The difference between DVD-R and DVD+R?

Question

which one is better?

bonus:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0926INGFS10074293&catid=20032&logon=&langid=EN

are these dvds functional and work like a normal dvd? How come its 8 GB and not 4.7 GB??

Answer 1

Ok, the simple answer is "they're basically the same". Once you burn a disc, it behaves almost like a normal DVD. It's not quite as reflective (it returns less laser light than a glass mastered DVD), but it should work in any player. Sometimes it won't, but in such cases, that's indicating some software problems in your player.

Before it's burned, there's a difference, but almost no one cares anymore. Nearly every burner and most players these days handle both formats.

Why two formats?  Kind of the same reason there were Blu-Ray and HD-DVD on the market together... consumer electronics companies like to fight.

Before DVD, there were two companies working on a "big CD" for video... one was Sony, one was Toshiba. They were similar enough, but wisely, they got together and agreed on the format (which too more Toshiba technology than Sony tech). But that was really just for the read-only and layer, write-once disc.

So they agreed on DVD.. but one of the big guns in the DVD Forum was Panasonic. Panasonic had this great disc, in the CD era, called a PD disc. Unlike CD-RW, a PD could be rewritten 100,000 or more times, rather than under 1000. Unfortuately, PDs didn't work in CD player.

So in answer for "what about the read/write disc", Panasonic's people pushed hard, and got the DVD Forum to advocate "DVD-RAM", which was just a PD made from DVD technologies.

Sony and Philips, who lost much of this latest battle, wanted to use DVD to replace VCRs. They needed a disc that could read and write, quickly, and one that you could grab and just pop into a regular DVD player. DVD-RAM didn't do it, so they introduced DVD+RW, which was supposed to be compatible with DVD-ROM but allow for precise control over recording, and eliminate any need to "close" the disc. The DVD Forum countered by introducing DVD-RW, and so Sony/Philips returned the favor with DVD+R.

So for a little while, there was a baby format war.  DVD recorders actually did work a little better with DVD+RW, but the DVD-R/RW people put a little hard disc drive in their recorders and removed any real issue. And most people didn't buy DVD recorders, certainly not as an all purpose replacement for VHS... the winner was actually the DVR.

Eventually, it was settled... most everyone would support both formats. If you need to be sure for a particular home player, see which one they claim to support... doesn't mean the other(s) won't work, just that they weren't tested.

I have a old Pioneer DVD player from the 90s around here, a pretty early model. To date, it plays them all, DVD+ or -, R or RW. So it was possible, back from the start... but it took consumer demand to get the CE companies to actually test it.

Answer 2

9GB dvd(8.4gb) are called DVD9 (dual layers)

5GB dvd(4.7gb) are called DVD5 (single Layers)(these are usually normal dvd)

dual layer dvdr will only work with dvdr drive that supports dual layer, you can look at the face of your dvd and see if it says dual layer on it. if it doesn't have anything that means it doesn't' support dual layer.

both - and + used to matter when dvdr first came out, it was a way for their company to make more money, but today most dvdr drive will work on any dvdr

best of luck to you :)