DVD Recording - Is There a Winner Yet? 391
Rob writes "Ok, so I've finally gotten my TiVo configured to let me extract and archive video, now I'm wondering what is my best solution? I currently have a CDR that I've been able to use to save both VCD and SVCD. Unfortunately I have a very old DVD player that will only play VCD's. So I decided that it's time to look at recording to DVD, but what is the right answer? Has any format won? I just got back from Fry's and I could get either -R/-RW or +R/+RW and there were even drives that did all of the formats. This is all well and good, since I'll have to buy a new DVD player to play any of them, but which format is most widely accepted? Even if I get a drive that will record in any format what do most DVD players accept? Sure I can make sure that my DVD player will play whatever format I produce but what about my parents and friends?"
Easy, read http://www.dvdrhelp.com (Score:5, Informative)
I don't want to troll, but a simple google search would have easily answered all of your questions.
Re:Easy, read http://www.dvdrhelp.com (Score:2, Funny)
Linkworld's DVD section (Score:5, Informative)
All sorts of hacks [lnkworld.com], manufacturer links [lnkworld.com], FAQs [dvddemystified.com], etc.
Re:Linkworld's DVD section (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easy, read http://www.dvdrhelp.com (Score:5, Insightful)
It may smack of insanity to many, but Slashdot is a community (okay, a vocal, opinionated group that will share their opinions wether you want them to or not). Cliff is asking for an opinion from his community - something more than the fact sheets from manufacturers or "unknown entity" opinions found in a random search.
Does that mean that the information he'll get from asking Slashdot will be better than the results of a Google search? Maybe not. Slashdot is just as good of a choice for disinformation as any other site on the web - but at least he'll have context - and he'll have chosen the source of his information, for better or worse.
Life story! (Score:2, Funny)
How was the traffic coming back from Fry's? Did they have any other DVD players you could buy? How did they look? Were they on sale? Was your dog happy to see you?
(what a big writeup for a small question)...
Re:Life story! (Score:5, Funny)
On second thought, I wish I knew you, just so I could give you Dickens for your birthday and watch you cry.
DVD-R then DVD+R (Score:5, Informative)
4G DVD-RAM (Score:5, Informative)
- DVD-RAM
- DVD-R(G)
- DVD-R/W
Remember that DVD-RAM is the only standard that is reliable for backups, the only one with (optional) data verification, the only one with long life cycles for constant use (100,000 records vs 100-1000 for DVD-/+R/W).
Re:4G DVD-RAM (Score:5, Informative)
... the only one that has no chance of being read in a standalone player.
Not true (Score:3, Informative)
DVD-RAM 2.6GB can be removed from the cartridge and read in regular DVD-ROM drives.
I prefer +R (Score:5, Funny)
You can find more information and even user testimonials here [google.com].
Yes, there's a winner (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yes, there's a winner (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, there's a winner (Score:5, Insightful)
Big whoop. DVD+R is the one approved by Sony and Phillips...not to mention Dell, HP, Ricoh, Yamaha, and a little company named Microsoft.
DVD+R/+RW is better technically, and doesn't require different discs for different purposes. It will easily last as long as DVD-R.
Re:Yes, there's a winner (Score:5, Informative)
Well, DUH! They designed the +R standard.
Just because Microsoft prefers it doesn't make it better... have you ever used Windows?
Re:Yes, there's a winner (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm gonna go out on a limb here:
Because Microsoft has a monopoly?
Because of software availability?
Because that's all OEM's offer? (with VERY few exceptions).
Because that's what they learned at school?
Because most people don't even know there's an alternative?
Just because it's popular doesn't make it good.
Just look at Britney Spears... or VHS... or Michael Bay movies... or McDonalds... or Twinkies... or fossil fuels... I could go on...
My point is, popularity and quality are not the same thing. Microsoft has the worlds best marketing machine... how do I know? because they routinely beat the competition, even when the competition offers a better product, at a lower price.
So was Betamax (Score:3, Insightful)
DVD+R/+RW is better technically
So was Betamax, [high-techproductions.com] but all you hear about it now is because of the legal precedent [virtualrecordings.com].
