DVR-R , DVD+R, DVD-RAM: What's the Difference? (page 2)

DVD+RW is the rewritable standard that Sony, Philips and HP (a.k.a. the DVD Alliance) originally developed to compete with DVD-RAM, and not with DVD-RW, although it is now a competitor of that format as well. Philips and Sony (both also members of the DVD Forum) argue that their non-DVD Forum-sanctioned DVD+RW format is more compatible than DVD-RW for video, and this has been verified in our tests.

DVD+R is the write-once version of DVD+RW and came out after that format was in the public domain. After some initial first-generation problems, the latest HP 300i drives are reliable and widely available to burn DVD+R discs. Not surprisingly, the DVD+R folks claim that this format is much better than DVD-R, but we have not seen this in our tests. On the other hand, we haven't found DVD+R to be any less compatible than DVD-R either.

So, the choice is yours as to whether you want to go with DVD-R or DVD+R. Perhaps your decision will depend on the price of the media. Currently, DVD+R discs are slightly, but consistently, more expensive (about +25%) than DVD-R. (See our Media Price Survey sidebar.) If your budget is tight and you only need write-once for distribution, DVD-R is the format for you. If you need a rewritable format, we'd recommend you go with the DVD+RW format.

Or you can just weasel out of making any sort of commitment at all by getting a burner that swings both ways. Sony was the first to come out with DVD- R/RW/+R/RW burners, but now you can find hybrid drives from many manufacturers. The only downside is that these drives are typically at least $50 more than single-format drives, although we've seen street prices below $200.

As if we needed more letters in our DVD alphabet soup, we are also seeing products with a "DVD+VR" tag on them. Don't let the new letters confuse you: DVD+VR discs are really just specially formatted DVD+RW discs. In fact, another name for DVD+VR is DVD+RW Real Time Video. Developed by the DVD+RW Alliance, the DVD+VR format allows video enthusiasts to create editable DVDs (with some limitations). The easiest way to perform the editing is by changing the table of contents on the disc without actually editing the video itself. So, for example, you could trim the beginning of a clip by simply specifying that playback starts five minutes into a video instead of from the beginning, without actually deleting any of the video. Supported by many software DVD authoring programs, the DVD+VR format is currently in use in a number of living room standalone DVD recorders. DVD+VR discs are explicitly designed to be compatible with DVD players, although they are certainly not any more compatible than the write-once formats.

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