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Hardware

Which DVD Recordable Format Will Win? 330

Posted by timothy from the anyone-else-think-of-young-frankenstein dept.
kila_m writes: "Their is a format war going on between two recordable formats 'DVD-R' and 'DVD+R.' Both formats do virtually the same thing i.e. are readable in most DVD-ROM drives - but a '-' disk is not recordable in a '+' drive and vice-versa. We have a review of the Pioneer DVR-A04 - the worlds best-selling DVD writer and based on the '-' format. I would like get an view of what recordable format Slashdot readers prefer or think is going to win."
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Which DVD Recordable Format Will Win? More

Which DVD Recordable Format Will Win?

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  • I want so badly a dvdburner to backup stuff with, cd's are often to small for some of the content I'm backing up, however it would be a waste of my money to invest in one now even though I can afford it, for the fact that these are Not standard....sigh...only time will really tell.

  • DVD-R (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alienw ( 585907 ) <alienw,slashdot&gmail,com> on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:27PM (#4047287)
    DVD-R will win, because it has almost 100% compatibility with existing DVD players. DVD+R (from what I understand) is not nearly as compatible. Sort of like CD-R versus CD-RW.
    • Yup. That's why I got DVD-R. It's still hit or miss on what it'll play on (seems to do best on players designed to play other things, too-- ones that double as CD players, gaming consoles, etc., but that's just anecdotal), but I'm about 50/50. I'd hate to get even worse.

    • Incorrect - they're much the same (Score:5, Informative)

      by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @05:18PM (#4047782) Homepage
      You're confusing DVD+R with DVD+RW. DVD+R is very similar in compatibility with DVD-R, perhaps a touch better.

      DVD+RW has much lower compatibility than DVD-R or DVD+R - as does DVD-RW. Both rewritable formats use a recording surface with a lower reflectivity than the write-once formats, confusing some older DVD players into thinking the disc is dual layer instead of single.

      Earlier DVD+RW drives were dismissed as less compatible solely because they were unable to burn write-once discs, unlike the competing DVD-R/RW drives. Second generation drives such as the HP dvd200i will happily burn write-once and rewritable media, same as the DVD-R/RW drives.

      The reality is, although DVD+R/RW has a theoretical edge in compatibility due to its lossless linking feature, both formats are actually very similar in results. Just be sure not to get the older drives that can't do DVD+R.

  • DVD-R Will Win (Score:2, Interesting)

    by anewsome ( 58 )
    Well truth is I have both an A03 and an A04 drive so I am hoping DVD-R will win. There is also the simple fact that DVD-R seems to be most compatabile in most non computer hardware playback machines.
  • If dvd-r != dvd+r and x=dvd then what is x?

  • Awww crap (Score:3, Interesting)

    by electricmonk ( 169355 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:29PM (#4047295) Homepage
    Where are the standards bodies like IEEE when you need them? And haven't we been here before with Betamax et al? Or 8-tracks?

    Some people are going to end up being mighty sorry when they blow a thousand dollars on a burner and they don't have any disks available to burn...

    • Re:Awww crap (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Hodr ( 219920 )
      If, by standards comittee you mean something along the lines of the DVD consortium who are the only people who can license anything to be compatible with DVD, then DVD-R is the format to go with (notice every DVD-R drive has the DVD logo).

      The DVD+R group do not have approval of the official authoratative body and simply rely on the fact that they are a few of the larger manufacturers around and may be able to force the standard on everyone else.
      • The DVD+R group do not have approval of the official authoratative body and simply rely on the fact that they are a few of the larger manufacturers around and may be able to force the standard on everyone else.

        That, and the fact that it's faster, more flexible, and just as compatible.

        The DVD Forum was there first, the DVD Alliance (proponents of the DVD+R/RW standard) came up with a better design. Both work just fine in "official" DVD players. They even read each other's media, despite them having different logos.

    • And haven't we been here before with Betamax et al?

      Nope, that was quite different. Betamax & VHS were completely incompatible standards. Tapes recorded for one were not readable by the other, so rental stores had to stock movies in both formats.

      DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW drives will both read standard DVD-ROM and DVD-Video discs. They will even read each other's write-once and rewritable discs. The only difference is in the media they write to (and how they do it), and since it's much cheaper to stock two types of blank media than two types of pre-recorded media, I think there'll be no availability problems for the usable life of the drives at least.

