Difference between DVD+R and DVD-R?

Putting in links to specific products borders on advertising which is a rules violation.

However, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer the question about the meaning of +R and -R disks. The difference is in the type of material used in the disk which responds to the laser used to burn the data. Two different types of lasers are used. All DVD's are the same when it comes to the FORMAT of the data on the disk, so when completed and finalized, the disks are the same in any player. The difference is ONLY in HOW the data is written and what type of laser is required to DO the writing. It is kind of like a ball point pen and a fountain pen. The end result is ink on paper, but the method of how the ink got there is completely different. I can't believe there are people that are saying the disks are different. The disks are the SAME when it comes to playback. They are different ONLY in HOW they are WRITTEN, otherwise, the FORMAT is the SAME once the disk is "finalized". Some say that one type is better than the other for large files or whatever, but that is NOT TRUE. The end result is data pits which refract laser light differently to indicate one's and zero's. The laser in the DVD player does NOT care what the substrate is made of as long as the pits refract light in the proper manner to be one's and zero's. So, no disk is any better or any worse at reproduction of the data! That is like saying one book is better than another book because a different printing press was used! Think about it! DVD's and CD's are simply a spiral of data that starts at the center and spirals to the outer edge. The laser shines light on the track and looks for how it is refracted to see the one's and zero's in the data stream. A portion of the track is set aside for the table of contents, a portion is set aside for an index, and the rest is simply files, strung together like beads. The table of contents and index simply refer to a place relative to the start of the track. The disk does NOT CARE what the CONTENT is. The track is simply a long spiral of data in one's and zero's with defined locations along the string for things like the table of contents and index to point into the data. THAT is the difference between +R and -R. By the way all audio CD's are -R and -RW! It is only DVD's which have a second type of +R and +RW.

There are some technical differences between the two, there is also DVD-RAM and Blu-ray now as well. It's a different medium, just a different format of DVD. You should first figure out what your DVD burner supports (should be either on the packaging of the DVD burner or at least on the website of the manufacturer), then you need to figure out what your DVD player on your TV supports (same thing, either on the packaging or webiste), finally, if they both are supported by your recorder and player, get a small pack of both and burn the same movie and see which looks better on your TV. Good luck.

DVD+R is a format developed by Sony which includes writing and security options to reduce the risk of incompatibility with systems and write format errors. DVD-R (dash R) is the original writable DVD format which is universally supported by all DVD drives, you can write a +R as a standard DVD though. A DVD+R formatted DVD must be used in a drive which supports DVD+R, which most PC drives do, but there are still a number of DVD players out there that don't support this write format.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD%2BR

DVD+R tend to be considerably more efficient if used for multisession writing because they do not use a large ammount of space (LIKE DVD-R disc do) in "finalizing" each session.

Also location information is included in the tracking groove not saved in the data itself

(which wastes data space)

DVD-R uses "pre-pits" to help the drive recognize an upcoming "pit" DVD+R. use tracking groove information to find a specific pit.

because there are no "pre-pits" the pits themselves are larger (and thus a larger target

if disc quality is presumed to be the same a +r disc tends to be more readable with some scratches than an otherwise identically scratched -R

The differences are more complicated issue than explained above, but not specifically relevant to the average user.

A simple explanation: http://netforbeginners.about.com/cs/multimedia/a/D...

DVD-R is good for writing large files to, and or burning an disk image to, DVD+R is good for writing many smaller files to.

Both are same