At the office, we've got 3 Pioneer A04's & A05's, a Mac with a Superdrive (an A04 in a different casing), and the new Sony dual format drive. That's 5 "-" drives, and one of them does "+".
Methinks there's a defacto standard. [headerway.co.kr]
Re:Yes, there's a winner (and it aint DVD+RW!) (Score:5, Informative)
Sure DVD+R/+RW doesn't require different discs for different purposes... so long as you stick with DVD+R or DVD+RW. If that was your point, you had no point.
DVD-R/-RW doesn't require "different discs for different purposes" EITHER.
Or were you referring to the niche "DVD Authoring" format? This is irrelivent/FUD for 99.9999999% of DVD recorder owners, since DVD Authoring is a special authoring format not supported outside its small, vertical market.
I suppose in one sense tho that makes DVD-R/-RW "more complicated" than DVD+R/+RW... because there is *no* authoring format for the "+" writers. Sure, you can save some encoded files to DVD+RW... (and probably not proof it in your DVD player unless you just got a DVD player this year... then MAYBE). What your service provider will do is copy your DVD+RW onto a DVD-R Authoring disc because that is the master.
Personally, most people won't consider the advantage of being able to master on DVD-R(A) a negative... most people won't care actually. They just want their movies to work on Uncle Bob's DVD player, puchased 3 years ago... it ain't gonna work with DVD+RW.
Some of this is FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
This just plain isn't true. If you browse through sites like dvdrhelp.com, which I did recently, you will find two things: 1) the user reports of compatability vary considerably even within the same DVD player model, and 2) if you average the results (which you must do because there is so much "noise" in them), there is very little difference between the two formats in terms of compatability. If one is better than the other, it is by only a few percentage points at most.
I have played +R disks in many players made during the last 5 years, and have not had any problems. The surface reflectivities of the two types of disk are very similar, and a player which is physically capable of playing a -R will almost always play a +R, at least in my experience. Some players might refuse to play a disk which is tagged as a +R, but there are utilities available which will let you change the so-called "book type" field to get around this problem.
I agree that end users will not have any issue with the two types of DVD-R/RW, but there is one difference that probably will make a difference to some consumers. DVD+R/RW is capable of recording with lossless linking in the mode which is the most compatable with video DVD players (see this page [chalmers.se] (near the bottom) for a technical description of this issue). What this feature means is that with +R/RW, you can stream variable bitrate MPEG directly to the DVD and have the resulting disk be more compatable with video DVD players than with -R/RW, which wasn't designed with this in mind. My hunch is that this is one of the reasons M$ has decided to put its weight behind +R/RW (along with the Mt. Rainier stuff).
The bottom line is that for all users who don't need to stream MPEG directly to the DVD (which probably includes most Linux users), there is very little practical difference between the formats. Both formats have the support of some heavy hitters and neither one is likely to go away anytime soon.
Re:Yes, there's a winner (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC, DVD+R was introduced _after_ the DVD forum approved the dash format. I think it was a political move by the companies that designed the format that lost.
Another fork in your theory is that most computer retailers are heavily biased to the DVD+R recorders, the exception usually being Sony's dual mode +/- drive. When the retail exposure of drives is that heavily biased, I fear the viability of the DVD-R format, I want DVD-R to survive.
The media costs the same and a
Re:Yes, there's a winner (Score:2)
And whenever I got to a consumer electronics store, it's easy to find DVD+R discs, but any DVD-R discs at $2 or less are eternally out of stock. That suggests to me one of two things: either DVD-R is more popular and discs are being bought faster, or there's a Conspiracy[tm] from the DVD+R manufacturers to keep the Best Buys of the world from buying enou
Re:Yes, there's a winner (Score:3, Interesting)
A store's stock is just the integral of the delivery rate minus the sales rate (clipped between zero and available floor space). They could sell a pallet a day and you'd never know it, unless you see them restock whole the shelf at once. This is common enough to have its own jargon--"flying off the shelves", "can't keep it in stock", "reserve yours today", "act now--quantities limited".
