DVD-R
DVD-R is a write-once medium very similar to CD-R, which was originally created by Pioneer and released by the DVD Forum in July 1997. DVD-R discs can be played on standard DVD-ROM drives. Some DVD-RAM drives can also write to DVD-R media.
DVD-R has a single-sided storage capacity of 4.7GB—about seven times that of a CD-R-and double that for a double-sided disc. These discs use an organic dye recording layer that allows for a low material cost, similar to CD-R.
DVD-R media is currently available in speeds up to 16x, although some drives feature faster burn speeds. Some vendors are now producing double-sided single-layer DVD-R media with capacities of 9.4GB. This media is designed primarily for DVD jukeboxes, although it can be used by standard DVD rewritable drives.
DVD+RW and DVD+R
DVD+RW, also called DVD Phase Change Rewritable, has been the premier DVD recordable standard because it is the least expensive, easiest to use, fastest, and most compatible with existing formats.
It was developed and is supported by Philips, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Chemical (MCC/Verbatim), Ricoh, Yamaha, and Thomson, who are all part of an industry standard group called the DVD+RW Alliance (
www.dvdrw.com). Microsoft joined the alliance in February 2003. DVD+RW is also supported by major DVD/CD-creation software vendors and many drive vendors, including HP, Philips, Ricoh, and many remarketers of OEM drive mechanisms. Although DVD-RW has increased in popularity with the advent of faster and easier burning times, DVD+RW is the most popular rewritable DVD format.
Note that DVD+R, the recordable version of DVD+RW, was actually introduced after DVD+RW. This is the opposite of DVD-RW, which grew out of DVD-R. One of the major reasons for the development of DVD+R was to provide a lower-cost method for permanent data archiving with DVD+RW drives, and another was because of compatibility issues with DVD-ROM and DVD video players being incapable of reading media created with DVD+RW drives. However, most standard DVD-ROM drives or DVD players can read both DVD+R and DVD+RW media without problems.
Reference
Upgrading And Repairing PCs, 19th Edition by Scott Mueller
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Sony DVD's @ 0.8K... dude, it isn't possible in this world!