacam war 25 years ago.

The DVD-R format was first adopted by the DVD Forum (Pioneer/Toshiba/IBM and 200 other companies).

The DVR+R format was developed afterwards by the DVD+RW Alliance (Phillips/Sony and a few other companies including Dell/HP).

So if you buy a Toshiba or IBM laptop you'll get a DVD-R/RW burner.  And if you buy a Dell/HP laptop, you'll get a DVD+R/RW burner.  Sony is actually a member of both DVD groups so you can get both types of standards for the DVD burner.

DVD-R has slightly better compatibility with consumer DVD players.  And just because a DVD player says it can only play one of the formats, that doesn't mean it won't work with the other format.

Tim

Hi Kenneth,
I posted this in the First Time User Conference a couple of days ago, see if this is close enough.

Follow this link for basic information on the DVD-R format,
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#4.3.2
then scroll down to 4.3.5 for the DVD+R format.


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

Just purchased a new Insperion 8600 with 4x dvd+rw.  do I need to formatt disks before using them?  Thanks in advance for your reply.  7138