Try a disc and see.. (Score:2)
DVD-R (Score:2)
my experience is dvd - (Score:5, Informative)
Re:my experience is dvd - (Score:2)
My recommendations: (Score:5, Informative)
Go with what works with your equipment (Score:5, Informative)
(I ended up replacing the loader in my Apex AD-600A because it wouldn't handle any burned DVDs. $35 and an RPC-1 firmware download took care of that. I use a Pioneer DVR-105 in a FireWire case; it gets shared between two computers at home and one at work.)
Apex (Score:2)
pioneer dvd-r (Score:2)
Re:pioneer dvd-r (Score:3, Informative)
Re:pioneer dvd-r (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that's not the whole picture. The people that I've talked to say that Pioneer DVD writing drives make more compatible discs than Sony drives, on the same media. One guy does a lot of burns for set-top drives and he says he consistently gets better player compatibility results with the Pioneer.
Plus, if you look online, you can get the Pioneer A05 for a lot cheaper than the Sony, often over $100 less. It's hard to find the Sony for much less than $350 anywhere.
When in doubt... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When in doubt... (Score:5, Funny)
And the best thing is that the very best VHS players can be purchased from high end German audio/video companies for just over $10,000 (*). Nothing is too good for your hi-fi home theater!
(*) - The high end VHS players are sold without the special video pickup, which for a good helical scan pickup will be a relatively inexpensive $700 or so.
Re:When in doubt... (Score:2)
Mod parent up +5 funny.
Re:When in doubt... (Score:5, Funny)
The downsides are Laserdisc has Y/C crosstalk (which can mostly be eliminated by an adaptive interframe comb filter) and it has poorer chromatic dynamic resolution at extreme red and blue...
The end result is that programming that's mastered for NTSC (i.e. television shows, straight-to-video stuff, or stuff that simply doesn't have a film print still in existence) looks better on Laserdisc... and for 24fps progressive source, stuff looks even better on PAL laserdisc (albeit sped up to 25fps so you need a tuned system to slow it back down to 24 to make the voices pitched down a bit and the time to come out right).
DVD only wins out on widescreen stuff thanks to anamorphic support (there were a few anamorphic LDs made but not many were made because they wouldn't work right on non 16:9 TVs since autoscaling was not a feature of LD players). The other big advantage of DVD is that a relatively cheap DVD player ($50 now, unbelieveable!) can produce video that's not too far off from expensive decks, while with LD to get great results you needed a deck that cost at least $500.
Still, I love my laserdiscs. They have great quality, and are still the only way to watch the original Star Wars trilogy in high quality video. (Any DVDs of the original trilogy you might've seen are bootlegs made in SE Asia, mastered from the LDs, so they have all the flaws of LD with all the flaws of DVD put on top of it and are therefore inferior).
Re:When in doubt... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:When in doubt... (Score:3, Informative)
To answer your question 99% of TV stations use BetaSP for recording and editing. I was rather young when the Betamax/VHS wars were going on, but I don't think professional Beta decks were ever the same as consumer Betamax. The pros picked Beta because it was better, period. Watching a BetaSP tape is
Blue laser DVD? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Blue laser DVD? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Blue laser DVD? (Score:3, Insightful)
It will be a while before a higher density optical writer will be affordable. DVD-R drives used to cost well over $1000 (I think several thousand at start), I am certain that the next format's writers will follow that trend, it may be a few years before you can get a $200 BluRay drive or the like.
One notorious problem is that fabbing blue lasers is highly unreliable, it's no coincidence that Sony's BluRay set-top recorder costs $3500. The labcoats are wo
stick with VCD & SVCD. (Score:5, Interesting)
Its very hit and miss for all DVD+R DVD-R DVD-RW & DVD+RW. I've found two occasions where two instances of nominally the same model player ( JVC, Sharp) DVD-R played perfectly on one and glitched badly on the other.
The "format war" is a distraction to cover the fact that the DVD industry sold out to Hollywood and changed the laser wavelength for burned disks and this makes compatability of "old" players designed to the DVD Forum's specs a crap
shoot when it comes to playing burned disks.
