DVD - R versus DVD + R for DVD movies ( Is one better than the other ?? )

[beammeup]

Hi,

I have made about 5,000 DVDs full of family memories for various clients over the last 3 - 4 years.
Mainly transferring video / slides / cinefilm etc onto DVD.

I always use either Verbatim DVD - R's or TY - R's.

I've just had an ( " IT ' ) Guy inform me that DVD - R will fail in about a year or 2 ??? and that I should always use + R's.

My question is quite simply, is there any opinion or indeed facts that suggest that + Rs are better than - Rs for longevity.

I'm curious to hear what most of you use and if indeed there is any evidence that one format is actually better then the other

thanks
Scott

[guns1inger]

I have 100's of -R (pretty much everything I do is -R) well over two years old. Your "IT" guy is full of something that clearly ends in "IT".

There are question marks over the general longevity of all burned media, especially DVD. But nothing suggests that either format is better or worse than the other for long term storage.

[stackner]

I have 100's of -R (pretty much everything I do is -R) well over two years old. Your "IT" guy is full of something that clearly ends in "IT".

There are question marks over the general longevity of all burned media, especially DVD. But nothing suggests that either format is better or worse than the other for long term storage.

agreed...
i have 100's of dvd-r over 2 years old also.

[ricardouk]

i have 3 dvd players(jvc,samsung and toshiba), and they all are less noisy when reading dvd+r bookedtype as dvd-rom- my dvd-r's tended after a while to stop at 15 min from the end of the dvd even tough i diidnt fill the whole dvd as i leave a 100mg gap just to be safe as i heard is good pratice not to fill the dvd to the max capacity.

it doesnt matter what brand it is, 2 years ago i made some dvd back ups and after a while they didnt play or wouldnt reach the end.

im sticking with dvd+r as i can also booktype it as dvd-rom, most o will say modern dvd players play both formats well but i havent seen that, far from that.

[ricardouk]

my newest dvd player says itreads both dvd-r/+r but if you stick a dvd-r (doesnt matter which brand) it gets bloddy noisy and friends with similar problems also say that after switchin to dvd+r with the dvd-rom trick their players are less noisy

[guns1inger]

100MB isn't enough to protect against poor quality media. 9 times out of 10 issues with playback come from poor quality media. For you to have had such consistent problems says to me you are doing something wrong.

[SCDVD]

Unfortunately, too many "I.T. Guys" are dangerous hackers who just happen to have a job with a company who doesn't know any better. Your "I.T. Guy" probably had a bad experience with some junk -R media - once, and that "qualifies" in his mind to be an expert about everything to do with DVD recording.

[jet757f]

I have been reading not to use DVD-R DL media for movies for some reason. ImgBurn burn specifically says not to use them.

[jman98]

I have been reading not to use DVD-R DL media for movies for some reason. ImgBurn burn specifically says not to use them.

DVD-R DL is realy hokey they way they made it work. The layer break is static and must be set manually for every burn. If you botch the layer break, and you can if you don't know what you are doing or apply the flexible way that DVD+R DL can set its layer break to DVD-R DL, you will have a coaster. DVD+R DL's layer break can often be set in a variety of places and you just take your pick. DVD-R DL's layer break MUST be set exactly at the midpoint of the disc and failure to do so will make a coaster. The discs are expensive and my DVD player has problems with them. I see no good reason for using them unless you are an unfortunate person with a DVD player that doesn't like +R media.

Some of the DVD-R backlash has to do with an article written on the internet about how DVD-R does error correction. You can read it here:
http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media/
This article has been claimed to be written by a DVD+R shill posing as an objective observer. I don't have any links to anything debunking it, but I read a big refutation of it in the forums here a few months ago. My personal belief is that for single layer write once discs, there's no real difference between DVD+R and DVD-R, but I feel very strongly that DVD+RW and DVD+R DL are far superior for technical reasons to their DVD-R counterparts. Both DVD-RW and DVD-R DL were kind of forced on top of the DVD-R format which was never designed to support them. DVD+RW and DVD+R DL are far better designed formats. I've had many problems with DVD-RW and DVD-R DL discs and I don't bother with either any more.

[Marvingj]

Both are about the same. If you have quality DvD Disc ,whether + or -. I prefer DVD -.

[SingSing]

My DVD player plays both +R and -R. I have hundred of both type. About 10 of my 2 years old -R had failed. All of my +R still okay.

[pepegot1]

The only advantage of +R is that it finalizes much faster than -R. If you have a good player, either format will work equally well.

[SCDVD]

My DVD player plays both +R and -R. I have hundred of both type. About 10 of my 2 years old -R had failed. All of my +R still okay.

The only thing that this means is that you had some bad -R media. What if you had bought some crummy +R media? That wouldn't prove anything either.

[SingSing]

Actually both My -R and+R are the cheapie, becuase they are just movie backup.

My -R are Compusa, and My +R are Playo.

[VegasBud]

http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media/
... I don't have any links to anything debunking it

I would be happy to debunk it. Just two examples that demonstrate the author's lack of even basic understanding of the topic are:

The author erroneously states that error correction is better on +R. As I posted the last time this article came up:

...Error correction is handled by ECC blocks, which are the same whether it's a DVD-ROM, DVD-R, or DVD+R, as is clearly spelled out in MMC-4, ecma-349 (for +R), and ecma-359 (for -R).

When the author of that article was asked what specification he was referring to, he said:

I was using the English-afied version someone translated from the official standard, but I can’t seem to find that site now.

When the article's author was asked about setting the book type of +R disks, he said:

I’ve never used the book type change trick, I’d avoid it.

There is abundant evidence that "bitsetting" the "book type" field on a +R disk to "DVD-ROM" improves compatibility on older players. Some players ignore the "book type" field, so "bitsetting" has no effect (in those players), but there are no adverse effects. It's just bad advice to recommend that people not use "bitsetting" with +R media.

[wtsinnc]

Like others who have posted here, I have hundreds of DVDs, both +R and -R and have found only one real difference, that being +Rs (potentially) better compatibility with set top players provided they have been bookset to DVD-ROM. I began recording DVDs in 2003 using a Panasonic set top DVD recorder which could use only -R or RAM formats. To my knowledge, there has been absolutely no degredation in picture quality in any of the -Rs recorded three and four years ago on the Panasonic, nor any of the minus or plus Rs subsequently recorded via my computer. Provided your DVD player has no trouble recognizing non-bookset discs, you should experience no difference in video quality or longevity between the formats.

[SCDVD]

+Rs (potentially) better compatibility with set top players provided they have been bookset to DVD-ROM.

Thankfully that is evolving into a thing of the past. This issue was a problem on a few older players. Since recordable media is so commonplace now, all newer players handle + or -R just fine.

[mjl1297]

+Rs (potentially) better compatibility with set top players provided they have been bookset to DVD-ROM.

Thankfully that is evolving into a thing of the past. This issue was a problem on a few older players. Since recordable media is so commonplace now, all newer players handle + or -R just fine.

I agree and with most newer and presumably better players the + or - designation in the DVD media's name really doesn't matter. That being said there are still quite a few older players in use out there and occasionally you might be called upon to make a disc for one. In spite of DVD-R being the older standard every time I have tried to play media of that designation in an older standalone player there has been an issue of some kind. To date this has not been the case with DVD+R.