DVD Disc Formats Explained

If you have collected lots of DVD discs you must have mentioned that there are quite a few different DVD formats out there. Do you know well about these commonly used DVD disc formats? I'm sure most of you may get confused about them. In this article, we just introduce those standard DVD formats for you. Just read on to learn the details of DVD formats now.

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DVD Disc Formats Classification

There are several DVD formats commonly used nowadays. All these common DVD disc formats can be classified into two categories. One is physical format which is the basic formats for holding data. The other is application format which is used to store data to playback on DVD-Video player or DVD computer.

The physical formats include DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-ROM. And the commonly used DVD-Video and DVD-Audio are belong to application formats. The following paragraphs will show you the detail use of each DVD format.

DVD Disc Formats Explained in Detail

1. DVD-Video: This DVD format is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. It is widely used to in watching movies and other visual entertainment. If using double-faced and double-layer for each side, the total capacity can up to 17GB. This DVD disc format is commonly used in home video discs. Its use is similar to CD and VCD.
2. DVD-Audio: It is the latest audio format which has a double fidelity than standard CD. DVD-Audio, as a consumer audio format, is widely used in music dics. It has a similar usage as music CD.
3. DVD-ROM: As one of the most popular DVD disc formats, DVD-ROM has the same basic technology with DVD Video. But it contains a file format which is compatible with your computer. This Read Only Memory for computer software is used to store data. This format disc can only write data once. Once the data are written on, the information will be permanently stored on the disc. This format DVD will run on any DVD-ROM-equipped device.
4. DVD-R: Its capacity is 4.7GB. In fact they created two versions for professional and general users to use. Users can only write once DVD-R, so it also called DVD-Write-Once.
5. DVD-RAM: This makes DVD a virtual hard disk which can be used to random access information. The original is a 2.6GB driver, but the capacity can be increased up to 4.7GB. Besides, this format DVD disc can be rewritten 100,000 times.
6. DVD-RW: It is similar to the DVD-RAM, but it read, write and access sequentially. It likes DVD-R more than a hard disk. Each side of the read - write capacity is 4.7GB. And the difference between DVD-R and DVD-RW is that DVD-R is a write-once DVD format similar to CD-R, and DVD-RW is a re-recordable format similar to CD-RW. DVD-RW can be rewritten 1000 times.
7. DVD+R: A recordable DVD format similar to CD-R. Compared with DVD-R, DVD+R has a relatively large capacity, faster read and write and supports inline technology (internal linking). In Windows, you can directly drag and burn files. Capacity: Single 4.37GB, double-sided 8.75GB. The format with "DL" (such as DVD+R DL) indicates that use a double-layer storage which means a greater capacity. The single-side and double-layer recordable DVD disc has a capacity of 7.95GB, and the dual-side and double-layer for 15.9GB.
8. DVD+RW: It is is the most easy-to-use DVD recording standards which has the best compatibility with existing formats. DVD + RW is the only rewritable format which is fully compatible with all existing DVD players, DVD drivers.

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Tags: DVD Disc Formats, DVD Formats Explained, Standard DVD Formats