DVD+R vs. DVD-R

I just joined the Patreon today, so now I can say I was one of those who incorrectly said "minus" instead of "dash." Never again.

Mike Chimeri

Here almost nobody used the +R, they tended to always be either more expensive or at least not cheaper... I've burnt and printed hundreds of printable -Rs with the printable coating that goes all the way to the hole.

Kilrah

And here I was last week, trying to burn a DVD for my retro PC that had a "RW" label on it and IT JUST DIDN'T WORK. Now I know why...

Danny

Oh Sony - bless your heart.

Joon Choi

😏 Don't think I didn't see you putting that percolator away. Continuity like this keeps me coming back again and again!

Jennifer Holz

This is the content I crave! I thought thats alot more hertz at the same time you said it lol

Alan Ricks

Sony always enjoyed their NIH syndrome (as many other companies unfortunately) and they always had wonderful creative schemes when it came to their copyright protection. For example the PS1 black disks, because obviously no-one can rip a black CD. There's a long list, all the way up to audio CDs with rootkits -- you have to say, now that's thinking "out of the box".

Raphaël

That was just the rewritable world ;) (Both +RW and -RW used the phase change magic stuff, and the vanilla +R and -R used dyes)

Technology Connections

Oh I recycled lots of B-roll for this one ;)

Technology Connections

Yeah, bit setting was important for some players. Some of the "big name" players would refuse to play DVDs without a book type of DVD-ROM.

Man, I had totally forgotten about the whole DVD- &+ thing. I was apparently one of those oblivious consumers and fortunately I didn't buy the "wrong" discs, but that was completely accidental. Now, outside of my laptop, I don't even use optical drives like pretty much everyone else. Yes, that appears to have been one strange format "war."

Bob Holt

My family bought a new computer in 2002 that had a DVD+R drive in it, so I always tended to just buy the + variant - until later we bought a DVD-RW/VHS combo set-top box for my step-dad to record on. One day, we bought 200 DVD+R discs from Costco for like $40. I still have about 50 of them, along with about 20 DVD-R that I traded someone who only had a DVD-RW drive in his computer and bought the wrong discs. By then, I had a combo drive.

Quinton Wilson

This was a great idea! It didn't occur to me that this would be a video. Also, as a side note, I recognize some old B-roll from the series on the CD!

I thought one used dyes and the other a phase change material that suffered less degradation over time, or was that just in the rewritable world? (I don't dare say RW for rewritable now thanks to something I just learned a few minutes ago...)

Kevin Tessner

This is honestly one of my favourite episodes ever.

Kirk Northrop

lost me at 12:16. Still, a supporter of the Technator!

Gerard Hammond

DVD+R was better. Why? Bitsetting! Every DVD had some kind of ID by which the drive could know what type of media it was: DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW and so on. Many early DVD players didn't know the ID for DVD+R and just refused to play the disc. DVD-Burners quickly got the option to use bitsetting. That way you could give a DVD+R any ID you wanted so you could burn a DVD+R and declare it to be a pressed DVD-ROM. This was especially usefull because some player manufacturers didn't want you to play burned disc. My sister had a Toshiba DVD-Player which just refused anything burned. It wouldn't even play a CD-R. But it had no problem playing DVD+R with DVD-ROM bitsetting because there was no way for the player to know, that this was not an original disc. As far as I know DVD-R never supported bitsetting. So the best way to burn a copy of the video you shot on your last vacation that you wanted to give to friends and family was using DVD+R with DVD-ROM bitsetting. Because everyone had no problems playing it.

Robert

I remember buying the DVD+R box and then getting the 2-hours two-way trip to the shop to exchange that for needed DVD-R. Grr 😁

I remember reading online the DVD+R was for video and DVD-R was for data.

Brett Walton

I’d be more interested when you do the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray format war, and that was a format war

Paul Fisher

Where did you get that t-shirt? Also I like the percolator reference at the beginning. Anyways, great video as always, you are one of my favorite youtube channels.

Nicholas C

The Playstation copy protection video is what got me subbed to your channel. Love seeing the shout-out to it!

evistre

That was really neat. I enjoy how you can summarize years of history into easily-watchable videos. :) I do recall that we called it "DVD R" with no "plus" or "dash," but maybe that was because everyone I knew used the dash format of media. (I don't know if you want us to point out mistakes, but at 16:05, the text says "approrpriately".)

Michael Dunn

Aw dammit. I looked over that multiple times! It really sucks how there's no spell-checker in the Premiere titling tool...

Technology Connections

@16:07 “approrpriately” sounds about right for this format mess

In 1996 the DVD Consortium was formed, and things were peaceful... right up to 1997. That’s about par for the course at this point with technology of any kind.

Sean Hearrell

I always wondered what the difference was, but never remembered to research it.

Tedd