-
Media Selection: DVD-R versus DVD+R
I’m trying to sort through the mythology and fact surrounding these formats. I looked on Wikipedia and I was unaware there had been a market place “war” between the two for several years, but the hardware systems currently manufactured claim to record and play both formats. And DVD-R seems to predominate in the consumer market.
However, I’m told that in the playback of DVD+R recordings, the life of the laser is significantly shorted – even on those machines which say they can support +R. The comparison has been that a good laser will be able to read any diskette, but it’s life may be reduced from up to 10 years down to 1 or so years.
In several shops, I’m also being told that the DVD+R format is dieing in the market place and in one shop they had dozens of brands of DVD-R, but a only a huge stack of Verbatim DVD+Rs (maybe 200)for CAD$24 they seem desparate to sell.
This inquiry started, as I mentioned in another post, from purchasing an AKAI CVDRW120 DVD+R standalone recorder. Before this I had used DVD-R and hadn’t thought about +R, which is alledged to be a superior product. Someone compared it to the struggle between consumer BETA format and VHS format.
Any thoughts, or collective knowledge?
Thanks so much.
Bill in Toronto
-
2 Replies
-
[William McQueen] “Any thoughts, or collective knowledge?”
Don’t put too much thought into this one. DVD+R had some potential in terms of menu features when used in early DVD recorders, but that advantage was quickly neutralized by the manufacturers who simply built the same menuing features into the chip sets of akk of their DVD recorders. With DVD-Rs at 25-cents apeice and burners at $50 its all pretty much a no-brainer these days. Its HD DVDs that will be something to think about.
-
It *certainly* isn’t like VHS vs Beta because both +R and -R disks, when played, will result in the identical same material with the identical same quality. They just deliver data, and deliver the identically same data (in most cases). In the beginning, VHS played/recorded for 2 hours while Beta played/recorded for only one hour, but a higher quality hour. Very different.
Now, one may now argue single layer vs dual layer.. or HD vs Blue Ray (where aparently, HD is of higher quality due to a much better codec than the now ancient MPEG-2 that the Blues use).
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up