selecting dvd blank disks

alontheriver · Mar 19, 2008

:confused Hi, I am wondering if there is a preference buying dvd blanks. I see DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD RW. Which ones are best for multisession burning.Thanks

Mada_Milty · Mar 19, 2008

DVD+R (Although it is good to know you can get RW or rewritable disc is available for both - and + discs. This just means the disc can be formatted, and written to again)

From this link:

Michael Spath said:

If you want to partially record a DVD-R(W) disc and use it immediately, but also want to be able to record more data later, border zones are used, which are meant to make this partially recorded disc compatible with standard DVD-ROM players. So every -R(W) recording session has to start with a border-in area (except the first one, which starts with the lead-in) and stop with a border-out area.

However, the size of these border zones is quite amazing : 32 to 96 MB for the first zone, then 6 to 18 MB for the next ones. This means that a disc containing 3 recorded sessions can require up to 132 MB (more than 2% of the complete storage capacity) just for separating these regions. Furthermore, the border-out and border-in areas have to be linked together, using one of the 3 methods (and the possible associated problems) explained previously. Note also that for some unknown reason a border-out is needed before the lead-out, while the first border-in is replaced by the lead-in.

On the other hand, when multiple recording sessions are used on a DVD+R(W) disc, Intro and Closure zones are used (the counterpart of border-in and border-out), but they are always 2 MB large : therefore, with + format, a 3 sessions disc always uses only 4 MB to delimit the regions (the lead-out replaces the last Closure zone). Also a nice feature of multi-sessions implementation on DVD+R(W) is that one can use a session to reserve space, i.e. sectors which are left unrecorded (this blank area is called Reserved Fragment). Thus, additional data can be recorded in next sessions while the first one will only be written later : this can be useful for instance when a precise location on the disc has to contain file system tables, which can only be filled after all the files have been written to the disc.
Click to expand...

dlb · Mar 19, 2008

Very interesting info... I use DVD-RW discs all the time for multiple recordings and they work great. I have 5 or 6 that I've been using, erasing, and re-using for over 18months and they still work perfectly. If space is an issue then it would seem that +R is the way to go, esp. if you have more than 5 sessions on a disc... The RWs I use are just a generic store brand that I got on sale (25 for $6.99!) and I've never had any issues......

Log in or Sign up

selecting dvd blank disks

alontheriver Private First Class

Mada_Milty MajorGeek

dlb MajorGeek

Members

Useful Searches