Member Avatar for dejan_4

I have just installed a new DVD burner in my computer (a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105 internal drive) and am trying to figure out what kind of blank disks I should be using.

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Short answer for : that Pioneer DVR‑105 is a DVD‑R / DVD‑RW writer (it’s not a “±” combo drive), so use DVD‑R for final, distributable discs and DVD‑RW when you want rewritable media for testing. (manualslib.com)

Why “plus” vs “dash” matters technically: the two families use different tracking/address schemes (DVD‑R uses land‑pre‑pits, DVD+R uses ADIP) and they handle sector linking and error management differently. DVD+ formats include features such as lossless linking and (on many drives) the ability to change the recorded book type (bitsetting) to DVD‑ROM to improve compatibility with older players. In practice those differences used to matter more; most modern PC drives and players handle both formats, but older standalone players sometimes preferred DVD‑R. (en.wikipedia.org)

RW vs R (practical): “R” = write‑once (good for final masters). “RW” = rewritable (good for testing, temporary backups, experimenting). Rewritable discs are rated for many rewrite cycles (Pioneer has cited ~1,000 writes for DVD‑RW in specs/discussions). Use RW while you’re getting authoring settings right, then burn final copies on R and finalize them for standalone playback. (en.wikipedia.org)

Quick troubleshooting / workflow

  • Confirm what your drive supports by model or manual (DVR‑105 shows DVD‑R/RW). (manualslib.com)
  • If a burned disc won’t play in a player: make sure the disc was finalized, try burning at a lower speed, or test a different high‑quality media brand.
  • If you need to support very old players and your burner supports bitsetting, set book type to DVD‑ROM (this only applies to +R/+RW media). (en.wikipedia.org)

’s point about using RW while testing is exactly right — use rewritable media to learn your authoring/burning settings, then move to write‑once discs for distribution.

Member Avatar for rproffitt

The difference between plus and minus has dozens of articles on the web. As to RW, you use that when you want to be able to erase and try again. I used that when testing how to make Video DVDs and then the -r or +r when I was ready to made media for distribution.

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