DVD size

[anders@dac.se]

I use nero to burn movies and other DVD content. But I cant burn 4.7 gigbytes. I can only burn 4.5. Whats wrong?

[int 21h]

From the Pioneer website:
CAPACITY:
DVD capacities are expressed in billion byte quantities. For example a single layer DVD holds 4.7 billion bytes (G bytes), not 4.7 gigabytes (GB). It only holds 4.37 gigabytes. A gigabyte is normally accepted in the computer world to mean 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes, or about 1.07 billion bytes. However in the real world normally "giga" represents multiples of 1000. DVD-R and DVD-RW media will hold precisely 4.7 billion bytes. This 7% difference between 4.7 and 4.37 has created a lot of confusion, because people will complain that they can't get a 4.65 gigabyte disc image to fit onto a 4.7 billion byte disc. This is very true, albeit confusing due to the lack of standards in specifying capacities of digital storage devices. DVD-R/RW writing software may report the available disc space of a newly erased DVD-RW as 4.489GB but it is in fact 4.37GB. So you need to keep your total project file size to less than 4.37GB.

[Gil T Pleasure]

a single layer DVD holds 4.7 billion bytes (G bytes), not 4.7 gigabytes (GB).

Actually, a single layer DVD holds 4.7 billion bytes or 4.7 gigabytes. ;)

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Info/Units/binary.html),
one gibibyte 1 GiB = 2^30 B = 1 073 741 824 B
one gigabyte 1 GB = 10^9 B = 1 000 000 000 B