Creative annoyance OTD

[prog]

If the rumors I'm reading on the internets are true, DVD-R discs and DVD+R discs are not the same thing. I had no reason before now to think that the choice of punctuation mark on a blank disc's label was the result of anything other than the typographical preference of whichever company created it, but nope.

I have been making MST3K archive discs by simply dragging the big AVI files onto them in the Finder -- about six will fit -- and burning. It works fine, but the resulting data discs require a computer with DVD-reading hardware and AVI-playing software in order to replay the movies. When rserocki reminded me that I do in fact have Apple's iDVD at my disposal, I became engrossed in making some good-looking, TV-playable discs... only to discover that the application didn't want to recognize the DVD+R discs I have. iDVD apparently only wants DVD-Rs, while the Finder seems to be happy with either + or -.

OTOH, it's interesting to learn how cheap the media have become in such a such a brief time. I got this stack of discs at Micro Center the other day for something like 50 cents apiece; the 2002-stamped messages I was just reading suggested that they were a bargain at six bucks each.

Comments

[rserocki.livejournal.com]

You can use more space on a CD than the finder will allow with hdiutil from the command line. I use this at work sometimes.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040921173351970

[rserocki.livejournal.com]

Also, according to apple's page (http://www.apple.com/ilife/idvd/) on the latest release of iDVD in iLife 5, "Burn to almost any DVD media: DVD-R, -RW, +R, +RW." I don't know if you feel like plunking down money for this ability or not.

[temvald.livejournal.com]

the best part is when you find out that the burner that you're using only supports dvd+rw, while your dvd player at home only takes dvd-r.

kind of surprising that the apps would act differently, though. support of the two media types is a hardware/firmware type thing; the software shouldn't have anything to do with it.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I know, it's very strange. But it continues to do this even after an OS upgrade and a reboot.

[cramerica.livejournal.com]

Too &*^%&^ right. Thanks a lot, Dell.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Nope... thanks for the link.

[daerr.livejournal.com]

DVD-R is the most compatible and the most likely to work in DVD-ROM drives and stand alone DVD players.

more info on the DVD-R DVD+R diff

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

http://www.meritline.com/faq-dvd-blank-media-burner-burning-software.html#2

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#4.3

(whew!)