  • This one is easy... (Score:4, Funny)

    by URoRRuRRR ( 57117 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:30PM (#4047300) Journal
    Too easy...

    Since the best selling one is in DVD-R, DVD+R will win out, causing those people to have to buy new DVD-Rs if they want to trade DVDs.

  • Buy Today (Score:4, Informative)

    by deathcow ( 455995 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:30PM (#4047301)
    I have the one-earlier model. The A03. I use it for two things: 1) to burn videos that play on my set top DVD player, and 2) to burn 4450 megs of whatever per platter.

    What more can you ask for?? The A03 or A04 is THE machine to buy. If your interest is item #1 or item #2 mentioned above, go for it.

    • Re:Buy Today (Score:2, Interesting)

      by JPriest ( 547211 )
      You can pick up an A04 (DVD-R) [pioneerelectronics.com] for $300 at newegg, that's actually not a bad deal.
    • Actually, I use my HP dvd200i DVD+R/RW drive for both of those things too. It works very well at each.

      What's more, it burns discs faster (especially rewritable discs), it's just as compatible [dvdplusrw.org], and I've seen drives (the Ricoh 5125A - 2nd gen DVD+R/RW, the drive OEM'd to other vendors) on Pricewatch for as low as US$284.

      • Call me paranoid, but I have trouble believing facts about the DVD+R/+RW format from a web site who's domain name is "dvdplusrw.org".

        Maybe it's just the journalism 101 course (idealistic as it was), but I tend to trust a impartial third party more than someone who is involved, or is trying to get involved, in the situation. Isn't this part of the reason why we distrust the RIAA/MPAA/etc. when it comes to legal affairs/legislation? They have interests to protect, often have an axe to grind, and have readily omitted facts to make their arguments stronger.

        Granted we're talking about the difference between a sledgehammer (RIAA/MPAA) and the hammer found in a bell-style alarm clock, but it's still in the same vein.

        I've found similar lists on DVD-RW fan sites that have been... less... than accurate... about compatibility. Such is the joy of using a wide number of people to gather "facts", which are siphoned through their own technical ability & inability. Some will do proper testing, others will do what think is proper testing, some have no idea what the hell they're doing, and some will perform insane amounts of testing...

        Then filter the results through the people running the web site, because there's always some wackjobs out there submitting incorrect information, and the filterers are only human...

  • DVD Recordables (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DoctorPepper ( 92269 )
    My question is: Can any of the DVD's written by these burners be played in a standard home DVD player? Sorry, I just crawled out from under a rock and haven't been following the DVD format wars or anything. I don't want this to pirate DVD's, I was thinking more on the lines of capturing video to disk, then burning it on a DVD.
  • When I'm making that $$$ again and a $200dollar DVDR doesn't make me think about "Gee if I buy this I can't eat my ramen"
  • That's what I am wondering, who invented DVD+R and DVD-R in the first place? What are the technological and usuable benefits of either of them?

    I think it's more of a side-by-side comparison than roughly say: DVD-R has fair chance becuase the bestseller uses it...
    • The DVD consortium, the bunch that came up with the DVD standards (DVD video, audio, RAM) also came up with DVD-R and RW. Sony, HP, et all, came up with DVD+R and RW.

  • It'll all work itself out... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lostchicken ( 226656 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:35PM (#4047328)
    This all happened with CD-Rs.
    Remember CD-E? That went away and so will all DVD systems besides two. One for writeable, and one for rewrite.

  • Heh (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zapfie ( 560589 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:36PM (#4047330)
    Wow, that's not going to be confusing to consumers at all! That's like selling two incompatible fuels, one called "gasoline" and one called "gasaline". Couldn't they have at least picked a better name difference than "DVD+R" and "DVD-R"?

  • Yeah, but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by MattC413 ( 248620 ) <MattC413NO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:40PM (#4047347)
    but a '-' disk is not recordable in a '+' drive and vice-versa


    But.. can't you then just turn the disc upside down? :)

    -Matt
    • But.. can't you then just turn the disc upside down?

      No, you use a technique known as double recording. Put two "-" discs in the "+" recorder simultaneously. The two discs will cancel each other out to the "+" format and work as expected.

