Does bitsetting mean +R -R difference is nothing?

[Mutant_Fruit]

Basically, i can buy a 5pack of DVD+R's for EUR6.27 in DVD cases, or a 5pack of the same brand, except DVD-R's for EUR4.60.

Does it matter which one i get if my drive can do bitsetting? Or are DVD+R's physically better quality or more compatible? I would assume that if i used bitsetting to set the disc to DVD-Rom it would not matter at all whether they are +R or -R.

Could someone clarify this for me?
Thanks

[Doom9]

bitsetting only matters if you have a drive that has never heard of DVD+R (meaning a DVD reader of course.. if you have a DVD burner and it doesn't have the RW logo on it, it'll never burn any DVD+RWs unless you have one of those models where you can buy a firmware upgrade.. but they're rather rare). The discs are not physically identical, but the flag makes certain (old) drives read DVD+R that would otherwise refuse to cooperate because they don't know what a DVD+R is (but might still technically capable of reading such discs.. it's just that the player refuses to read a disc of a type it has never heard of).

[Mutant_Fruit]

I think i didn't phrase that correctly. What i was trying to ask was the following...

Neither DVD+R or DVD-R are 100% compatible. I presume this is because the booktypes are not recognised by older players. Therefore if i bought some DVD-R's and set their booktype to DVD-Rom, would they be just as compatible as DVD+R's with booktype set to DVD-Rom.

And if i did that, would the resulting discs play back in 99% of players, as they will be recognised as DVD-Roms rather than DVD+R or DVD-R's.

[Dimmer]

Bitsetting is just a minor issue when it comes to compatibility, and it mostly affects only older players manufactured before recordable DVD appeared. Media quality is much more important. One common fact about the media is that the brand has nothing to do with actual media manufacturer. Especially with DVD+R, only few companies in the world manufacture these discs, which are then sold under lots of different brands. With DVD-R you have a greater chance to come across forged manufacturer's ID pre-recorded onto disc. In other words, you have try and see what works better for you.

In any case, don't expect 99% compatibility, but you might get close to it. Check out www.videohelp.com for the info on compatibility of different players and media.

[Mutant_Fruit]

Grand, thanks for clearing that up for me. I think i'll stick with the more expensive DVD+R's. I know that they are a good brand (or so i;ve been told), so i don't see the point in changing, as there's only 20cent difference per disc in the price.

Here's the disc type: Thats Write DVD+r 4x discs.

Media Information
Disc Regions are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
Media code/Manufacturer ID RICOHJPNR01
Media Product Revision Number 02h
Volume Name FAMGUY1
Application id
Implementation id AHEAD Nero
Recording Date/Time (mm/dd/yyyy) 5/13/2004 23:04:36
Format Capacity 4.36GB(4.68GB)
Book Type DVD+R
Media Type DVD+R
Media Id Code Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CAV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CAV 5.9x 8112KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.4x 3324KBps
Data area starting sector 30000h
Data area end sector 22E21Fh
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1

[Dimmer]

Good, that's probably one of most common DVD+R types. I purchased discs of this kind not only under brand Ricoh, but also TDK, Maxell, and Verbatim (bulk). Out of almost a hundred, I only had an issue couple of times with corrupted data at the outer edge, which came away by itself about half an hour after burning (disc cooldown?).

[Doom9]

@Mutant_Fruit: as Dimmer mentioned, bitsetting is a minor issue. If a drive just can't handle DVD+R, such a setting won't make a difference.. it only makes a difference where the drive is physically capable of handling the disc type, but refuses to do so because it doesn't know what a DVD+R disc is (meaning the drive has been manufactured before DVD+R was out). If the drive is physically incapable of handling the DVD+R disc, the disc type (as in the bitsetting value) makes no difference whatsoever.

[Angelus]

Depending on your DVD burner, there are "hacked" firmware updates which "could" allow you burner read and write dvd-r/+r. I have a Lite-On 411s drive which is physically the same as the Lite-On 811s, only the 811s has a higher writing speed. I downloaded a firmware to upgrade my 411s to 811s and now i can write up to 8x on my drive. One place to check is here:
http://forum.rpc1.org/