Nice (clear) explanation of recordable DVD formats from the Computer Geeks!

[astro]

One of the clearer discussions I’ve seen on the topic.

ABCs of DVD Drive Abbreviations

The number of different formats available in DVD drives can be confusing to anyone in the market for one. The list is much longer, but to address a few of the common formats, we have DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM ,DVD+R DL and DVD±RW. Wow! This list of common formats is long enough, no wonder it’s confusing!

What’s with all the Formats?!

The reason for various recordable DVD formats is that no one group owns the technology and different groups have chosen to support one technology over another. There is no industrial standard for manufacturers to reference, so for the time being consumers will have a few choices.

The first thing to address is DVD itself, which stands for Digital Versatile Disc. Some may argue that the V stands for Video, but with the capability to store video, audio, and data files, Versatile is definitely the keyword.

Start with the Basics

A DVD-ROM drive is the only one we will address that does not record. ROM stands for Read Only Memory, and refers to the typical drive that can merely read DVDs, as well as CDs (all DVD drives can read CDs). The Lite-On LTD-163-DO-R has attributes representative of your typical DVD-ROM drive, and features a maximum DVD read speed of 16x and a maximum CD read speed of 48x.

Before getting into the different recordable formats, let’s address the basics of what the R and RW stand for, regardless of whether there is a + or – in the middle. R stands for Recordable, which indicates that the disk may be recorded to only once. RW stands for ReWritable, which indicates that the disc may be recorded to more than once, and are generally rated for 1000 rewrites under good conditions.

etc etc