Re:stick with VCD & SVCD. (Score:2, Informative)
For - discs, the data is stored in the valleys, and for + discs, its stored on the hilltops.
From memory, I think also the -RAM discs store data on both available portions, but since we dont hear anything about them, i think they have been dropped by the roadside.
Either cheap -R or new +/- from AOpen etc (Score:2)
Cheers
forget dvd (Score:5, Interesting)
1. ditch the dvd idea
2. buy a relatively cheap pc, or if you're crafty, convert an xbox.
3. put a big harddrive in it
4. connect svideo out of computer into video 1 on tv or equivalent.
5. visit doom9.org. and buy dixv pro codec
6. convert tivo format to divx.
7. you're done
Re:forget dvd (Score:3, Insightful)
Avoid the Sony DRU-500 (Score:5, Informative)
The biggest problem I had was with Sony Tech Support. It took me 4 hours to get an RMA to return the drive. They refused to help me at first because the drive wasn't hooked up as the master on the SECOND IDE controller. It was hooked up as the master on the first IDE controler (My MOBO has 2 IDE, plus a RAID controller which the HD's run off of).
Trying to explain to them that it didn't make a damn bit of difference which controller it was on made ZERO difference to them.
I also spent half that time on hold waiting to talk to someone.
If I had to do it over, I would go with probably the Pioneer drive.
I also prefer the -R media because it's cheaper and my Home DVD player can read them.
Re:Avoid the Sony DRU-500 (Score:2, Informative)
Also, Sony has been releasing new firmware revisions quite ofton. The drive will now write almost all cheap -R media at 2x.
My 500A has been great to me, and I highly recommend it to others.
Re:Avoid the Sony DRU-500 (Score:2)
The drive itself isn't what bothered me, it was the shitty tech support I got from Sony and the fact that it died so soon.
When you say to the Tech on the phone "I put in ANY DVD, it makes a clicking noise, stops then the light goes out." and they respond with "Is there power going to the drive?", it makes you want to scream!
I'm sure most companies tech support is like that as well, but when I tell them the drive is broken and explain WHY it's
Re:Avoid the Sony DRU-500 (Score:5, Informative)
A great drive that works really good with the Linux DVD tools.
I know of quite a few others that have had very good success with these drives.
dvd writers (Score:4, Informative)
here is the basic line if you want compatability there is no choice but a -r -rw drive. i recently took a pair of home video disc i had burnt and a *cough* full *cough* copy of the dvd disc hackers. at 2 electronics stores i tested the disc's out in over 80 different dvd players. computer, home, integrated, car....
the +r disc worked in 6 drives and they were the brand new sonys that listed +r compatability. the -rw disc worked oddly in every single cheap player and the more expensive sony's. the -R disc worked in every single player.
curently from a number of internet sites dvd -r blanks can be found for ~80 cents (usd), i still havent found a single source of +r blanks for less than ~4.00 each.
curently tiger direct and a number of other sites are selling dvd-r, -rw drives that also act as cd burners for less than $160. including software and a 1 year warenty. (panasonic)
i very much think the +r standard is dying
as for drives the pioneer A05 is nice but the sony DRU-500A is a superior drive and well worth the $300 it costs. i think at last count i'm up to ~900 burnt dvd-r's and no coasters.
Re:dvd writers (Score:3, Insightful)
DIVX players (Score:2)
Putting mp3 abilities on many recent electronics devices was a wonderful idea. I just wondering why DVD players do not support these formats yet.
Heck, doesn't some DVD players even accept Microsoft video files?
Davak
Re:DIVX players (Score:2)
Re:DIVX players (Score:2, Informative)
To quote the DVD Forum... (Score:5, Informative)
"Please note that the "+RW" format, also known as DVD+RW was neither developed nor approved by the DVD Forum. The approved recordable formats are DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM."
Technically, DVD+RW aren't even DVDs, since, in order to be a DVD, it must be approved by the DVD Forum. The +RW alliance, will have you believe otherwise; that they don't have to follow any standards and that the DVD Forum means nothing.