      As a side bonus, you get two copies of whatever you wanted to write to the disc.

  • Not a difficult question (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Whichever is cheaper to implement will win. It seems DVD-R is more prevalent right now, and it will probably stay that way. And if DVD+R has poor compatability and no advantage over DVD-R, I don't see why anyone would use it. I haven't read much on this, though, so there may be some advantage DVD+R has that I don't know about.
    • DVD-R is a little cheaper due to an earlier introduction and greater scale, but prices of DVD+R are actually fairly close - I've seen $284 for 2nd-gen drives, and $3/disc. I'm sure a little more digging would find something even cheaper.

      I don't know why people keep accusing DVD+R of poor compatibility. The fact is, write-once discs of each standard are readable in close to 100% of drives & players, while rewritable discs of each standard are both less compatible. See here [dvdplusrw.org] for a list.

      The older 1st-gen DVD+RW drives that could not burn write-once discs did suffer, since rewritable formats of each type are inherently less compatible, but since 2nd-gen drives became available that could write DVD+R discs, they've been pretty much identical.

      As for advantages, how about DVD+R/RW drives just burn discs faster? Especially rewritable discs. They also allow you to append video to a disc without having to reformat & rewrite the lot. There are other advantages [dvdplusrw.org] too.

  • Coexistence (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cryogenes ( 324121 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:41PM (#4047352)
    With VHS vs BetaMax people had a good reason to try and choose the same format as everyone else so they could view each other's tapes. However, once a DVD-R or DVD+R is recorded it can be read by either kind of drive. So people will simply choose the cheaper one.

    As long as both kinds achieve a user base (and I think they already have) media will be available for either. It's not like one of them is going to die.

    Do you believe in death after life?

  • DVR-A04 Advice (Score:4, Informative)

    by Helmholtz ( 2715 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:42PM (#4047359) Homepage
    I just recently (a week ago) bought a Pioneer DVR-104, which is the OEM model of the DVR-A04. They are _exactly_ the same drive, but the pricing can vary from as little as $20 to as much as $100 depending on where you look. The only difference is the box and software, which if you're a Linux user isn't going to do you any good anyway.

    Also, for those of you that are using devfs with this drive. If you get funky errors whenever you try to burn a DVD, sputtering about Hardware Errors, Illegal Requests, and/or Invalid whatevers. You will need to manually create the /dev/hdx device with mknod (mknod hda b 3 0 worked for me).

    The reason for needing both the /dev/hdx and the /dev/srx devices at the same time is because you need to run hdparm -d 0 -r 0 /dev/hdx. This will turn off Read Only and DMA. I know it seems weird that you'd want to turn off DMA, but if I don't I can't burn DVDs, CDRs burn just fine however. Of course the /dev/srx device is so the burner software can actually burn to the CD.

    I might add that all of this is with the 2.4.19 kenel, so those of you still using the 2.2.x kernel might not run into this. Once I got the hdparm thing set, everything ran nicely. Hopefully these tips will save you some grief, as I spent a couple days digging through google, and was luckily given the hdparm tip from a fellow I emailed off a mailing list I found who had described the same issue.

    Another small caveat, if I try to pipe mkisofs output into dvdrecord, the burn will fail. If I make the iso file first, and then call dvdrecord, the burn is successful. Once again, I don't know if this is something specific to my setup, so it's just an fyi.

    After those issues were cleared up, though, the drive seems to do perform very well. I've been busy clearing off disk space all day long.

    • Re:DVR-A04 Advice (Score:2, Informative)

      by tube013 ( 309846 )
      I use an DVR-AO3 (actually maybe it is an 04) Anyway, I have it in a external firewire case, and have no problems burning iso's to dvd with cdrecord-dvdhack on Mandrake 8.2 + updates (including some more recent ieee1394 driver builds).
    • Strange, I have exactly the same drive running in a slackware 8.1 machine, kernel 2.4.18. Its been working like a champ. I simply define the device for scsi emulation with "ide-scsi=hdc" as a parameter to the kernel and everything has been peachy. DMA appears to be enabled on the drive, too. And I never had to turn off any read-only parameters.

      I've burned various discs, 1x and 2x and have never come across your problem ever.

      The machine has an older AOpen motherboard, celeron 300A cpu, 256 MB RAM, 5400 RPM HDD, and BX chipset, just FYI.

