DVD

DVD Burners are the best burnable media right now, not only for their storage size, but for their speed. DVD's hold approximately 4.7 Gigabytes of information (that's 4.7 billion bytes if you're curious) which is about six times the information a CD can hold. There are also double sided DVD's which can hold twice as much.

DVD's also read and burn at a rate of around 1352 KBs (kilobytes per second), while CD's burn at a default rate of 150 KBs, that's a little over 9 times faster.

The way you get your actual speed is by multiplying the default rate by the number in front of the X. (example: with a 8x dvd burner, 8 times 1352 = 10816 Kbs, and on a 52x cd burner, 52 times 150 = 7800) DVD burners have finally surpassed CD burners in speed, and only have potential to get faster. They are currently up to 16x for some media, so you can do the math.

DVD burners right now are usually around 16x4x16x, the left number being how fast it writes to a writable (DVD+R or DVD-R etc), the center number being how fast it writes to a re-writable (DVD+RW or DVD-RW), and the number on the right being how fast it can read a DVD.

Most DVD Burners can also burn regular CD's, making them extremely cost effective and versatile, and saving room for other devices you might need, especially if the number of slots you have available is limited.

There are so many different types of DVD media on the market, if you plan to play DVD’s in your home DVD player, you have to find out if it is compatible with burned DVD’s at all, and if so, what kind. There are several different kinds, here is a list of most of them:

DVD-R
DVD+R
DVD-RW
DVD+RW
DVD-Ram

Most DVD Burners have a specific format that they use specifically, so make sure that if your burner is only able to burn DVD-R, that you buy DVD-R’s, or else anything else will not work. Just make sure you pay attention to the details of what you're purchasing to get exactly what you need.

This article taken from Computer Discounts Guide - DVD Burner Guide. View the website for more helpful guides.

Donny Duncan, the author of Computer Discounts Guide has been in the computer field for over thirteen years.