DVD

From Mac Guides

DVD, commonly expanded to Digital Versatile Disk although it doesn't officially stand for anything, is an optical storage medium supported by most recent Macintosh models. Introduced worldwide between 1996-1999 and included in Macintosh computers from around the same time, DVD disks physically resemble CDs and can be used in Macs equipped with a SuperDrive, Combo Drive or DVD-ROM.

The main user-visible difference between a CD and DVD is the storage capacity, up to about 700 MB for a CD and 4.7 GB or more for a DVD.

Contents 1 DVD Variants 1.1 Application types 1.2 Disc Mediums 1.3 Capacities 2 Links

DVD Variants

There are many variants of DVDs, shown below. Typically, Macs don't have a problem reading any, except proprietary formats (Xbox, PS2, SACD, for example).

Application types

• DVD-Video (containing movies (video and sound))
• DVD-Audio (containing high-definition sound)
• SACD (containing high-definition sound)
• DVD-VR (containing recorded video and sound, usually from TV or camcorder)
• DVD+VR (a variation of DVD-Video used for recording on +R and +RW discs)
• PS2 DVD (containing games for PlayStation 2)
• Xbox DVD (containing games for Xbox)
• DVD-Data (containing data)

Disc Mediums

• DVD-ROM: read only, manufactured by a press
• DVD-R: recordable once
• DVD-RW: rewritable
• DVD-RAM: random access rewritable
• DVD+R: recordable once
• DVD+RW: rewritable
• DVD-R DL: dual layer record once
• DVD+R DL: dual layer record once

Capacities

The disc may have one or two sides, and one or two layers of data per side; the number of sides and layers determines the disc capacity.

• DVD-5: single sided, single layer, 4.7 gigabytes (GB), or 4.38 gibibytes (GiB)
• DVD-9: single sided, double layer, 8.5 GB (7.92 GiB)
• DVD-10: double sided, single layer on both sides, 9.4 GB (8.75 GiB)
• DVD-14: double sided, double layer on one side, single layer on other, 13.3 GB (12.3 GiB)
• DVD-18: double sided, double layer on both sides, 17.1 GB (15.9 GiB)

Note: GiB shows actual usable capacity. See Computing Units for more information.

There are also 8 cm DVDs (not mini-DVD, which usually refers to DVD-Video data on a CD) with a disc capacity of 1.5 GB.

Links

See also Wikipedia:DVD