      Maybe your IDE chipset is flakey?

      I do notice something strange though -- with 1x media, it takes about 3 or 4 minutes before the drive is ready to "take the plunge" and move past 1 MB. All discs have read back fine, though (except for dust pock marks).

      >Another small caveat, if I try to pipe mkisofs output into dvdrecord, the burn will fail. If I make the iso file first, and then call dvdrecord, the burn is successful. Once again, I don't know if this is something specific to my setup, so it's just an fyi.

      Could be because the license key isn't defined in your environment table when you do this. Try adding it to your .profile and see if it helps.
      • I suspect it is something odd with the IDE chipset. This board is a Tyan Tiger MP.

        I do have the license key set as an evironment variable, so I know that's not it. I haven't tried the hdparm -u 0 trick suggested by another fellow yet though.
    • And you wonder why Linux is not seen as user-friendly...
    • Another small caveat, if I try to pipe mkisofs output into dvdrecord, the burn will fail. If I make the iso file first, and then call dvdrecord, the burn is successful. Once again, I don't know if this is something specific to my setup, so it's just an fyi.

      This means the DVD recorder is requesting data for the burn faster than mkisofs cares to give it. Or if the speeds are close, there are a number of time-sensitive issues involved, mostly because dvdrecord can't depend on mkisofs having the data ready to be read. Since mkisofs blocks on output, it may not wake up in time to give the data to dvdrecord.

      Use any built-in buffer dvdrecord may have and quadruple it. If it lacks one, use some other buffering app in the pipe, like bag for example. Finally, if it turns out mkisofs just can't pump data out fast enough, then you will have to rely on burning from disk.

  • Just watch me and do the opposite (Score:5, Funny)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:44PM (#4047369)
    The one that will win is whichever one I don't buy when I can't hold out any longer.

  • Apple Superdrive is DVD-R. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by timmie... ( 141368 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:54PM (#4047421)
    Whether this will have an enormous impact on whichever is ultimately commonly accepted is another matter.

    I should be noted, however, that many of their other choices of things to ship with before anyone else (CD booting, built-in networking, USB) have become pretty much standard for most non apple hardware now.

  • Pub Talk (Score:4, Funny)

    by trentfoley ( 226635 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:54PM (#4047422) Homepage Journal
    I was discussing this very problem over a few pints at the neighborhood pub. Consensus held that DVD-R should win. However, all parties in the discussion agreed that what should happen is not what will happen.

    More interesting is the old guy that overheard us and mumbled in beer speech: "DVD's!! I haven't even heard of CVD's -- I'm sticking with BVD's..." Which was followed by a few unintelligable sentences concerning underwear and conspiracies.

  • Well one of 'em sure sounds more free... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bingo Foo ( 179380 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @04:01PM (#4047445)
    I like the sound of
    chmod DVD+R
    better than
    chmod DVD-R

  • Standards dynamics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by majid ( 306017 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @04:02PM (#4047448) Homepage

    Usually, what happens is either:

    1. one of the competing standards wins in the marketplace by knock-out (e.g. VHS vs. Beta)
    2. there is a stalemate, followed by negotations and the development of a third "fusion" standard that is incompatible with either side so neither side can get an advantage over the other. This is what happened to the original DVD standard, or for 56K modems between USR's x2 (leading in modems) and Lucent/Rockwell's K56flex (leading in ISP dial-up ports), leading to V.90 which was incompatible with either.

    You have two less frequent variants:

    1. One company introduces a ground-breaking product but cannot impose it in the marketplace because everybody else gangs up to stymie them. This happened to IBM with GML (before SGML).
    2. One of the competing standards dies out and the other one is so badly wounded that it limps on to quasi-irrelevance. This is what happened to Sony's MiniDisc after its fight against Philips' DCC (Digital Compact Cassette)

    This leads me to think neither DVD-R nor DVD+R will win, and they will be replaced by yet another standard that will force users to upgrade yet again. The manufacturers are obviously OK with this, as this makes more profits for them, at the expense of slowing the initial acceptance of the technology. Consumers aren't complete idiots either, apart from a fringe of early adopters who are used to being shafted anyways, myself included (I own an Apple iMac with a Pioneer DVD-R drive)

