The DVD Format Wars

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Understanding the DVD Format Wars

Remember when DVDs first hit the mainstream? No rewinding? Cool. There's 6 hours of extra footage and features? I'm ecstatic! Everyone was in love; it was like the transition from audio cassettes to CDs, or, to stay in vogue, CDs to mp3s. DVDs were everywhere, but nobody cared about their "format". Pop it in, sit back and lose yourself in Hollywood-grade entertainment. What could be easier?

Technology marches on. Companies are now actively vying for the dominance of their proprietary DVD format. There are now several major DVD formats floating around. How do consumers know what format is compatible with their DVD devices? Let's go through some of the popular DVD formats to get a clearer picture.

An Old Friend: DVD-ROM

This guy was the first DVD standard to be popped into millions of devices the world over. Its technology is a bit long in the tooth, as it employs a read-only format. DVD-ROMs can be played on any DVD-ROM device, which are mostly all DVD players on the market today.

HD-DVD begets Blue-Ray and AOD

HD-DVD stands for "high definition DVD", which basically means that you can burn high-definition content onto a DVD. The HD-DVD format pummels the standard DVD format in storage terms, as it can hold up to 4 times as much data. The two rival HD-DVD-based formats are Blue-Ray and AOD.

DVD+R and its versatile sibling DVD+RW

Prominent companies such as Sony and Philips support the popular DVD+R and DVD+RW formats. DVD+R is a "burnable" format, which means you can record data on it with a DVD burner; this format specifies that you can only burn data one time, as the data is permanent once it's written.

DVD+RW is a format that is not unlike the ubiquitous CD-RW format. You're able to burn data multiple times with a DVD+RW disc, and you can erase its contents without destroying the medium.

Most DVD-ROM players on the market can read standard DVD+R and DVD+RW discs.

A Minus instead of Plus: DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM

Apple and Samsung, as well as a slue of other companies, support this format that uses a "minus" instead of a "plus" to separate it from the others. DVD-R is similar in fashion with DVD+R; it too can only write to a disc one time. DVD-RW is in competition with the DVD+RW format; they pretty much allow you to do the same thing: burn data to a disc multiple times and provides erasing capabilities.

The DVD-RAM format contains the same features of DVD+RW, but this format can only be played on specialized devices that support the DVD-RAM format, which means only a select number of companies that produce DVD-RAM devices for mass consumption.

With so many DVD formats on the market today, it's hard to know what device will support what format. Now that you've a better understanding of DVD formats in general, you'll be better equipped to purchase that new DVD device you've had your eye on.

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