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Old January 2nd 04, 11:51 PM
J.Clarke
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On 2 Jan 2004 12:37:04 -0800
(harrypotter) wrote:

Hello!

I have a newbie question about dvd-r's and cd-r's. I've noticed some
computers are coming out with both a dvd-r and cd-r. Others only have
a dvd-r.

Is there an advantage of having both a dvd-r and a cd-r? Or is it a
redundant feature?


It's redundant for the most part--some folks like to use the CD drive
for CDs to save wear and tear on the DVD drive--DVD writers, while they
are very inexpensive compared to what they used to cost, still cost a
bit more than CD writers, and they perceive a cost saving. Also, some
CD writers write CDs faster than DVD writers unless that has changed
recently.


One last question, can anyone please explain this:
dvd+r/+rw/-r/-rw/cd-rw drive


the "R" indicates that the drive writes to "write once" disks, while the
"RW" indicates that it writes to "rewriteable" disks. The DVD + and -
are competing standards--right now the "-" media still costs a little
less unless the prices have changed since last time I checked while the
drives that handle both "+" and "-" seem to write "+" a bit faster. The
advocates of "+" and "-" will tell you that their favorite has better
compatibility with standalone DVD players--the simple fact is that most
will play both, some don't like "+", and some don't like "-". With CDs
the situation is simpler-they come "-R" and "-RW" and that's it.
There's also DVD-RAM which is designed to be used like a 4.7 gig
diskette and works pretty much that way, but the downside is that
DVD-RAM disks can't be read by anything but DVD-RAM drives. LG has a
nice drive out right now for $128 that handles all formats.

Thank you.
al



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