    • Re:Standards dynamics (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Dionysus ( 12737 )
      I agree with you on most things, but I don't think Sony MiniDiscs are quasi-irrelevant. I went back to Norway this summer, and was surprised to the extent the MD had taken over. Couldn't get a cassette anywhere. All new stereo systems had MD built in. MD seems to be triving in Europe.
      • yeah minidisc is big everywhere except the US, where portable mp3 players won out. pity really.
        • Too bad Sony never made the MD a data storage standard so one could write any sort of data to it. Then you could store MP3s on one and we might have seen MD MP3 players. Sony so obscured the MD as a storage medium that I don't even know how much data one holds, all that is ever printed on them is time in minutes of stereo audio.
          • A little bit of Googling suggests Minidiscs hold somewhere around 120mb, and that Minidisc data drives do exist, but they're a bit pricey.

            For myself, I'd rather buy one of the Mini-CD MP3 players that can hold 200mb of MP3s. The discs are cheaper and compatible with every burner and CD-ROM out there. 'Course, I'd probably rather go for a full size MP3-CD player (and I have), or if I had a little more money, a hard disk player like the Nomad, Riot, or Ipod. Even Sony now has an MP3-CD player [sonystyle.com], something I never thought I'd see.
      • MD exists in europe (here in switzerland and also in germany) but it has not taken over, definately not. In switzerland, MP3 players are more common, cassettes are still in use, and MD reach its top maybe 2 years ago. It is slowly dying out.
  • It's obvious neither one will win.

    According to the MPAA, the only people needing that much portable storage are pirates and other lowlifes. Therefore, it's clear that both formats will be banned and you will be arrested for so much as thinking about either one.

  • Memo to marketers (Score:5, Funny)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @04:26PM (#4047534) Homepage
    Consumers want more choice! Come on, give it to us!

    We want DVD=RAM, DVD~RW, DVD±R, and DVD_ROM!

    Don't hold back! We want one, two, and three-layer formats! One, two, and three-sided disks!

    We want the kind that come in a cartridge but you can remove them, and the kind that come in a cartridge but you can't remove them, and the kind that don't come in a cartridge but you need a caddy!

    We crave the thrill, the excitement, and the suspense of putting a DVD in a player and wondering what, if anything will happen!

    Oh, and, please, we'd hate to break the law by recording anything you don't think we should record, so put in something to stop us from doing that.

    And we'd really like to get valuable discount coupons in the mail, but only on the stuff we like to watch, so it would be helpful if the player sent a list of everything we watch to get sent to the MPAA, the RIAA, and the Department of Homeland Security so that they could form a dossier, I mean profile of our interests.
  • DVD-R is the officially supported standard of the DVD Forum [dvdforum.org].

    I just ordered a DVR-A04 for $299 [newegg.com] I've seen the OEM for $249. The quality DVD+R drives were in the paper this weekend for $449 (HP @ CompUSA). The DVD-R disks ($2-$3) are near half the price of the DVD+R ($5-$6) disks. DVD-R has near 100% compatibility while +R is at about 70% and if you have an early model DVD player it has almost no chance.

    I have used the DVR-A03 for over a year and have had no problems.
    • DVD-R is the officially supported standard of the DVD Forum.

      So? DVD+R is the officially supported standard of the DVD Alliance [dvdrw.com]. They use a different logo, but IMHO the DVD Alliance members (HP, Phillips, Ricoh, Sony, Mitsubishi, Dell, Thomson, Yamaha, Verbatim etc) have at least as much industry clout. Certainly the approval of the DVD Forum means nothing as far as compatibility goes, or they wouldn't be putting the "offical" DVD logo on DVD-RAM drives (try reading a DVD-RAM disc [or cartrige!] in your home player sometime).

      I just ordered a DVR-A04 for $299 I've seen the OEM for $249.

      I've seen DVD+R discs for $3 from Meritline, and the Ricoh 5125A DVD+R/RW drive for $284 from Elegantshopping.com.

      DVD-R discs are cheaper, true, since they have a year or two head start in scale, but the + discs have been dropping extremely fast considering they've only been on the market since April. Same with the drives. They are rapidly reaching price parity.

