DVD-R vs. DVD+R

Reader Harry writes: My dvd drive in my computer says DVD+/-RW. Which blank disc do I buy: -R or +R or -/+R, for one-time recording? What brand do you prefer for movies?

Back in the old days (we're talking roughly 2002), there were two competing writeable DVD formats: DVD-R and DVD+R. Anyone who remembers the more recent battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD knows the story: A bunch of companies lined up on one side of the fence and a bunch lined up on the other. A battle of wills and pocketbooks ensued: Would DVD-R or DVD+R become the standard for writeable DVDs?

Unlike the high-definition DVD battle, this one had an unusual outcome, quite rare in the world of tech: Both standards became accepted.

It helps that DVD-R and DVD+R weren't terribly different in design from the start. Both can be read and written using the same kind of hardware without much extra work, unlike Blu-ray and HD DVD, so it was a rather simple matter to design an optical drive that could handle both formats. Ultimately, manufacturers of DVD drives decided to end-run the media companies' format war and simply include the firmware to support both types of discs. Case closed.

Today you'll be hard-pressed to find an optical drive that doesn't support both DVD-R and DVD+R, and they're noted as DVD+/-R (or more commonly DVD+/-RW) drives. (The plus is typically above the minus sign, but I can't render that accurately in this blog post.)

Discs, however, are one or the other. There's no such thing as a DVD+/-R disc, only DVD+R or DVD-R media.

So, which one is "better?" Tough question, and different sources make different claims about the merits of each. DVD+R has a few technical advantages, but they're extremely slight. DVD-R on the other hand seems to be slightly more compatible with standalone DVD players, so if you burn a movie onto a DVD, you're theoretically more likely to get a disc that works. That said, there are players that support DVD-R but not DVD+R, and vice versa. There's not a lot of rhyme or reason to it, but most modern players accept both. Check the manual of the hardware you own already, as that could drive your selection of what kind of disc to use. In the abstract, though, most users will notice zero difference between the two types of discs.

As for brands, any name brand is fine. I use Verbatim, Maxell, Memorex, and Sony discs regularly and have never encountered any problems aside from format incompatibility, which has nothing to do with the brand. I suggest you buy what's on sale.