DVD DL Compatibility

[starnox]

Hey,

Our company is looking to bring DVD authoring in-house. I've created a DVD Studio project but I've had to make it a DL project because the video content is so large. Question is how compatible are DL discs?

Am I right in saying most DVDs you buy these days are DL. However they are DL-ROM? rather than + or -.

From what I understand there are two steps to take from now. We can either burn a DVD ourselves and get it replicated at a company. Or we can provide a company with a disk image and they will create a master disc which then gets pressed on a larger scale (is this -ROM?).

Fairly new to this so I could be talking rubbish. What's the best step to take if I want to make sure this DL DVD will work on as many DVD players as possible.

 

[huntercr]

Hey,

Our company is looking to bring DVD authoring in-house. I've created a DVD Studio project but I've had to make it a DL project because the video content is so large. Question is how compatible are DL discs?

Am I right in saying most DVDs you buy these days are DL. However they are DL-ROM? rather than + or -.

From what I understand there are two steps to take from now. We can either burn a DVD ourselves and get it replicated at a company. Or we can provide a company with a disk image and they will create a master disc which then gets pressed on a larger scale (is this -ROM?).

Fairly new to this so I could be talking rubbish. What's the best step to take if I want to make sure this DL DVD will work on as many DVD players as possible.

Yes, the -ROM is the "pressed" DVD, which is definitely the route to go IMHO. If it truly is a pressed DVD it is a requirement by the DVD standard that it work in all players. DVD -/+ R's are classified under a different standard and not all players support this.

I am not an authority on this, so I could be wrong.

 

[CaptainChunk]

If you're authoring with DVDSP, I would suggest building a disc image and providing it to the replication facility. A replication facility would be able to make you pressed copies (as in DVD-ROM). Just keep in mind that you'll likely have to run thousands to make the process worthwhile, as creating the glass master at a facility is costly. Some facilities I've dealt with have a minimum run of 1,000 to do replication as opposed to duplication (which is just batch copying to writable media).

If you only expect a run of maybe hundreds, duplication (copying to -/+ media) is usually more cost effective. As for compatibility, most modern DVD and BD players will play recordable media just fine, but again, there's no guarantee.