DVD media reviewed

DVD media: who's who?

Recordable and rewritable DVD media business is booming. DVD recording is rapidly gaining popularity and everyone out there seems to want a part of the lucrative media business.

Previously we published an article on the differences between the media types. This time we dug a bit more into the technology and found some interesting things.

There are currently 4 types of DVD media (DVD-RAM not counting).
For both of the DVD-recordable and the DVD+recordable there is a rewritable variant (DVD-RW and DVD+RW). Difference is in the recording technology and recording method. The discs themselves look almost identical to the naked eye. But there is more then meets the eye …

Yep. You read that right. Blank DVD recordable media has data on it. Concealed information is stored on a blank disc that is used by the recorder to find out the optimum recording speed, power setting to use and much more. This data also stores physical address information that is used by the recorder to find a given track both during recording and playback.

And here is the catch. This information is not only differently formatted between the + and – standard, but is also physically stored in a different way.