Best DVDS to buy for coping from VHS?

Question

I have a VHS DVD combi unit I have copied from VHS to DVD My sister had a lot of VHS that need to go on DVD I want to know what the DVDs to buy would it be DVD+R or DVD-R or Rw I want to know because we want to share these with all the family and I want to make sure that the DVDs will play on any DVD player

Answer 1

If they all have modern (within last 5 years) dvd players, it won't make any difference if you use +R or -R.  If they are older DVD players I have had the best luck with +R's.

Answer 2

dvd-r 1-16 speed 120 min 4.7gb,!!

Answer 3

Hi Sweetlips,

The DVD+R and DVD-R are competing formats much like the old VHS and Beta formats in video tapes. Today most drives are Hybrid and handle both formats. They are usually labeled DVD+/-R

The market for recordable DVD technology never settled down in favor of either the plus or dash formats, which is mostly the result of the increasing numbers of dual-format devices that can record to both formats; it has become very difficult to find new devices that can only record to one of the formats. However, because the DVD-R format has been in use since 1997, it has had a five-year lead on DVD+R. As such, older or cheaper DVD players (up to 2004 vintage) are more likely to favor the DVD-R standard exclusively, and when creating DVD’s for distribution (where the playing unit is unknown or older) the DVD-R format would normally be preferable.

My personal experience has led me towards using the +R. It is slightly better at error handling so more tolerant of dirty or damaged media and also more tolerant to the subtle differences between players.

I bought a combination VHS / DVD recorder. I put my VHS tapes in it, hit one button and it recorded them to DVD's. Slow go because it is in real time but I did one or two a day until they were done

This only works for home made VHS tapes. Most prerecorded tapes have copy protection and will not copy. If you want to copy prerecorded movies for your own backups you can buy a device that bypasses the copy guard for about $25. See an example here - http://www.qualitekindustries.com/vidsta...

I had some store bought movies so I got the device to bypass the copy guard and it worked fine.

I hope that will help you decide the best direction for you.

Norm