Newbie to DVD Burning..

[Dakota Duce]

I have a CyberDrive 32x12x48x CD-R/RW burner.. and have been able to burn CD's for the past few years without any problems. As you know, with CD's there are two basic types.. R & RW. (Yes, I realize there are different physical sizes, as well as storage amounts.. but I'm talking in generalities.)

When it comes to DVD's however, I'm confused. From what I can see, there are 4 basic types.. +R, -R, +RW and -RW. Obviously I understand the difference between the single burn R's.. and the multi-burn RW's. The confusion, however, comes in interpreting the - and + signs.

When, where and under what circumstances do I burn using the +'s.. the -'s? How can I tell if the DVD I'm looking to burn from is a + or a -? Does it matter? Like I said.. I'm confused. Below is what my system consists of:

I/O Magic Dual Format 8x
Nero 6 Ultra Edition v-6.0
CyberDrive 32x12x48x CD-R/RW
Win 2000 Pro
MSI KM4M-L Motherboard
AMD Athlon 2600 (Barton) XP (Clocked @ 2083 MHz)
2 Sticks of Kingston KVR333X64C25/256 DDR PC2700 Dimm's
1 Maxtor 120 Gig 7,200 RPM H.D. (12 Partitions of 10 Gigs each)
1 Maxtor 40 Gig 5,400 RPM H.D. ( 4 Partitions of 10 Gigs each)

Thanks for your help..

Dakota Duce

 

[rebootjim]

You have a dual format burner, it doesn't matter.
-r seems to be a bit more popular now, as well as being able to play in more standalone players than +r.
-r also can fit just a bit more on one disk than +r
There's a whole book devoted to the differences, but it really doesn't matter what you use, as long as your standlone can play it.

BTW, nice system

 

[LTR12101B]

http://www.iomagic.com/Products/show_all_results.asp?ProdID=IDVDRW8D
Seems to be capable of higher speed on the + media (8x +R, 4x +RW) than on the - (4x -R, 2x -RW)

Not found what it's a re-brand of (Iomagic's always are!), some "dual" drives favour one format - this could well favour +R, since the speeds are higher.

+R media tends to be more expensive, and more consistent ... -R can usually be found cheaper, but some is not well liked by many drives.

It depends.... Some dual +/- drives are better with + some with -, and a very few will burn well an a range of media of both types.


With this one, if you want SPEED, you have to go +R - using either 8x media, or (if it's like most drives) 4x media that it's happy to do 8x on.

Whar does the system identify it as? if we're lucky, it won't say IOMagic, but it'll name what it REALLY is.