|
DVD Burning Tips/News
by Steve Bishop
Whether you want to transfer your pics to DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)
or you want to backup a DVD to another DVD, I know you need some clarification
about the whole process.
Their are quite a few DVD formats to choose from but which one is right
for you in this rather confusing world of dvd formats? Shall I store my
photo's on a DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R or DVD+R DL? What about just copying a DVD
to DVD?
DVD Writers
To get down to basics you will first of all need a DVD drive that
will be able to write your data (music, film, pictures, etc) to a disc. Most
modern computers have at least a DVD-ROM drive which stands for Read Only
Memory meaning it will only read (play) your DVD but it cannot write the data
to a disc.
In order to write your data to disc you will have to have a DVD writer
which will write (burn) your data directly onto the disc. A laser burns your
info to disc which is why the terms DVD burning or burn to disc are frequently
used. Disc Formats
A normal single layered DVD disc (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RW) will hold upto
4.37GB of information on a single side of a DVD. There are also Dual layer
discs (DVD+R DL) which have twice the capacity of a normal DVD (8.5GB). These
discs have two layers on a single side which are read by a special laser which
switches it frequencies depending on which layer it is reading on the same
side of a disc. Although you will need an up to date dvd-writer in order to
burn dual layered discs.
We won't concern ourselves with dual layers in this article. Its enough
to know they exist and we have to have a more advanced dvd-writer for that.
So the label on the box says DVD-R. What does that mean? Well, the R bit
on any DVD stands for recordable which means you can write your data directly
onto the disc using your basic everyday DVD writer.
DVD-R was the first format that was developed by Pioneer and is used by
most computer users today. These discs will work with most DVD players on the
market at the time of writing.
DVD-RW is pretty much the same as above but the 'W' bit means the disc
is re-writeable. You can over-write existing data over and over again. You can
usually write the disc as much as upto a 1000 times! I would suggest practise
writing to DVD-RW to stop wasting DVD's and then write to a DVD-R when you
want a more permanent copy.
Then we have DVD+R DVD+RW. These discs will do the same job as DVD-R and
DVD-RW but tend to cost just a little more to buy. There is actually little
difference between +R and -R. They are slightly more expensive but in most
respects have the same longevity and reliability as DVD-R.
Need for speed
Different DVD writers have different write speeds as well. DVD+R will
burn faster than there counterparts DVD-R. The old write speed was 4x but now
DVD writers can burn at 16x speeds. So if your dvd writer burns at 8x just
make sure you buy discs that burn at 8x or whatever speed your drive is. Easy!
Creating That First Disc
You will find information regarding your DVD writer on the box or in the
instructions like:
Recording Formats
DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW
Recording Speeds
8x, 4x, 2.4x,
Connections
USB, Firewire
Now you know that you can burn a DVD+R at 8x speed on your burner. Thats
all you need to know in order to burn that first disc. What are you waiting
for? Go and impress someone with your new found burning skills!
About the author
If you would like to get started with DVD copying then go now
to http://www.dvd-burning.org to
discover how you can make your first dvd quickly and easily in minutes!
|