Originally Posted by Ervin Farkas (Post 880835)

The first bits of information on any DVD are information about the type of DVD. When writable DVDs first came out (DVD-Rs), manufacturers burned this info onto the disk, thus you cannot change it ("the bit is set", unchangeable).

Then along came Sony unhappy with DVD-Rs, and created the DVD+R standard - and left this portion of the disk blank, writable. Now, if you use a regular burner, it will recognize the disk as DVD+R and write this info onto the disk. But if you use a bitsetting enabled burner + sofware, you can change this info ("set the bit") to DVD-ROM aka pressed DVD, giving players a much better chance to play it.

Originally Posted by Tom Bostick (Post 1702717)

sorry to dredge up an old thread, but does this still hold true today?

Originally Posted by Tom Bostick (Post 1702717)

also is it still a better idea to burn 16x or faster dvds at 4x speed?

Originally Posted by Randall Leong (Post 1702839)

Yes, it still holds true today. Some manufacturers' DVD burners still do not support bitsetting of single-layer DVD+R media at all - they are permanently fixed at the "DVD+R" booktype. However, those very same burners that cannot bitset single-layer DVD+R media at all will automatically bitset DVD+R DL (Double Layer) media to DVD-ROM no matter what. Other burners support bitsetting of all DVD+R media to DVD-ROM, but the bitsetting must be done manually for either single-layer or double-layer media or else the burner will default their bitsetting to DVD+R and DVD+R DL, respectively. These can result in discs that do not play back properly or at all on some standalone DVD players if one does not set the bitsetting (book type) properly.



In recent cases, yes - but only because the overall quality of blank DVD media has been slipping. With the disappearance of many media codes (such as SONY D21 and 16D1) and the manufacture of most DVD media now being handled by the likes of RiTEK, CMC Magnetics and Moser Baer, it's likely that the quality of most of today's DVDs has been lackluster. In fact, the most recent batch of Sony-branded DVD-R discs I purchased no longer has "SONY 16D1" MID - but "RITEKF1" instead.

Originally Posted by Tom Bostick (Post 1702858)

so could i save myself from having to add the bitsetting by just purchasing dvd-r then?

Originally Posted by Randall Leong (Post 1702864)

Not necessarily. In fact, there are a few older DVD players still in use that will hiccup on any media whose book type is not zero (DVD-ROM). DVD-R already has its own proprietary, non-zero book type already embedded in the write area and cannot be changed at all.

As for having to manually bitset DVD+R on a burner that supports such bitsetting, it depends on which software you are using to burn the DVD. Most "consumer" burning and authoring programs such as Nero will use whichever the burner is set to by default. On the other hand, ImgBurn and a few other burning programs will automatically bitset all DVD+R and DVD+R DL media to DVD-ROM unless you tell it not to do so or if your burner does not support bitsetting for a given type of media.