DVD+RW's biggest "benefit" over -RW is that it allows for packet writing - therefore allowing it to be treated like a normal writable volume, having files added to or deleted from it at will, and doesn't require closing the disc. The drawback is that a bunch of companies went out and did this on their own, and DVD+RW is the least compatible format with consumer DVD players. Of course, manufacturers - particularly those a part of this "alliance" - have buckled to provide support for it. A somewhat backwards approach, if you as me. In any case, in the days of cheap 200GB+ drives, I'm not sure why you'd want to use a really slow recordable optical format that holds a comparatively scant amount of data as a writeable volume...after all, DVD-R/RW can hold data as well, just not via packet writing methods.
Many manufacturers are providing DVD-R/RW/+RW drives now, so I imagine this point will be moot.
Re:To quote the DVD Forum... (Score:5, Funny)
One reason comes to mind: Portability. I can put a DVD in my back pocket. Kinda hard to do with a 200M drive
Is that a hard drive in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Re:Backups..... (Score:2)
Sounds like you're describing DVD-RW. I back up my work files to DVD-RW every Friday...the disc gets erased and reburned with whatever's on the server.
Why choose? (Score:2, Informative)
They Both have Strong Backing (Score:5, Informative)
I assume the reason MS decided to back +R/RW is because of its ability to provide lossless linking in the recording mode that is the most compatable with video DVD players. This feature allows realtime streaming of low bitrate MPEG directly to video-compatable DVD which is something MS probably figures many consumers will want to do.
The fact that both formats have strong backing probably means that we will have to live with both formats for longer than we previously thought unless one camp or the other suddenly backs down, which is unlikely.
As for me, I have a +R/RW, and am so far very happy with it. It is well supported in Linux through the growisofs [chalmers.se] utility, and I haven't had any problem with compatability of the +R media in video DVD players.
The growisofs webpage mentioned above has a good technical discussion of the lossless linking issue and why this is supposedly an advantage for +R/RW (look near the bottom of the page), although I personally don't do realtime MPEG streaming to DVD.
Bottom line (Score:3, Insightful)
On a computer: DVD+R has some advantages when used on a computer (it closes sessions much faster), so if you're packet-writing disks, it helps.
The main differences you'll see are media costs. Do your research to know what you'll pay per disc. I use a -R. My main motivation was cheaper media. The gap seems to have closed a lot since we got it, though.
My experience with a Pioneer A04 (Score:5, Informative)
With the pioneer, I went along the logic that they were the first to introduce a "end user" DVD-R unit (at 10K$ back then) so I thought that at the A04 revision it would be a winner... God I was wrogn, that unit pissed me off so much, first, the firmware issues, passing from 1.20 to upwards; you couldn't revert back to older firmware because pioneer locked the firmware with a key, you couldn't put cheap disks into it anymore, and the worst was the princo RW would never record correctly or freeze the drive off and I had to do some weird "leave the cd in while resetting the unit, boot windows, use dvddecrypt in debug and reinit + full erase RW" to recuperate the disk. Anyways, of course if you would use 5x more expensive medias you'd have less problems, but at that price point it was defeating the reason why I bought a DVD-R in the first place ($/megs/reliability). Nightmare aside, what pissed me off the most is when I started seeing reports of DVD failing after a short amount of time, even commercial grade one. Dunno if other people here will post more specifically about that subject but it got me worried to a point where I use cheap medias, and only use my drive as "second layer backup" for the time being and when I have something critical to put on disk I go out and shell more for a brand-name disc, which I find is way overpriced. Of course if you burn 2x on a 1x media with an hacked firmware, you're asking for trouble, but this isn't my case, I always burn at 1X to put every chances on my side.
Drives are comming down in price, which is a good thing, newer models have both +R and -R support so that stupid (very stupid) compatibility thing shouldn't be a problem anymore unless you run into firmware issues like I did. Even if you buy something cheap, READ the forums, read the firmware discussion groups, and like when buying a motherboard to build a server for example, ALWAYS read the tech support forums of the company or "unofficial supports" sites before making a decision if you are planning on using your device for stuff you'd want to keep for a while. This is where I failed, I took the pioneer brand for granted... I can tell you there are a buttload of unhappy customers with the A04 model, A05 came out shortly after with 4x support which was even more upsetting because it wasn't announced a decent time before the release (I would have waited). Now the A06 has dual support (+/- R/RW) But I'd go Sony or even LG before going back to pioneer, the tech support was lame and that firmware issue had ABSOLUTELY no justification, locking a firmware to not be downgradable and introducing support only for your DVD-Rs (1.20->1.31) as a feature is simply disgusting.
