DVD Recording Times etc

[ironwood321]

Hi,
Just a quick question about DVD recording.
How fast do DVD drives record at 1x 2x speeds?
How long does it take to write a typical Full DVD?
Do you have to write an image etc before recording or can you write on the fly?

Also what programs offer both DVD Video recording and DVD audio and just bog standard DVD ROM file writing.

Thanks

[rphunt]

DVD speeds are about 10 times CDROM speeds. So CDROM 1X = 150 kbps, and DVD 1X is 1,500 kbps.

My HP DVD2001 is a 2.4X reader/writer, and I can burn a full DVD in about 20-30 mins.

If you want to make a DVD video disk that will play in a set-top player, you have to "author" the DVD first using software such as myDVD, DVDit, DVD Movie Factory, or DVD Workshop. These apps create the file structure needed to burn onto the DVD.

I'm not aware of anything that alows DVD Audio creation yet.

Does this help?

[AntnyMD]

Theres only one DVD-Audio authoring app I know of, and I can't remember the name. It's hardly worth it, though: it costs US$1,995. Even the highest end yet common DVD-Video authoring tool costs half that, and many have been widely pirated (read: free).

[SLK001]

Standard DVD play speed is 1.38Mbytes/sec, so a 1X record is also at 1.38Mbytes/sec. This means that a "full" disk will take 4.7Gbytes/1.38Mbytes/sec = 3,406 seconds, or 56.76 minutes to write the data. At 2x, the record speed is 2.76Mbytes/sec, so a "full" disk will take 1,703 seconds, or 28.38 minutes to write the data. On top of this, allow extra time for the disk LEAD-IN and LEAD-OUT. I'm not sure how long these are in a DVD (maybe 90 to 120 seconds?). Just allow 30 minutes for a 2X record and 1 hour for a 1X record.

[ironwood321]

Hi,
Thank for the replies so far I now have most of the information I need.

Just 2 questions now :-

Is there any software which will create a DVD ROM similar to a CD-R i.e. a disk where I can store my files to i.e. zip archives programs etc.

DVD ROM creation and DVD Video Creation can this time alone be done from pre compiled DVD ISO Images or can most software now write reliably on the fly?

Does the software support multisession disks. i.e. I can add files later and close the session like CD-R

[SLK001]

Is there any software which will create a DVD ROM similar to a CD-R

Nero has been able to do this for quite a while.

[rphunt]

Yes, my apologies. DVD 1X = 11.08 mbps, which equates to 1.38 MB/s. My brain was stuck on an old, inaccurate article about transfer rates.

[ironwood321]

Have I got to make a DVD type ISO image and burn this to the DVD or can most DVD burners + software cope with writing on the fly.

[rphunt]

Not quite sure what you mean by "on the fly", but you don't have to make ISO images. You do have to author to create the DVD file structure. Then a program like Nero can burn te structure to DVD as ISO/UDF format. You don't have create a disc image first.

Does this help?

I think what you might be asking is: Can you burn a DVD-+RW video disk, then add videos later? The answer is a qualified "No". myDVD adds extra data to the DVD to allow all the material to be extracted from the DVD to the harddrive, so the user can then add videos and modify menus, then re-burn to the DVD-+RW.[/quote]