As DVD Home Video Recorders become more common, I was thinking that it might be nice to see how well certain drives actually read these DVD+/-VR disks that are being produced.

For example, I have found that disks produced by the Panasonic DMR-ES15 Home Recorder in the DVD-RW format are not readable by either my BenQ 1620 or BenQ 1640, even with the latest firmwares.

Yet, the Sony/Lite-On drive in my eMac, and the Acer 16x DVD-ROM drive on my PC both read them fine. My Pioneer 106 won't read them either, but a TSS combo DVD-ROM / CD-Burner will.

Seems like all my drives can read the DVD+RW disks produced by that recorder, but the format is not 100% DVD compliant, so I have to pull them into DVD Shrink and re-author them (I usually just trim out a very small part of the beginning and end) at 100% quality (no compression needed) and then I can read them into video editing tools like DVD MovieFactory 5 for further processing. Unless I take that step, the DMF software cannot read in the information.

I prefer to use DVD-RW because it only creates the VIDEO_TS folder, so no messing with the VIDEO_RM stuff that seems to generate the incompatibility, and also because the DVD-RW files read directly into every DVD app I'm trying, so it seems to adhere better to the DVD standard.

Also, on this particular Panasonic Recorder, DVD+RW will only scan/fast forward at 2x, 6x and 12x, but DVD-RW will do 2x, 10x, etc. up to 200x I think.

Anyway, basic idea would be to include the world of DVD+/-VR into the reviews for readability at the very least.

What think? Worth possibly doing?

Thanks,

BK

Not sure whether the LR is the best place for this discussion, but...

I'm slightly confused by what you are referring to here. Is it the physical format of the discs (DVD+RW/+R vs. DVD-RW/-R) or the recording format that is used on them (+VR vs. -VR) that you wish to compare? Also, using the term "100% compliant" when referring to DVD-Video should be made in the context of what that standard actually set out. It was established before consumer-level DVD recorders were invented and is only about defining playback.

DVD+RW are 100% DVD-Video compliant, and the discs do not need formatting as they always use +VR. You do occasionally see +RW ripping problems reported from time to time, but it's very variable and many others have always been able to rip a recording straight from a +RW disc using DVD Decrypter (and as you found, DVD-ROM drives can be better readers than DVD-writers). After that you import the ripped file into DVDMF. This is more or less the accepted way to do these things, since DVDMF has never been that great at importing straight from disc. All it needs is a bare MPEG2 file at DVD-Video standard encoding resolutions.

A DVD-RW formatted as -VR will have an extremely low compatibility with anything other than the machine it was used in, due to the nature of the filing system which enables deleted portions of the disc recordings to be reused. Hence you can't compare it at all to DVD+RW. DVD-RW formatted as DVD-Video, on the other hand, when finalised should be playable in a home DVD player.

You also have to remember that it's sometimes the software which is not able to interpret the IFO file, rather than the drive.

DVD-RW that is finalized cannot be read by all players, for example.

Same with DVD+RW, it seems.

It was just a thought about compatibility. Kinda like how certain drives handle Safedisk protections well (1, 2 or 3 sheep burners) Maybe you could have say a Sony recorder, a Lite-On recorder, a RCA and a Panasonic or something and see if the drive is able to read the DVD-VR/DVD+VR disks, either finalized or in the case of the DVD+RW, just raw.

For instance - my BenQ 1620 and 1640 cannot read the DVD-RW's produced by my Panasonic DMR-ES15 - even after they have been finalized. Neither can my Pioneer 106. But, my Acer DVD-ROM and the Lite-On in my Mac can. Perhaps newer drives that you might end up reviewing are more up-to-date and aware of the DVD-VR/DVD+VR stuff and will be able to read them better.

Again, just a thought.