As for a standard... it's hard to tell, since all drives manufacturers seems to go for Dual-mode drives, the fight will probably stay there until the next leap happen (like those 20+GB dvds with backward compatibility, maybe they will limit it to 1 standard). The reason I chose -R over +R is because they were 2-3 years LATE into delivering the product from the "supposed launch date", I was planning on working with that about a year after the supposed launch date, 2 years after I was still waiting and I was really upset so I went the other way, and still got screwed a bit
Oh and a good source for firmware discussion/problems for most drives Firmware Page [firmware-flash.com]
They were really helpful into hacking that damn device and firmware so that I could downgrade it.
Re:My experience with a Pioneer A04 (Score:2)
Re:My experience with a Pioneer A04 (Score:3, Interesting)
Old Sony PS2's only accept DVD-R (Score:3, Informative)
Ask Slashdot...? (Score:3, Informative)
In the unlikely event that your ISP block access to all sites except Slashdot (which would explain why you decided to come here instead of to a DVD- or video-oriented site), here's the deal:
DVD-R has the best compatibility, closely followed by DVD+R. The RW formats are far less compatible. Media quality and authoring software also have an influence on compatibility. Best results are achieved with DVDs authored in professional or semi-professional software (ex., DVD Maestro, Reel DVD, DVD Studio Pro, etc.), recorded on brand-name DVD-R media (Maxell is pretty good) at the lowest speed. Also, always create a disc image, or burn with a program that is capable of correctly structuring the title set folders (ex., PrimoDVD). Data burning programs (ex., Nero) will sometimes create discs that do not play on set-top players.
Under these conditions you can expect the disc to play on about 80% of current models (some models dont play recordable discs at all). DVD+R will play on about 75% of players, and the RW formats will play in around 20% of players. For data, DVD+RW is the most versatile format.
RMN
~~~
GNU-Darwin DVD-R (Score:5, Informative)
Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/ [gnu-darwin.org]
DVD+R (Score:4, Informative)
Here has been my experince with DVD+Rs. I bought my first DVD+R about a year ago because it was $250. That was anywhere from 50 to a 100 bucks cheaper than anything else out there. When it got fried, along with the rest of the computer, I started looking for a replacement. The one thing that I started noticing was that all the major players where fielding DVD+Rs now. TDK, Plextor and a few others where making DVD+R and nobody seemed to be shipping DVD-R with thier shit.
Now I will admit that my research may have been bias because I had about 100 blank DVD+R laying around. Another thing that I noticed was that they local BestBuy and Compusa seem to be stocking more DVD+R than DVD-R. This was both writers and media. This as lead me to think that DVD+R is what people are buying. I think that DVD+R has won whatever DVD battle there is.
On compatablity issues there is only one DVD player that I've noticed can't play DVD+R and that was in a Compqa laptop. This Sony Vaio doesn't have any problems and neather does my PS2 nor any DVD player I've tried.
Oh and if your going to pirate movies Pinnacle has this great software called Instant Copy that will make great copies of DVD movies. It does everything but rip and burn for you. Will automaticlly re-encode a DVD-9 to DVD-5 with better quality than a (S)VCD. Not that I would encourage you to pirate movies that is.
Re:DVD+R (Score:2)
If nobody is buying DVD-R, then why are Best Buy and CompUSA always out of stock? Gee, I always thought that lack of stock indicated more demand than supply. Either there is a lot of demand, or a severe shortage of supply.
Re:DVD+R (Score:2)
No, you have it backwards. They are stocking more DVD+R because people are buying more of them. They haven't changed the supply of DVD-R on thier shelves I don't think. But I did also notice that they have moved the blank DVD-R media to the bottem shelves and placed DVD+R media at more eye level. This has led me to believe that people are buy more DVD+R media because the carry more in stock than DVD-R.