      I myself paid more than that for my HP dvd200i 4 months ago (though it was the same price as the DVR-A04 at the place I bought it), and I've been very happy with it too. I would have been willing to pay a premium, since the 200i burned discs faster (more than twice as fast, in the case of rewritable discs) and it allows me to append video without having to reformat & rewrite the lot. There are other advantages [dvdplusrw.org] too.

      The reality is, DVD-R got there first and has had time to build a good-sized market base, but DVD+R is a better standard - equally compatible yet more flexible - and has been rapidly catching up in terms of price. I put my money on DVD+R and haven't regretted it since.

  • Local stores are selling 1x DVD-R media for $2.50 a disc.

    Local stores (if I can find it) sell DVD+R (don't know what speed -- I didn't care that much) for about $10 a disc.

    People will not pay $10 a disc so willingly as $2.50. Until DVD+R is less than $2.50 a disc, it has already lost in my mind.
  • Simply because DVD-R can be pronounced as "DVD R", while DVD+R must be pronounced as "DVD plus R". The difference between the name is minimal, so consumers will get confused and go for DVD-R instead, not knowing that DVD+R is something incompatible.

    Call me crazy if you want, but I do think that it's this kind of small things that will make DVD-R win.

  • What's the practical use? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @04:40PM (#4047602) Journal
    You can't fit a whole movie on a home recorded DVD?R anyway. So what exactly is the practical use?

    • Yes, you can (Score:5, Informative)

      by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @05:49PM (#4047898) Homepage
      You can't fit a whole movie on a home recorded DVD?R anyway.

      Sure you can. Maybe not the movie, multiple soundtracks AND featurettes, trailers, interviews etc, all at the original quality, but just the movie is no trouble.

      The bitrate for DVD-compliant MPEG2 video is between 2 Mb/s and 8 Mb/s, but most pre-recorded movies vary around 3-5 Mb/s. That gives you between 119 and 199 minutes - more than enough for most movies.

      Alternatively, you can encode your movies in a tighter format like DivX. I've seen remarkably good quality from a 90 minute movie squeezed onto a single CD, let alone a DVD. You can fit 6 of those movies onto a single DVD, and play them back on your computer any time.

      I personally use mine for recording TV shows that I can't find on DVD yet, like Family Guy. I can fit 6 episodes in standard MPEG2 format, and the quality is as good as I recorded it at.

    • We have a DVD-R drive at work, and it has never been used to record movies. But it gets used every day.

      I'd say that any media capable of holding 4.7GB has pratical use.

  • DVD-R has the edge on price (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inkfox ( 580440 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @04:51PM (#4047659) Homepage
    From my searching, DVD-R seems to have the edge on price, especially for the media.

    Unless the prices were to suddenly drop on the DVD+R burners or media, it's hard to see DVD-R not winning.

    Of note - while they don't quite drive the market, they do make a difference: The Apple SuperDrives are DVD-R. I'm not sure there are any Apple DVD+R offerings.

    Also of note - I bought a DVD+R drive early on, not knowing any better. I wish I'd gone with DVD-R or waited for one of the few drives which handle both.

    • I also bought a DVD+R drive (after waiting to be sure that it would actually write DVD+R discs!). Though DVD-R discs are a little cheaper from online stores (strangely, they're actually more expensive than DVD+R where I tend to shop), I've been quite gratified by how fast the prices have been dropping. $3/disc is quite acceptable, IMHO, at least for the time being.

      I can't say I regret buying my drive. In fact, I tend to use it with a feeling bordering on smugness whenever I burn a rewritable disc 2.4 times faster than the DVR-A04 :-)

    • Don't worry about your DVD+R drive with more expensive media: This will change soon.

      In Europe, where DVD-R never took off and DVD+R is already more common, media prices are about the same.

      At the moment, DVD-R stocks are being sold, which is why DVD-R is cheaper temporarily.

      What is much more important in the long term is what PC vendors are currently shipping; that will become the real mass market and thus cheaper. All but Apple chose DVD+R.

  • Another perspective... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fontus ( 597402 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @04:56PM (#4047690)
    Working in the TV production biz, we have been looking for q cheap way to build and preview a disc before they are sent to the duplication house.

