DVD Blank Media Education

[dr_roberts49]

I just ordered NEC's ND2500A 8X DVD burner from Newegg. Reading reviews and other articles, I decided this was a good bargain for a dual format 8x DVD burner. $114 with free shipping. This is my 1st DVD burner.

The only thing I couldn't understand fully, is the advantage and/or disadvantage of the two formats. -R, +R, -RW, +RW. When making my selection on a burner, I was told to get one that runs both. It reminded somewhat of going VHS or Betamax. Since this burner will handle both formats, which is the prefered format? Is one better than the other? Beta was actually better than VHS, but VHS won the number one spot, and Beta soon faded from the marketplace. I see little difference in price or capacity in the blank media. Can someone enlighten me on this? I would really appreciate it. I expect my package to arrive by this Wednesday, and would love to put it right to use. I do understand that 8X blanks are expensive and hard to find, but there seem to be a lot of reasonabley priced 4X. I've read that the higher quality 4X disks can be burned at 6X. Pretty much the same rules as audio CDs.

Robert

PS

I'm going to be mostly using my DVD burner for family movies. I have a huge amount of 8mm analog tapes. I just bought a SONY digital camcorder that will playback the older tapes, so I can stream them through the firewire connection on my P4. I also do data backup on CDs. I just purchased DVD X-Copy, but will only use that on some of my DVDs that my kids watch alot, so they don't mess up the originals. I have a LOT of tape to convert, so I want to put it on quality media.

http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=136

i believe this is more along the lines of what you are asking

http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=139

[dr_roberts49]

Wow, GroundZero3. That was fast. The ink was still wet Thanks!

Robert

[dr_roberts49]

GroundZero3, that's exactly the tutorial I was looking for. Clarified everything. Thanks!

Robert

[Kreuzemissle]

I have just recently gotten into DVD burning myself, you may find that you have to experiment a little bit about which format will actually play in your home DVD player. Several DVD models claim to be compatible with all the formats but in reality this is not the case for some. -R usually plays in just about everything, but I have had a tough time maximizing the total GB with these, but the +RW I have fit about 4.38 GB with out a problem and the -R I am fourtunate to get 4.3 (maybe bad media--Memorex -R 4x). I would not purchase mass amounts of blank DVD media until I know what format works best for your needs. It gets expensive when you cannot use a certain format and need to find a new DVD player to work with the media you have. This site and articles are very useful. Have fun!!

[dr_roberts49]

Thanks Kreuzemissle. I like what you have to say. I will definitely follow your advice. I would really like to burn some DVDs of my family videos, and give them to my family and friends. I moved with my kids to Maryland, about 5 years ago, after living in California all my life. That's where all my family and most of my friends are. I'll try different formats and brands, and see what works best. Thanks again.

Robert

[teengeek88]

i heard that DVD+R is more compatible with DVD players opposed to DVD-R

just my 2 cents

-Rob-

[phenious]

If you use the link in the DVD Media Article that links to www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers you can try to get the DVD Player info from your family and friends and see which media seems to be listed as compatiable with thier players.

-: phenious :-

[dr_roberts49]

Thanks, phenious. That was my next question. Most all my friends and family have computers with DVD drives, but some do not. I'll send out inquiries.

Robert

[Kreuzemissle]

I agree with phenious, dvdrhelp.com and this site have been very useful to me as a beginner to backing up DVD's. Are you familar with the software and procedures involved in backing up DVD's? Check out phenious' articles on this site, excellent info there; this is what groundzero3 referred to earlier. I was lost until I read these articles.