One think is for sure DVD writers are dropping in price. A good DVD burner, no matter what type, wi
Re:DVD+R (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the shelf placement, you put the stuff that you want to sell on the "better" shelves. If people are going to bend over and strip the shelves bare of a product anyhow, why bother to put it in a prime l
Apex (Score:2)
VCDHelp.com (Score:2, Informative)
I think you got robbed. ;-)
Seriously, -R is the most compatible for current DVD players and +RW is the least (excepting, of course, DVD-RAM). But your best bet is to visit vcdhelp [vcdhelp.com] and see what your DVD player (and those of your family and friends) supports.
That web site also has a ton of tutorials on the authoring and burning process.
How about region-free and PAL/NTSC? (Score:2)
I've tried google, and mostly I just get the sites trying to sell me modded systems, or descriptions of DVD *players* that will do what I want but don't record.
Re:How about region-free and PAL/NTSC? (Score:4, Interesting)
Got CDs with mpg files burned as just files instead of (X)S/VCD tracks? It'll play em. MP3s burned on a DVD? It'll play em. Got mpg files encoded with nonstandard resolutions? (512x384, 352x176, etc) It'll play em. I can personally sttest to it's smooth playback of both PAL DVD and SVCD content on NTSC hardware
With several revisions floating around, region coding can be disabled on all models, just requiring a different code to be punched in depending on which model you have. Easily looked up based on the serial number of the unit.
Early, 'golden' models were just using an IDE DVD drive, which some industrious users [nerd-out.com] have managed to hack the firmware for to allow dropping in a HD instead. Macrovision can only be disabled on these early 'golden' models as well, which are sadly hard to find nowadays. Granted, the playback hardware was less powerful in the 'golden' models than the other variants to pop up since, but I'd still like to be able to just pop in a big HD worht of MP3s & JPGs, load up the undocumented 'musical slideshow' feature, and just leave it running :'>
DVD-R for Video (Score:4, Informative)
If your priority is for Video that you can share with friends and family, my experience is that DVD-R is the more compatible format. That doesn't mean it's without flaws, though. At least in this part of the world (Australia), both formats seem to be equally available, but a lot of the -R media is still 1x speed. At least with +R you'll get a minimum of 2.4x write times.
The advantage of the +R format is allegedly better support in future versions of Windows, and packet writing ability for the +RW formats.
Given that there are quite a few drives that can write both media, I'd say get one of those. Also, if you havea DVD-ROM drive in your computer, it's worth checking the compatibility of that as well.
DVD-R works for me (Score:2, Insightful)
DVD-R, but media quality is more important (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't anybody have the sales figures? (Score:4, Insightful)
What Rob wants to know -- and what I want to know -- is which format is outselling the other, not which one /.'er X prefers and which one Y has heard has more problems than the other, and not even the rumor that a certain fruity computer company is leaning toward dvd-r (or is it dvd+r, who cares?)
dvdrhelp [dvdrhelp.com] is a nice site, but they only tell you how many recorder models do one or the other or both and how many dvd player models play one or the other or both. What we want to know is: is one recorder format outselling the other by, say, 5 to 1, because then the war is over and hang the minute technical details. You can't find this out by Googling, unless there is some secret search-term combination; I've tried.
The sales data seems to be as closely held as the crown jewels. Isn't there some industry insider reading this who will post some facts, perhaps as Anonymous Coward?
And curse Sony for starting this whole format war in the first place!
Much Success with TiVo to DVD-R (Score:5, Interesting)
In order to make this past Christmas a successful one, I wanted to make sure that the "special edition" DVDs I was making for family members were as compatible as possible.
After extensive reading, some experimenting and some real-life experience (both successful and less-than) I can say the following:
A DVD-R burned on high quality media (e.g. 2X Maxell - this brand has the best compatibility that I have read about and personally experienced) in the proper DVD spec (I stick with 1.0 or 1.1) will work on MOST players, including at least one "first generation" Pioneer set-top player.