    We have a MacG4 with a SuperDrive in it, but now we are looking for a DVD player that will allow us to view a test disc. We use DVD-R General discs because they are cheap and allow us multiple tries without toasting a $25 disc and then find an error. We're thinking of going to DVD-RW because after a several burns, they are cheaper. We are also not opposed to going to +R or +RW if the cost/benefit is there.

    In the Aug 2002 issue of DV Magazine [dv.com], they review the different formats (DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW but not DVD+R). They look at compatiblity w/players, disc failure rate by disc manufacturer, and other factors. It offers a good read and lots of info if you are interested. They even list players that can accept all of the formats. It has helped us make a decision on a player (Apex makes a nice model).

    • We use DVD-R General discs because they are cheap and allow us multiple tries without toasting a $25 disc and then find an error.

      What kind of disc costs $25?

      I do my test burns on a $7 DVD+RW disc, then when I like it I burn it to a $3 DVD+R disc. I dunno where you're buying your media from, but I think they're trying to rip you off.

  • Market share will win (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Zemran ( 3101 )
    DVD-R will take the lead not because it is compatible but because it has got the greatest market share. VHS did not beat BetaMax in the specs, it beat it in the market. I have gone DVD-R/RW because it is best but it is already the main player and the rest will fall because they do not have the following. The easiest media to get is for DVD-R/RW so to buy anything else is folly.

  • Athlon MP (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SiriusRegalis ( 470623 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @05:04PM (#4047726)
    An interesting fact about the "+" standard is that it is incompatable with the current dual AMD boards (MP and MPX chipset). This is a problem that I found out from selling a computer configured with both a ASUS a7m266-d and a DVD+R+RW. When the problem showed up we tryed changing motherboards, then brand of motherboard, and finally brands of DVD+ drive.

    HP and Sony both blame AMD. AMD says that the problem lies in a data protocol required for the dual chips that the "+" standard interfers with.

    The "-" is fully compatable and works perfect. So my vote goes to the "-" standard because of compatablity and I don't trust Sony and HP. (especially since we saw a bunch of issues with packet writing and the Sony CDRW drive)
  • ..and finally the format wars won't be the deciding factor - millions of DVD players already in homes have decided it for us.

    DVD-R plays in nearly all players except for some first-gen Toshibas, while DVD+RW *still* aren't compatible with most brands. If you buy a DVD recorder to make movies for demo disks, portfolios or other transmittabes, or just to send to family and friends (or Sundance), then DVD-R is your pal. And the pal of everyone you send a DVD to.

    If you're only using it on your PC for backup, who cares?

    • DVD+R *is* compatible! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @07:35PM (#4048262) Homepage
      DVD+RW is just as compatible as DVD-RW, which is to say, compatible with supposedly 70% of players out there.

      However, DVD+R is just as compatible with DVD-R, i.e. with nearly 100% of players.

      Both rewritable formats suffer from lower compatibility because older players are confused by the media's lower reflectivity into thinking it's a dual layer disc.

      However, both write-once formats use a normal-reflectivity media, and both are more or less equally compatible. In fact, DVD+R has the theoretical edge due to its lossless linking method of writing, which is more like printed DVD-Video discs.

      The answer is simply, don't buy a 1st-gen DVD+RW drive since they couldn't write DVD+R discs. However, the 2nd-gen drives (HP 200i, Ricoh 5125 etc) do burn write-once DVD+R discs, and are at least as compatible as DVD-R as this list [dvdplusrw.org] shows.

      I'm getting very tired of all the misinformation and FUD floating about this issue, and I'm starting to wonder who's behind it all...

  • Consumer video vs. computer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by leereyno ( 32197 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @05:40PM (#4047869) Homepage Journal
    The -R and -RAM formats own the consumer video recorder market. The -RAM format has the key advantage of very fast random access time, so fast that you can record and play-back from the same disk simultaneously in real time.

    The -R format is currently the most compatible with existing players. Truthfully though, worrying about which format will work with existing and older players is irrelevant. It would be like worrying about CD-R because older players won't work with it. If you need to read the disks, get a player that will do so. I'd be willing to make a bet that withing a year's time there won't be a player sold that won't read both -R and +R and quite a few that will read -RAM (especially from Panasonic).

    The only area where there is any room for competition will be in the computer arena, but even then there will be no clear victor for a very long time. With +R drives and media being much more expensive than -R, I think that -R has a bright future here as well.

