What is the difference between DVD-R and Hollywood's DVD's?

[sat0426]

What is the difference between DVD-R 4x and Hollywood's DVD's?

Like how come DVD-R's don't play in all set players, but the Hollywood DVD's that you rent at the video store play in most all DVD set players?

I take it we can't buy hollywoods medium yet?

Just wondering

Thanks

[adam]

Commercial DVDs are pressed not burnt. Unless you have a few spare million dollars lying around, no you can't duplicate the process. Its done in a production plant using very expensive equipment. All DVD players are required to play pressed DVDs. Dvd-r/w and dvd+r/w support is optional.

[indolikaa]

Hollywood DVDs are pressed from stampers created from glass masters.

DVD-R is an organic dye that is 'burned' by a laser to create variations in the 'optical return' that resemble 0's and 1's. The process results in values that are less than the reflective values of pressed discs, hence, the reason some optics have problems detecting them.

CLICK THIS to learn about how DVDs and CDs are produced.

[sat0426]

Thanks for the good info. I'll remember it.

[sat0426]

Since that is the case

Than can I at least make a DVD Master Copy and have it pressed into copys that will play on every DVD player?

And if so what is the best DVD format to make a Master Copy from?

Is DVD-R ok?

Thanks!

[adam]

You could get a plant to press your disks for you but they all have a set minimum order that they will take. I'd guess that on the extreme low end you'd have to order at least a few hundred copies, and most are going to charge much higher rates unless you are ordering in the thousands. You will just have to call/e-mail around.

Some plants will accept dvd-r but dvd+r authoring disks are preferred and some plants will only take DLT tapes. If you want dual layered disks you'd probably be forced to use DLT tapes. DVD replication definitely ain't cheap. Its not practical unless you need to mass produce DVDs.

Also just for clarification, your DVD-r/+r or DLT would just be the source that they would use for the master disk. Ultimately they will always have to create a glass master, its not like they just stamp copies of your burnt dvd-r. Its the creation of the glass master that takes so much time and money for them, that's why they require you to buy so many copies of each replication. They don't want to go through all that trouble to stamp one copy.

[lordsmurf]

dvd+r authoring disks

Huh?

[adam]

Half typo, half confusion on my part. Meant to say that some will accept DVD-r but most prefer DVD+r or DVD-r authoring. All should accept DLT.

[lordsmurf]

Half typo, half confusion on my part. Meant to say that some will accept DVD-r but most prefer DVD+r or DVD-r authoring. All should accept DLT.

Had me with full confusion here.
Thought maybe I missed a new format.
I gotcha now.

[sat0426]

Thanks a whole lot Adam for helping me learn this stuff man.

Also Adam you said: "If you want dual layered disks you'd probably be forced to use DLT tapes"

I've been hearing stuff about dual layered discs and I hope it doesn't mean what I think it means either. But "Dual Layered?"- does that mean the DVD's I create that contain multiple video layers don't work well or something when burned or what?
"DLT tapes", is that just a term for Digital Video tape medium?

That makes sense about what Hollywood does, because I've had Video CD's replicated before, but only by the thousand.
But I would still like to know if they press onto a DVD-R or DVD+R?

[adam]

Dual layered DVDs are essentially like taking two DVD-5's (4.34 gigs each) and pressing them together. They are also called DVD-9's. Most commercial DVDs these days are released like this. As of yet, this type of disk is not possible to create using any burnable media, but DVD+r already has drives in development that can burn dual layered disks. I can assure you that anything you have authored up to this point has been single layered if you burned it to dvd-r/+r.

DLT stands for digital linear tape, and yes its just a digital medium most commonly used to send the authored DVD to the replication plant.

DVD-r and DVD+r are formats for burning data. Pressed media has nothing to do with either of these formats. Its an entirely different process and technology. As far as I know, the media they press the image onto is simply called pressing media.