DVD Burner question!

DuoEnigma · Post by **DuoEnigma** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:37 pm

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3986034 this one has one layer, what does that mean?

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3992939 this one has 2 layers,

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:41 pm

A double layer means that there are two layers that data can be written to, I believe. The effect is one of much increased storage, IIRC.

aznfs · Post by **aznfs** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:27 pm

u can get double the space;; but i not sure how many dual layer discs are even up for sale right now;; let alone for cheap

jbone · Post by **jbone** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:54 pm

Dual-layer burners are only slightly more expensive than single-layer burners.

The choice is a no-brainer - get a dual-layer burner because the technology is newer and will last you longer.

A single layer holds about 3.85GB, or about 4,500,000 bytes. A dual-layer disc will hold about 7.7GB without the need to flip a disc.

As a comparison, most newer movies are on single-sided, dual-layer discs, so that more information can be stored without flipping the disc - the movie can be better looking with more audio tracks, more extras can be included, etc.

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:41 pm

jbone wrote:A single layer holds about 3.85GB, or about 4,500,000 bytes. A dual-layer disc will hold about 7.7GB without the need to flip a disc.

Out of curiosity (I don't actually have a DVD burner myself)... if that's the case, then why does everyone advertise <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=4. ... >-capacity DVDs? And why do they call dual-layer discs "DVD-9s"?

narcted · Post by **narcted** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 12:01 am

Scintilla wrote:
jbone wrote:A single layer holds about 3.85GB, or about 4,500,000 bytes. A dual-layer disc will hold about 7.7GB without the need to flip a disc.
Out of curiosity (I don't actually have a DVD burner myself)... if that's the case, then why does everyone advertise <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=4. ... >-capacity DVDs? And why do they call dual-layer discs "DVD-9s"?

In marketing terms, the DVD capacity is 4.7 GB. But, the actual available size is 4.37 GB. This is because "giga" in the real world has two calculation methods. One is 10 to the 9th power, which is 1,000,000,000. And the other is 2 to the 30th power, which is 1,073,741,824. Thus, 4.37 * 1,073,741,824 is nearly equal to 4.7 * 1,000,000,000.

The terms DVD 9 and DVD 5 are just following basic math rules of rounding up. Your rounding up from 8.5 and 4.7, respectively. It's just marketing.

Imaginos · Post by **Imaginos** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 12:17 am

Also it should be noted that Dual Layer drives can brun single layer DVDs

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 1:16 am

Oh, that whole MB/MiB thing again. That's still more than what JBone said, though, which was why I was wondering. Thanks for clearing that up.

Zero1 · Post by **Zero1** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:58 am

Dual layer burners are a nice concept an' all, but people seem to have omitted that they are slow as hell.

I believe the current fastest I have seen is 2.4x which I'm guessing equates to 30 mins per disc

aznfs · Post by **aznfs** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:11 pm

yea my dual layer burns @ 2.4x;; single 8x;; of course dvd9s are still expensive