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Help a newbie with DVD Recording, please!

sonictonic

sonictonic

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 25, 2006
954
11
San Jose, California
I'm gonna have my new MBP soon, and believe it or not it'll be my first computer with a DVD burner in it... :eek:

I'm very confused about all the types of DVD media, and was hoping someone here could help demystify it for me and give me some tips.

What the heck is the difference from DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+-R, etc? :confused: Which will work best with my new Mac and why?

I don't plan on doing anything major with the burner, but I'd like to start using it for backup purposes and also making DVD's in iMovie from home/vacation photos and videos and the like... (I wanna make the cool little presentation type shows I've seen people do, and have it on a DVD to give family/friends). So what do I need for that?

Thanks in advance for the help. :)
 
+R and -R are basically the same, -R was made first by some company and +R was invented by another company. you wont notice any difference but there are some small differences, +R being more reliable and stable.

-RW & +RW simply means that you can write multiple times to the disc, much like a CD-RW.

and DVD-DL is a dual layer DVD, holding twice the capacity of normal -R or +R
 
to my knowledge some older computers (and maybe actual dvd players) sometimes can only play one or the other (plus or minus). Most new laptops, including yours can do all kinds, and in the last few years I believe pretty much any laptop or dvd player you get will be able to play whatever, but keep this in mind... as some OLDER computer (like my last one) could only play movies and such that were - ... some can only burn one or the other too.

Unless I'm completely wrong and have had many a defect computer and many people give me wrong info... :confused: which is possible.
 
I've always used -R's exclusively and I've never had a problem. Note that many older consumer DVD players may be unable to play +R's at all, as the +R specs weren't defined until 2004.
 
Amazed this is so complicated. :eek:

Thanks for all the info though guys! I guess I'll just start with using the DVD-R for my needs. That should work right? For making videos for fun with iMovie and whatnot, and to play those DVD's in recent DVD players?

Thanks again. :)
 
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