Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Note
Plextor's Zero Link technology does support selective file erasure on DVD-RW media. Es-
sentially, Zero Link provides an equivalent to DVD+RW's lossless link feature, enabling
DVD-Video players that support DVD-RW media to play edited disks.
DVD+RW and DVD+R
DVD+RW,alsocalledDVDPhaseChangeRewritable,hasbeenthepremierDVDrecord-
able standard because it is the least expensive, easiest to use, fastest, and most compatible
with existing formats. It was developed and is supported by Philips, Sony, Hewlett-Pack-
ard, Mitsubishi Chemical (MCC/Verbatim), Ricoh, Yamaha, and Thomson, who are all
part of an industry standard group called the DVD+RW Alliance (
www.dvdservices.org
)
.
Microsoft joined the alliance in February 2003. DVD+RW is also supported by major
DVD/CD-creation software vendors and many drive vendors, including HP, Philips,
Ricoh, and many remarketers of OEM drive mechanisms. Although DVD-RW has in-
creased in popularity with the advent of faster burning times and easier operation,
DVD+RW is the most popular rewritable DVD format.
Table 11.15
lists the basic specifications for DVD+RW drives.
Table 11.15 DVD+RW Specifications
Note that DVD+R, the recordable version of DVD+RW, was actually introduced
after
DVD+RW.ThisistheoppositeofDVD-RW,whichgrewoutofDVD-R.Oneofthemajor
reasons for the development of DVD+R was to provide a lower-cost method for perman-
entdataarchivingwithDVD+RWdrives,andanotherwasbecauseofcompatibilityissues
with DVD-ROM and DVD video players being incapable of reading media created with
DVD+RW drives. However, most standard DVD-ROM drives or DVD players can read
both DVD+R and DVD+RW media without problems.
The basic structure of a DVD+RW or DVD+R disc resembles that of a DVD-R disc with
datawritteninthegroovesonly(referto
Figure11.14
),butthegrooveiswobbledatafre-