    Lee
  • If the technically superior format always loses, then why did ISA beat Microchannel? Why did DVD beat DIVX?
  • I wonder if ANY format will REALLY become popular, until someone makes a dual-layer dvd recordable, so that it can hold a (relatively) simple copy of a purchased movie...
    After all the "killer app" for cd-r/rw was probably piracy / legitimate copying of commercial cds, I don't really see why it should be any different for dvd recordable.
  • By the time they get this all sorted out, dvds will be obsolete, and we'll all be arguing about which format of the new technology will win. :)
  • Microsoft has announced that they will have some sort of native support for +R/+RW in their forthcoming OS currently named "Longhorn". This is somehow tied up in Microsoft's backing of the Mt. Rainier specification, which supposedly relies upon some features specific to +RW drives and media.

    I'm well aware that Microsoft's involvement in a hardware choice doesn't always give that platform an edge, but it's just something else to consider when trying to decide which format to purchase:

    News.com article, April 10, 2002 [com.com]

    More recent article from Betanews [betanews.com]

    For more information on +R/+RW, I strongly suggest visiting the dvdplusrw forums [dvdplusrw.org], which hosts an active message board about the format.
  • And I even made a comment on the last /. article [slashdot.org] that asked the question of "Time to Purchase a DVD-R?". My goal here is just to back up the comments that have already been posted by others.
    1.) The 104 is the SAME as the A04 (EXCEPT for the fact that one uses general purpose disks and the other uses disks for authoring, respectively).
    2.) I did some research before I bought my drive, and more DVD drives support -R than +R. Granted some drives may still read +R disks, but it's not advertised, so I consider that unnofficial.
    3.) For those bitching about "harddrives are cheaper/use tape backups", stop being asses. I wanted the portability of DVD for a reason, and so did the people who are buying these drives.
    4.) That last point being said, those that have bought the -R drives en mass have proved that it's the format they want, and that will drive the market. Kinda like the VHS/BetaMAX wars...
  • I was goin' for the Pioneer, on my XMas wish list upgrade. But strolling through Wal-Mart one day, I came across a coupla Philips DVD+RW drives for $78.84 apiece. It isn't the most compatible drive in the world, but it works on my stuff.
    <shrug>

    It disturbs me that the industry can't settle on a single standard, like BluRay or whatever, and lets get on with it. Competing formats aren't good for anyone.

  • DVD-RAM and DVD-R are the best formats (Score:3, Informative)

    by YeeHarr ( 187241 ) on Sunday August 11, 2002 @04:41AM (#4049765)
    DVD+RW and DVD+R are formats that were never supposed to be supported in consumer players.

    Gasically this is a beta vs vhs thing were the proponents of dvd+r and dvd+rw don't want to pay the licensing fees to the dvd-r guys.

    DVD-R is the most compatible format.

    DVD-RAM is the best for rewrites and so on. Completely outstrips dvd+rw for performance and longevity and has in fact been around for ages in jukeboxes etc.

  • Pioneer A04 : picky w/r/t blank DVD-R media (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kobotronic ( 240246 ) on Sunday August 11, 2002 @08:32AM (#4050076)
    I have an external firewire version of the Pioneer A04 drive, and I'm reasonably satisfied with its reliability and performance.

    However, it's pretty difficult finding compatible media that it can use without making a fuss. The blank DVD-R discs sold from the website firewiredirect.com works like a charm and the drive burns them at full speed and the discs can be read in near anything else.

    Other brands of DVD-R discs don't work near as well, and sometimes take twice as long to burn. Nero reports zero buffer allocation for seconds at a time when I'm not using the 'good' brand,
    and occasionally those discs don't read in any other drive than the A04.

    My point, in short, is to be sure you find a supplier of 'good' media for your DVD burner and buy a few samples of different kinds to determine which works best for you. The different brands have different shades of purple colors, the more reddish purple kind works best for my drive.

  • Why can't we record in the ORIGINAL DVD fornat? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eyefish ( 324893 ) on Sunday August 11, 2002 @02:51PM (#4051243)
    A Question for the DVD techies here: Why can't we record using the exact same method of recording used for commercial movies?

    Is this a deliverate messure by the DVD patent holders? How do the movie studios record (or test) movies? Can we get one of those drives? how much do they cost and who makes them???

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