What is DVD? What's the difference between DVDs?

What is DVD?

DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions.

Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD. Such discs are known as DVD-ROM, because data can only be read and not written nor erased. Blank recordable DVD discs (DVD-R and DVD+R) can be recorded once using a DVD recorder and then function as a DVD-ROM. Rewritable DVDs (DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM) can be recorded and erased multiple times.

DVDs are used in DVD-Video consumer digital video format and in DVD-Audio consumer digital audio format, as well as for authoring AVCHD discs. DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs.

What is DVD-R?

DVD-R is a DVD recordable format. A DVD-R typically has a storage capacity of 4.71 GB. Pioneer has also developed an 8.5 GB dual layer version, DVD-R DL, which appeared on the market in 2005. Data on a DVD-R cannot be changed, whereas a DVD-RW (rewritable DVD) can be rewritten multiple (1000+) times. DVD-R(W) is one of three competing industry standard DVD recordable formats; the others are DVD+R(W) and DVD-RAM.

What is DVD+R?

DVD+R is part of optical disc recording technologies. It is a format for optical disc data storage that utilizes digital recording. It is similar to, but incompatible with, the older DVD-R standard. A DVD+R is a write-once optical disc with 4.7 gigabytes (GB) of storage, generally used for non-volatile data storage or video applications.

What's the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R?

The DVD-R DVD+R difference can easily be summarized by the following:

• The DVD-R/RW standard was developed by Pioneer, and is used primarily by Apple and Pioneer. These minus discs can only be written to in one layer on the discs surface. In addition, this format is supported by the DVD forum, but is in no way an industry standard. DVD-R/RW discs are cheaper than the plus format.

• The DVD+R/RW format is supported by Philips, Dell, Sony, HP, and Microsoft. These discs can be written to in multiple layers, giving them slightly better and more disc storage than the minus format. Because of this additional capacity, they are slightly more expensive than minus discs.

However, most of these companies now develop hybrid DVD drives that support both DVD-R and DVD+R formats. They are known as DVD±R or DVD±RW drives. When looking for media for your DVD drive, make sure it ends in "-R" if you have a DVD-R drive or "+R" if you have a DVD+R drive. If you have a DVD±R drive, you can use either format. DVD-R is still more popular than DVD+R, but since they are both widely supported, it should not matter which format you choose.

How to burn videos to DVD disc?

If you have videos and movies you want to burn onto DVD disc for playback on home DVD player, sharing with friends and families, backup or life-time storage, you will need a DVD authoring program. DVD Creator is a software that is able to burn DVDs from any types of DVDs, including AVI, MKV, MP4, WMV, MOV, FLV, MPEG, VOB, M2TS, MTS, TP, MOD, TOD, etc.

Ready to try or buy? Buy DVD Creator $39.95 (100% MONEY BACK GUARANTEE) Download DVD Creator 75.2MB Related Articles:: How to burn MP4/MPEG4 to DVD playable on a DVD player?; How to burn AVI to DVD playable on a DVD player?; How to convert and burn iTunes movie to DVD?; How to convert and burn DRM protected M4V videos to DVD?; How to convert and burn MKV movies to DVD disc?; How to easily convert QuickTime (.MOV) videos to DVD?; How to burn DVD on Mac with DVD Creator for Mac?

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