Which Kind of Disk Is It?

[shira]

I often buy indie videos that are burned instead of manufactured because of their low budgets. If the package and marketing propaganda don't identify region info and whether a particular video is DVD-R or DVD+R, how can I figure it out from the disk itself? Are there any utilities I can run on my Windoze machine that will tell me the properties of a DVD such as what region code it contains (if any), whether it is DVD+R or DVD-R, etc.?

I write reviews of various indie videos and in my reviews I'd like to tell people region info and which kind of DVD (ie, +R or -R) it is so that they can determine whether it will play in their machine. My machine plays all of them, so I'm not sure how to find out

[diE]

Hi,
Are you talking about blank discs? Blank Discs do not have region limitations... to tell wether it is a DVD-R or +R.. well it should usually say on the DVD or the packet it came from. Blank Discs are completely region free unless you burn something of a certain region on it... so say you burn a movie onto it and that movie is R1.. than that DVD becomes R1.. if you are talking about finding out information about a DVD that is not blank.. than I am not sure but their might be a software that can do this.. otherwise you can just tell from the resolution of the video.

Regards,
diE

[shira]

Hi diE! I'm talking about indie films that I've purchased which were made on such a low budget that they were reproduced using a burner instead of manufactured.

[Noahtuck]

DVDInfoPro

Will tell you if it is "+" or "-", what regions it was encoded as 1 through 8 (prob. all region as i have yet to see a burned dvdr encoded to any one specific region ), if it is "+" booktyped to DVD-ROM, manufacturer of that disc, what it was burned with......

[shira]

Noah, thanks for the helpful response!

I know that purple disks are almost always "burned" rather than manufactured. But what about silver disks? Are they ALWAYS manufactured, or are some silver disks burned?

I found the DVD Identifier utility and ran it against one of my indies. It told me that a certain disk (which happens to have a silver back) is Disc type DVD-R, but book type DVD-ROM. What does that mean? Suppose there's a DVD player that can NOT play DVD-R, would such a player be able to play this disk?

Thanks in advance....!

[samijubal]

You won't find many players that won't play a decent quality DVD-R disc, I've yet to see one that won't. Even the first and second generation Panasonic players I've used play them fine.

[Noahtuck]

Noah, thanks for the helpful response!

I know that purple disks are almost always "burned" rather than manufactured. But what about silver disks? Are they ALWAYS manufactured, or are some silver disks burned?

As far as i have ever seen "silver" dvd's are pressed not burned.

I found the DVD Identifier utility and ran it against one of my indies.

I would like to see a screen shot using DVDInfoPro like the one i posted.

It told me that a certain disk (which happens to have a silver back) is Disc type DVD-R, but book type DVD-ROM. What does that mean? Suppose there's a DVD player that can NOT play DVD-R, would such a player be able to play this disk?

Only a dvd+r can be bitset to change the booktype to dvd-rom,
That is why i would like to see a screen shot from DVDInfoPro,
All you have to do is use the little camera icon at the top to save a photo & then you can upload it here.

& when you say the "backside" is silver do you mean the side that you write on or the recorded side ?

& yes it is VERY rare to find a standalone dvd player that won't play dvd-r disc's, although i own one and have seen about 3 personally that won't play any format of dvdr.

[MOVIEGEEK]

" yes it is VERY rare to find a standalone dvd player that won't play dvd-r disc's, although i own one and have seen about 3 personally that won't play any format of dvdr."

I had a first generation Toshiba SD1200 that wouldn't play anything burned(CDR or DVDR)except CD-RW.

@shira,
DVDDecrypter->ISO read will also tell you the DVD's specs.

[shira]

Well, Noah, I was going to try downloading DVDInfoPro's free version. I already have DVD Identifier and didn't want to pay money for DVDInfoPro until after I could determine whether it indeed added $20 worth of value over what I already had.

However, the free version expired 2 days ago, on March 17. I really don't have time to deal with the inconvenience of changing the date on my computer just to try out a utility which may or may not be better than what I already have. (And then changing it back.)

I dunno, maybe it's a good utility, but they're making it too much of a pain to find out.

[steve2713]

However, the free version expired 2 days ago, on March 17. I really don't have time to deal with the inconvenience of changing the date on my computer just to try out a utility which may or may not be better than what I already have. (And then changing it back.)

Version 3.53? I've got the free version, it works fine. I just downloaded 3.53 yesterday, sounds like you downloaded 3.52.

[Noahtuck]

I dunno, maybe it's a good utility, but they're making it too much of a pain to find out.