Originally posted by Ecchi@Mar 11 2005, 06:52 PM
WTF? Any techies here wanna tell me what is wrong with this thing?
[post=290231]Quoted post[/post]
Alas, I think I can.
With recordable DVD's, we're back in the VHS vs. Beta era. There are two
* competing DVD formats, and they're not compatible with each other.
One of them is called "DVD+R", and the other is called "DVD-R" --- believe it or not, the punctuation is all that differentiates the formats! There are some dual-format recorders on the market that will record to either type of disc, but it sounds like yours is not one of them.
If your drive says "DVD+RW", then it can record on DVD+R discs as well as DVD+RW discs (the "W" indicates the disc can be erased and reused), but not DVD-R discs.
The technical difference between the two formats is that in the DVD+R specifications, the hardware is responsible for formatting blank discs, and in the DVD-R specifications, the application software handles the formatting instead.
This article describes the different formats in a little more detail.
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*In fact, there are more than two formats, but all of the other formats have a tiny niche in the market and you're not likely to encounter them.