DVD-R or DVD+R?

[vinay427]

Hey,

I just found some good Black Friday deals on DVD's and got some 50-packs of Staples brand DVDs. I didn't know which is better, so I just got both and decided to return the worse one. I have the Aluminum 1st Gen iMac (bought in September 2008) and the SuperDrive says it supports both. I heard mixed reviews so I wanted to ask here.

The Disc Burning section of System Profiler:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875:

Firmware Revision: DB09
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: To show the available burn speeds, insert a disc and choose View > Refresh

I plan to use them mostly for burning DVDs for use with a DVD player and for ISO burning (eg. OS's). Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
vinay427

 

[oculus42]

DVD+R is a slightly more fault-tolerant format and very slightly less data (5 MB or so).

 

[MacHamster68]

i always burn video on -R as its cretified for dvd players , ok most but not all can read +R too but i dont take chances

 

[vinay427]

DVD+R is a slightly more fault-tolerant format and very slightly less data (5 MB or so).

Thanks, that helps a lot!

i always burn video on -R as its cretified for dvd players , ok most but not all can read +R too but i dont take chances

I use a PS3 as my DVD/Blu-ray player so I'm sure that can play =R. I'll go with the + then. Thanks a lot guys!

 

[Komiksulo]

Five years ago, this was an important issue, because some devices could only handle DVD+R and others could only handle DVD-R. Nowadays, pretty much all devices can handle both formats. If you have an existing device that can only handle one or the other, go with that format; other than that, it's a toss-up.

 

[NJRonbo]

+R is usually rated better as it supposed to
burn better with less chance of errors.

I switched from -R to +R though I don't
know if I am getting better burns overall.

What you need to be equally concerned
with is brands. Some brands will not play
on certain computers. Find a brand that
works best for you and stick with it.