From owner-freebsd-hardware Tue Dec 11 22:30:17 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from femail36.sdc1.sfba.home.com (femail36.sdc1.sfba.home.com [24.254.60.26]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96F7737B41C for ; Tue, 11 Dec 2001 22:30:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from home.com ([24.3.185.85]) by femail36.sdc1.sfba.home.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.20 201-229-121-120-20010223) with ESMTP id <20011212063012.QQLE21916.femail36.sdc1.sfba.home.com@home.com>; Tue, 11 Dec 2001 22:30:12 -0800 Message-ID: <3C16F99D.F66D3506@home.com> Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 01:30:53 -0500 From: "Gary T. Corcoran" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bakul Shah Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD+R References: <200112112102.QAA14253@glatton.cnchost.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message