The DVD-R/RW format

The advantages and disadvantages of choosing a DVD-R/RW drive.

The first format to be developed for DVD recorders was DVD-R. The DVD drives formats refer to the way data is recorded on the disc and the way it is read.

The DVD-R format (referred to as DVD dash R) was first developed by Pioneer and released in 1997. A blank DVD-R disc is writable only once, can store 4.37 GB of data (4.7 billion bytes), costs between $2 and $4, and has close to 100 years of life span.

The DVD-R Types

DVD-R(A), Known as “Authoring”

The “authoring” type is used for professional DVD recording. A DVD-R(A) disc can not be recorded in a DVD-R(G) recorder and vice versa.

DVD-R(G), Known as “General”

For home use you should buy the general format of DVD-R, for several reasons: an authoring drive costs you thousands of dollars more, uses a different media and the laser uses a different writing frequency.

Later, the DVD-RW format was added, but it is reffered to as a “re-recordable”, and not as “re-writable”. While a DVD-R disc can be recorded only once, a DVD-RW disc can be re-recorded over and over again, each time erasing the old recorded material. Some speak of the two as different formats, while others consider them together, as the same format.

They are both known as the “dash” format drives or DVD-R/RW. The “dash” format is the one approved by the DVD Forum, the organisation that owns specifications and licensing for the DVD logo. See their member list.

There is no little controversy about the compatibility of various format DVD drives and discs. A DVD-R disc is expected to be 90% compatible with the existing DVD Video Players and computer DVD-ROM drives. A DVD-RW disc is said to offer less backwards compatibility (roughly 65%), and the only way to know which DVD player you can use your discs on is to try them.

A DVD-RW disc has the same memory capacity as its write-once counterpart, that is 4.37 GB. A re-recordable disc will cost from $6 to $20, and will last up to 30 years.

DVD-R/RW vs. DVD+R/RW

  • A DVD-R/RW needs more time for finalization, up to 15 minutes;
  • Editing and playback cannot be performed until the recording is finalized;
  • The writing speed is lower: a DVD-R drive can write at max. 2x standard writing speed, while a DVD-RW only at 1x standard;
  • Backwards compatibility is said to be slightly better for DVD-R than for DVD+R format;
  • All the recordings must be performed in one session, both for the write-once and re-recordable discs.