Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DVD-R vs DVD+R

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Topic: DVD-R vs DVD+R

Evans A Criswell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1579
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 06-15-2003 04:47 PM

Update: I reported in my earlier post that my Denon DVD-900 would not play the DVD-R I made the night I got the recorder (the Panasonic). The Denon would skip and freeze when trying to play anything behond approximately one hour into the disc.

Last night, I had a friend over and I was going to demonstrate the problem to him. I stuck the disc in the Denon and it would play everything on the disc, regardless of where I scanned. Does DVD-R media get more stable a day or two after it has been recorded? Can anyone think of a logical explanation of this?

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 06-15-2003 04:53 PM

That is weird. I have never seen it get "more stable" as time goes on. Was this the same disc? Maybe the lens was dirty before and the speck or two of dust that was on it have flown off since?

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Ron Lacheur
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 650
From: British Columbia, Canada
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-15-2003 05:21 PM

Well, since " professional " pressed DVD's work in every player, what format are they using? That seems to be the one to go with.

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Dave Macaulay
Film God

Posts: 2321
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-16-2003 08:22 PM

Pressed DVDs are literally pressed, glass masters are pressed onto a blank. The data is recorded as tiny pits in a plastic surface. There can be 2 layers of this surface, the pickup focuses on the layer it wants to read. The lower layer is coated to be reflective and the upper layer is transparent.
Do-it-yourself DVD burning is quite different. The data is recorded by altering the disc's working layer material using heat applied with a laser. DVD-R and DVD+R permanently record by altering an organic dye, DVD-RW uses a layer that has 2 states that can be changed back and forth depending on the temperature applied and is thus capable of being erased and re-recorded.
The discs are read with a laser beam that scans the track of data dots. Pressed discs modulate the reflected light through a wave cancellation effect; when the reading laser beam passes over a pit some of the light travels further before reflecting, and is no longer in phase with the reflection from the surrounding area so the reflection is dimmer(only possible because of the coherent laser light). Burned discs work by reducing the reflectivity. The early DVD players didn't anticipate this new method, and their pickups and data electronics don't recognize the slightly different optical response very well. I guess that to reduce noise, they just ignore anything that doesn't exactly match what would be expected from a pressed disk.
So basically you can't make any decisions on what recordable format to use based on pressed discs.

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Ron Lacheur
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 650
From: British Columbia, Canada
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-17-2003 08:50 AM

Thanks for the info Dave.

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Steve Anderson
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 168
From: Nashville, TN
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 07-09-2003 01:59 PM

Wow Evans! I have a lot of laser discs .....I hadn't thought about the DVD console recorder.Are you pleased with the DMR-E50?
My neighbor just bought the Sony external DVD-R +RW at Best Buy for $389. He also bought DVD-X Copy ( while you still can )
Sweet program for making "back-up" copies of DVD's

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 07-09-2003 04:01 PM

I just got the Philips 985 recorder that uses the +R/W format, since it dropped down to $399. I've recorded a few laserdiscs and they're almost identical to the orignal. My main player is a Pioneer DVL-909 and it plays these fine, though it can't handle the lower-quality recording modes- it shows those squeezed in the middle of the screen. I don't really want to use those anyways.
I have several old VHS and Beta tapes picked up at flea markets with TV recordings and commercials that are over 20 years old, so I'm going to put all of those onto DVD so I don't have to worry about them deteriorating. I just did an America's Top 10 show from 1980 with Casey Kasem- highlights include an interview with Deborah Harry from that new group called Blondie (their song "Call Me" was #1 on the singles chart that week) and a commercial for the movie "Fame", opening next week at the Cinerama Dome.
The "+" formats give you a lot more flexibility than the "-" formats. Most important to me is that you can make a recording on a +RW, then go back and put chapter stops wherever you want, which will also work on other players. The +R's can't be recorded over obviously, and you can't add chapter stops later. If you know what you're doing you can mark chapters while you're recording though. The Playstation 2 will play the +R discs but not the +RWs. For some reason I just had to see my DiscoVision ABBA laserdisc played on the Playstation!

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