Whats A Dual Layer DVD Burner Do?!?!

[Reefsmoka]

Hey all,

I'm thinking of getting a DVD burner, and I have seen alot of these Dual Layer DVD burners around. Its pretty darn confusing.

Can anyone tell me what Dual Layer DVD burners do?

Whats the + (plus) and - (minus) about? (I always see it written next to DVD drives)

Do they need special discs, rather than the regular DVD-R?

Say I burnt a disc with a Dual Layer writer, would a normal DVD drive read it?

 

[floppybootstomp]

The + & - issue is actually quite moot now, as most DVD players and drives read both formats and most DVD burners burn in both formats.

At one time the smart money was on -R format winning out, but it hasn't happened.

A dual layer DVDRW burns data to two layers, so you can burn twice as much to one disc , it's as simple as that. Many long movies come on dual layer discs, you'll notice a slight flicker during the film when the player switches from one layer to another.

The most obvious advantage of being able to burn dual layer is that you you can back up films without having to compress data, which makes for better quality. That, and being able to store over 8Gb's worth of data on one disc.

As for whether a computer DVD ROM drive can read one, I'm not absolutely sure, but I'd imagine yes. My DVD ROM drives read dual layer movies OK, so I'd guess they can read a home burnt dual layer disck OK as well. I'm wondering if they were reading data, do they see it as one large disc or two smaller ones?

Thinking of getting one myself soon.

 

[muckshifter]

As for whether a computer DVD ROM drive can read one, I'm not absolutely sure, but I'd imagine yes. My DVD ROM drives read dual layer movies OK, so I'd guess they can read a home burnt dual layer disk OK as well.

Caution ...
... not all DVD readers will read a dual layer 'home burnt' DVD, although most of the new ones (past 12 months) should.

The cost of dual-layer DVD drives is such that it’s silly not to get one if contemplating buying a DVDRW.

 

[Quadophile]

Very well explained by both Muckshifter and Floppybootstomp, so I will not go into any further details.

The only thing I would like to touch upon here with respect to negative side of the Dual Layer burner is the cost of the media itself. I am not saying that you should stay away from getting the dual layer burner but the disks at the moment are very expensive compared to the single layer ones. Why? This is to protect the copyright issue and therefore the royalty is added to the media since it can copy high quality video without compression on the new media which practically makes a copy as good as the original.

Check the media price if you are especially thinking of copying that. The single layer disk is equivalent to DVD5 and dual layer disk is equivalent to DVD9 this is usually indicated on the actual original video that you buy to differenciate between the amount of data contained on the disk.

The price of the media in time to come will surely go down but I thought I should point this out here for the information of all who are reading the post. Go for the drive anyway rather than buying the older version since it is backward compatible anyway.

Hope this helps.

 

[Veloman]

About six weeks ago I bought a Sony Dual Layer DVD writer to make copies of my edited home movies, to play back on my Panasonic DVD player - I have not yet succeeded in doing so.

I can burn a movie to DVD-RW and play this back on my computer, but the DVD player does not recognise the disc format.

I have also tried using a DVD-R disc but the DVD writer does not seem to support this format.

Can anyone advise me what format disc I should be using with a Dual Layer DVD writer for play back on a standard DVD player?

Veloman

 

[Quadophile]

Can anyone advise me what format disc I should be using with a Dual Layer DVD writer for play back on a standard DVD player?

Veloman

I have a feeling that your DVD Player is not able to play all formats. Did you check its manual for that? Usually it is always listed which type of media it can play. Which DVD player do you have? Is it a recent one?

 

[Veloman]

My DVD Player is a Panasonic DVD-S27, I bought it recently and assume it is a fairly current model.

The manual shows Disc Formats
DVD-Video and DVD-R (DVD-V)
DVD-RAM (RAM and JPEG)

I have just noticed in the manual that it says " Depending on the disc type and conditions of recording, the appliance may sometimes fail to play the listed discs" ..... is this the ultimate cop out?

 

[Quadophile]

My DVD Player is a Panasonic DVD-S27, I bought it recently and assume it is a fairly current model.

The manual shows Disc Formats
DVD-Video and DVD-R (DVD-V)
DVD-RAM (RAM and JPEG)

I have just noticed in the manual that it says " Depending on the disc type and conditions of recording, the appliance may sometimes fail to play the listed discs" ..... is this the ultimate cop out?

The best place to check the compatibility in REAL WORLD situation is to go to the link I have provided and punch in your players details and get the result. Mind you the site has data based on actual users so it may differ from what the manual says.

I hope this helps.

VideoHelp.com

 

[floppybootstomp]

Veloman - what software are you using to burn your DVD's and capture video footage?

Are the captured video files taken from an analog or digital source? What's the capture device in your computer? Dedicated card? TV Tuner card?

And which software program do you use to edit your footage?

Were all the discs you used dual layer? Have you tried a single layer 4.7Gb DVD-R?

Knowing these things may give me a clue. Also, did the DVD-R disc you burnt video footage to play OK on your computer?

 

[Veloman]

My video editing software is Adobe Premier 6 which uses Pinnacle DV500+

DVD writing software is Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD 8.

Captured video files are taken from a digital source, Canon XM1.

I haven't used dual layer discs. I've tried DVD-RW, DVD-R and DVD+R.

I have written video footage successfully to DVD-RW and DVD+R, both play back on my computer. I have not been able to write video footage to a DVD-R.

From Premier I save (encode) the Timeline as an .mpg file to my desktop, and then copy to DVD.

There seem to be so many places for the whole process to go wrong and I'm trying to get bits of information from so many places. Do you think I can eliminate the question about whether I'm using the right disc?

Firstly I wonder whether I am encoding the video footage in the right format (.mpg)?

Pinnacle now tell me that Pinnacle Impression which is used to write video files does not work with dual layer DVD drives, and that I should try Nero Express or Roxio Toast. I've got a copy of Nero Express that came with a CD writer I put in an old PC, but that suggests that I need Nero Vision which I don't have, so I abandoned that for now.

I don't know whether I've got the wrong hardware, the wrong software, the wrong discs, the wrong DVD player. One thing I would say is that it took about 18 months to get the Premier/ Pinnacle DV500 setup working properly and I'm loathed to do anything that will upset this!

Can you help? Or is it as desperate as it feels to me right now?

Regards

 

[Capn]

hi i wanted to get a Sony 16x Internal Double-Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Drive
Model: DRU-710A, but before i got it i wanted to know what a dual layer was so i came here and i saw that it can burn onto a dual layer disc but than i was wondering can it still burn on single layer discs?



thank you ahead of time

 

[Quadophile]

All dual layer drives are backward compatible so they not only burn single layer DVD's but CDR's and CD-RW's as well.

 

[muckshifter]

They burn anything ... fingers, plastic, paper, houses.