Ok this is my first post so its bound to be a daft one sorry about that.. Ok the problem is (i have googled it and had a look through your forum..Albeit briefly) im not sure whether to use +r or -r.The majority of your posts say -r. but idk why -r is the top choice. As the bloke in the shop i bought my burner from said "Oh yes mate, +r is the way to go specially if your burning movies nudge nudge" i realise that most computer shops employ idiots who know nothing about computers other than how to find a porn site. Oh and he also said dvdxcopy is the best to which i replied "well ive read good reviews on dvdshrink" to which i got "isnt that freeware?" yes i said. "well FREE that says it all". But with him still being a numbskull i promptly purchased 5 blank verbatim dvd+r. which i used in a few days (using dvdshrink. without no coasters i might add). So i purchased 5 more of the same and realised its a wee bit expensive to keep buying from a shop so i went online and did a little bit of looking up and found them to be much cheaper. but rather than but some which will leave me with more coasters than i have cups. i thought a little bit of checking up would do the trick. But cant seem to find a rational explanation on -r or +r. so after all that yapping i just did. Could somebody please answer that . And if anybody feels strongly about a certain brand of blank media. I would appreciate any comments Thanks in advance Nigel
I know you don't want to hear this answer, but here goes. "It depends on who will be playing the DVD and on what type of player" I have been in the DVD/Video business for a few years and started out using only DVD-R (that is all there was!). The problems caused by incompatability/defects were at least 50%. As the DVD media & authoring software got better I saw the problems start to go down. I keep seeing figures of 90% being a good guess as to how many random DVD players will play your DVD. Here is my results and I am sure there are people that will disagree. (-R) produced DVDs have about a 95% success rate (USE GOOD MEDIA!) I like Verbatim or Ritek. But, the (+R) DVDs I send out have about a 98% success rate (that means the person did not complain or send it back). There is also a factor that has to figure in.... I use only Ricoh (+R) type burners and set the "Bitsetting" in each unit to "Rom". All of my +R burners are HP DVD300s. As for when do I prefer -R, when I know the person will be playing it on computer or a older panasonic desktop unit. Sorry so long.
The main difference is that DVD+R is likely to go further than DVD-R. DVD-R is more compatible, but with todays DVD players that play anything, that might not matter. DVD-R is the official format of the DVD Forum, thats the main reason i started with it, and i am a firm believer of sticking with the majority, which in this case in DVD-R. However, there does ly and advantage with DVD+R. It has the technology, which -R doesnt, called Mount Rainier drag-and-drop file access support (also known as +MRW) planned for future versions of Windows. Meaning you will be able to use your DVD+R's in a similar way to floppy and Zip by just draggin and dropping.... Im gonna stick with -R until one of the HD DVD Formats takes over...
Thank you so much [bold]videot40[/bold] and [bold]Oriphus[/bold]. That just about raps that up for me on +R and -R. But most DVDs i have burnt have worked on all players ive tested them on. So im now gonna try my freebie -R i got with my burner. Purely in the name of science of course .But i think im gonna order some ritek, if the -r plays on my unit im gonna commit and buy CloneDisc DVD-R 4x to 8x by Ritek. The burner in question is http://www.strathfield.com.au/product.asp?ProdID=842 there its only a cheapie. but with the prices on the market now i figure its worth the mney if it only lasts a year. As i said i have no problems with it yet. thanks again Nigel **EDIT** just thought id say i didnt pay that price far from it £79... _X_X_X_X_X_[small]God Bless the of DVD-Shrink!![/small]
No probs, glad ot help. The Clone Disc are an excellent disc so im sure you will get great burns. If you are getting them from www.dvd-and-media.com it will be the end of teh week before they get them in, i checked yesterday.
Just a side note to Oriphus: The DVD+R does not support Mount Rainier, only the DVD+RW does. In my experience -not much, but not few- DVD-R is far more compatible than DVD+R, especially when it comes to PC-DVD readers (not recorders). Take care all!
just adding my opinion in here...I have always found dvd-r a lot more compatible with dvd+r. The 2 set top dvd players that i own dont play +r and neither does my ps2 but all 3 will play dvd-r so i just stick with -r. I guess its just opinion other then that though.
lol - of course it is +RW that supports it as it can only be used on re-writable discs lol - that was kind of implied without saying it - but thanks for clarifying it for those who were unaware. Cheers Chris
Ok..Mount rainer?? Anyway i have a decent Pioneer DVD player thats Multi-Regional. It plays the +R flawlessly. I also own a region 1 ps2 which doesnt play +R. But my brother has a region 7 (i think) and his plays the +R. So is this something that will takeover with the newer machines. Or is it to do with Multi-Regional.(his ps2 is standard no cheat cards or anything so not multi regional) thanks again Nigel
Mount Ranier is also known as EasyWrite and is supposed to allow you to use either cd-rw or dvd+rw discs like floppies. It seems like microsoft is backing + and what microsoft backs ussually has significant momentum... Think back to when Netscape was king...
Why do you imply this? I think this particular issue is one where Microsoft has little to do with, because Microsoft makes the money by doing software, and the +/- issue is out of reach of any software, it's merely a hardware problem. It's not like Microsoft supporting (i.e.) USB over FireWire, where they had to establish communication protocols that had to be managed by the software. The format issue is merely a problem of the inside hardware of DVD readers and software has nothing to do with it. IMHO, it's likely that the +RW format will win in rewritables and -R is gonna take over write-once's, just because and for plain compatibility. -RW is the least compatible of all formats and least versatile than +RW. However, the wider compatibility of -R over ALL of the other formats is something that's so obvious that I wouldn't consider "serious" any refutation of it.
