Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 01:30:53 -0500 From: "Gary T. Corcoran" <garycor@home.com> To: Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com> Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD+R Message-ID: <3C16F99D.F66D3506@home.com> References: <200112112102.QAA14253@glatton.cnchost.com>
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Bakul Shah wrote:
> After a quick scan of this and some other webpages it seems
> DVD+RW is the way to go *if* you want to make DVD player
> compatible DVDs. DVD-RAM is only for data but can be written
> 100K times (as opposed to 1K for DVD{+,-}RW).
Despite the marketing hype, real-world testing (e.g. PC World)
finds that DVD+RW suffers from the same problem as DVD-RW
- that the discs are unrecognizable by most DVD-ROM drives and players.
The RW discs (both types) get mis-interpreted as dual-layer discs, and
the drives/players go nuts trying to read them, finally giving up.
The ONLY format that is readable by almost every DVD-ROM *and*
DVD player, which is available today, is DVD-R. I can personally
attest that they are readable in several DVD-ROM drives, and my
3 year old DVD player. DVD+RW drives can NOT write DVD-R, and of
course DVD+R is only vaporware at this time.
> All rewritable DVD media seems to have similar longevity
> though the cartridge definitely offers protection. Of
> course, the usual problem in the computer world is that
> drives become rarer than hen's teeth way before the medium
> becomes unreadable.
In the CD world it is generally recognized that the R media has
a longer archival life than RW media. Since the DVD RW media
chemical is similar to the CD-RW media, I think it probably has
a similar life. In other words, for long term storage, my belief
is that DVD-R will last the longest. That is, DVD-R should last
well beyond the time it becomes obsolete. I only use DVD-RW
media for temporary storage, figuring it may only last a few years.
It may last longer, but why take the chance? If you want to keep
your data a long time, why not use DVD-R, which is cheaper anyway?
And before you ask :), I haven't yet tried reading (or writing) any
DVD on FreeBSD...
Gary
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