Burning DVD+R disc to DVD-R disc and vice versa?

[Froggie]

Hi there,
I am new here, and am trying to decide which dual format DVD burner to buy for our computer (meaning DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW). I have already purchased a stand-alone DVD recorder for the tv, which records on to DVD+R discs. I would like to burn copies of these discs for other people in my music trading group. I would like to know if the dual format DVD burners will copy a DVD+R disc to a DVD-R disc and vice versa. I have heard conflicting answers so I would like to know if any of you have tried it yet.

I need to be able to copy my DVD+R discs to DVD-R discs because some of my friends only have a DVD-R burner (which means they won't be able to copy a DVD+R disc for other people). Or they may send me a DVD-R disc that I may want to convert to DVD+R format. I hope I haven't confused everyone!

Thanks

[tompika]

I've never had a problem copying DVD-R to DVD+R.
I usually use DVD Decrypter ISO read - ISO write functions

[Cornucopia]

If you have a dual-format burner, you should have very few problems.

One thing to consider, the DVD+R/W format has a few less bytes available overall than the DVD-R/W or RAM formats. Not a lot, but if you are wanting to do a 1-to-1 straight copy, and you've filled your DVD-R all the way to the brim, you'll hit a snag. This rarely happens, but it has come up on a few threads here before.

Scott

[Froggie]

Thanks for your info guys!
Scott, you mentioned the difference in bytes between + and - discs. How many minutes of video would this equal approx, say if I recorded a disc in the 2-hour mode on a stand-alone DVD recorder?

Debbie

[tompika]

mrbass.org
Blank DVD-R 4,489MB 4,706,074,624 bytes or 4.383GB
Blank DVD+R 4,483MB 4,700,372,992 bytes or 4.377GB

6MB difference, a few seconds

[Cornucopia]

right,
so it would rarely make a difference, except in cases where you "burned it to the brim". In that case, your choice would be to:

1. Split the material onto 2 discs

2. Shrink (transcode/transrate) the material to fit

3. Copy the material to HD, trim off some "unwanted" seconds, and burn to the other disc

4. Skip it, and leave it on the original disc only

I couldn't say just how tight set-top DVD recorders would burn discs, especially when a number of them use 1-pass realtime (buffered) VBR.

Hopefully, this won't have much of an effect on your situation.

Scott