In my experience, after testing various conditions on a number of set-top players, it is the media that makes the most difference in compatibility rather than anything else. As long as your MPEG video stream is spec (or corrected) and your audio is also at spec I think you'll be good to go.
BTW I do all this via BSD (Mac OS X) and Linux (TiVo) over a WLAN.
Apple upgrades (Score:3, Interesting)
I've poked at Apple's DVD compatibility page [apple.com], but that seems oriented towards players that will accept discs made by the drive Apple is putting on their new computers; I can't find an authoritative source on what drives will work well with older Macs, but have heard horror stories about drives not working in hardware similar to my Mac [everymac.com].
Has anyone upgraded their "vintage" Mac to DVD+/-R/RW/whatever? How did it go? What problems did you find? Where were the good deals on workable drives? I've seen generic rebranded Pioneer drives as low as $180 (Apple's superdrive also seems to be a rebranded Pioneer, so this is encouraging), but I'm not opposed to paying a little more for reliable compatibility if the no-name ones could be problematic.
Thanks :-)
DVD+R (Score:5, Informative)
DVD+R/W has some big supporters [dvdrw.com] behind it, although the discs are about twice the costs of -R/W discs. If you're curious if it will work in your player, you might check out the Compatibility List [dvdrhelp.com] at dvdrhelp.com [dvdrhelp.com]. It's also a good place to find out which player to buy.
My votes go to the Koss KD305 available for $49.99 at Sears [sears.com] (plus option $7 service plan, unlike $30 at Best Buy) or the Norcent DP300 [dvdrhelp.com] which is $39.99 at Amazon [amazon.com] ($49.99 at Walmart). Both play darn near anything you can throw at them, and they're CHEAP!
I own the Koss 305 and simply love it.
Re:DVD player that won't play DVDs ? (Score:2)
Hey Rosco,
I think he meant that his DVD player wouldn't play SVCDs. It plays VCDs and DVDs, so he's looking into a DVD burner for more and higher quality video per disc.
Let's think a little before we post. I suspect you weren't actually intending to troll.
Re:DVD player that won't play DVDs ? (Score:2)
No, he's saying that his DVD player can only play VCD's and not SVCD's. I don't know of any CD Players that can play VCD's or SVCD's, do you? Most CD players I've seen only play music CD's.
Um, what? Where? How do you define "decent"?
Re:DVD player that won't play DVDs ? (Score:2)
Re:Deja vu? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Deja vu? (Score:2)
Re:Deja vu? (Score:2)
For the masses, there was probably little difference in viewing except for the length of the recording time (in which VHS clearly won). But for the few home theaters in existence 20 years ago, there probably would've been a noticable difference between the formats.
Ever watch a VHS on a
Re:Deja vu? (Score:2)
Re:DVD+R/W (Score:2)
Huh? WTF does the media type have to do with what types of data you can record to it? I have plenty of VBR MPEG-2 video that I've burned to DVD-R.
Re:DVD+R/W (Score:2)
Re:DVD+R/W (Score:2)
Re:DVD+R/W (Score:2)
Re:DVD+R/W (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like yet another reason to buy a DVD burner (that goes in your computer) instead of a DVD recorder (that plugs into your A/V stack). I'm fairly sure the topic at hand is DVD burners, though. (Just as I used a CD burner mainly to make SVCDs, the output from my DVD burner is more DVD-Video than DVD-ROM...source material for both is mostly ripped from my TiVo and reencoded to work w
Re:DVD+R/W (Score:2)
I'd just rather go with the +, methinks.
A moot point - the + drives seem to be taking over lately, and at a pretty fast clip, too. Even Apple has slipped combo +/- drives into their machines (although they haven't 'officially' mentioned this, or enabled the + functionality, as far as I know).
Re:DVD+R/W (Score:2)
Put up with what? What bearing does someone else's hardware have on the capabilities of the equipment I'm using?
re:dvd-r (Score:2)
And if you are going to pirate these DVD's, make sure you have a DVD decryptor program and DVD2One, so you can make full copies onto a single DVD (since most DVD movies out there are dual-sided and would take up 2 disks).
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:VERY old? (Score:2)