Creating your own DVD's, whether you are copying movies, making your own home movies for distribution to family and friends, making data backup disks, or even making your own music disks, is growing in popularity, especially as the hardware and software to do this has become so inexpensive.
So maybe its time I try to bring you up to speed on this fast-growing segment of personal computing. In this edition, I will talk about the media it takes to burn your own DVD's. In future editions, we will get into hardware, software and even the legalities of replicating commercial DVD's.
One reason that DVD burners are becoming so popular is that they can store far more data than a CD. The maximum amount of data that you can put on a CD is limited to 700 Megabytes...whereas a DVD can hold a minimum of 4.37 Gigabytes of data. That is over 6 times more storage capacity.
You will notice that I said a minimum of 4.37 Gb of data. That is because some types of DVD media can hold up to 15.9 Gb of data. One of the confusing parts of DVD burning is there are three main types of DVD media (actually there are four, but I am ignoring one) to choose from. Let me try and clear this up.
The first DVD type is known as DVD-R and DVD-RW. Like CD burners, which are designated as CD-R and CD-RW, the "R" stands for "Read Only" which means that once you create the media, it cannot be changed. It is a one-time burn. The -RW stands for Read-Write. That means you can burn a CD or DVD many, many times as well as erase it.
The DVD-R and DVD-RW was the first type of DVD that was compatible with the DVD players we attach to our TV's to watch movies. The DVD-R media is one of the two most popular DVD formats that people use today.
The other popular format is known as DVD+R and DVD+RW. This is a newer format and is considered by many to be better than its "-R" counterpart. It is also compatible with about 89% of today's DVD stand-alone players. I have a two year old and four year old DVD player and DVD+R disks works fine on both of them. The DVD+R is the media I personally use.
The next (and newest) type of media is called DVD+R DL. It is the same format as DVD+R, but the DL stands for Dual Layer. What is this, you ask? Dual Layer technology is what most commercial movies recorded on DVD use. Have you ever noticed when you are watching a DVD movie that about halfway through the film the picture freezes for a second or two, then continues on? This is caused by the DVD player switching from the first layer to the second.
As the name implies, a dual layer DVD hold nearly double the amount of information that a single layer DVD+R. But, that is important if you want to put a two hour movie on DVD. But you will also need a dual layer burner to take advantage of the dual layer DVD.
Cost is a big consideration in choosing your media. Because DVD burning has become so popular, DVD+R and DVD-R media prices have fallen dramatically. A high quality DVD+R and -R disk will run from about 25 cents to 50 cents apiece when you find them on sale (and there is a sale on them every week in some stores).
Dual layer DVD's are a different story. Because dual layer burners are so new, the media is still very expensive...running from $6-$8 per disk! But, have no fear...prices are guaranteed to fall in the future.
Regarding quality of disks, I have written articles in the past about the short life expectancy of cheap blank CD's. In reading articles in preparation for writing this blog, that is even more true for DVD's. If you want long-lasting DVD's you should never buy a cheap, unknown brand of blank DVD. Stick to brands like TDK, FujiFilm, Imation, Sony, and Memorex. These brand are listed in my order of preference.
Tomorrow, we will get into DVD burner hardware.
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