kantash200
Answer
'Better' is such a difficult word, don't you think? There is, for sure, a difference, and it's important under some circumstances. But, to tease out an answer to this, I'll supply a little background first.
DVD is essentially a tighter form of the CD. The little bitty pits are smaller, closer together, and the spiral track they're on is tighter, and so on. But, how the data is arranged on the disk (within the file system) differs between CDs and DVDs. There were lots of different arrangements for CD (CD-ROM, CD-Audio, CD-SA, CD-Interactive, Blue Book, White Book, etc, etc...). It was a confusing mess. CD drives with the Multi-Read logo are supposed to be able to cope with most of this.
The DVD folk went for a single file system, at first, but have since become 'more flexible'. And, beneath the file systems themselves, there can be differences in how sectors are tracked, how error correction is done, and other even more esoteric differences. Even though the pits and lands are essentially the same between -R and +R.
DVD-R (and -RW) was released to market first. It is optimized (at the sector management and error correction levels) for streaming data. This is the sort of thing you get in video and audio information (in which data is largely read one sector after another after another) and jumping to a different sector for the 'next' batch of data is rare.
DVD+R (and +RW) was introduced a little later, and for a more general purpose. It was designed to accomodate data which was less streaming oriented, and which required jumping around from sector to sector to find the 'next' chunk. So +R disks can manage streaming data, AND non-streaming data. As well, because this is often computer data (whether programs or data) in which a single bit error might be disastrous, +R error correction is far better than -R. If you're creating a DVD with computer data on it (not just streaming data) you're better off with +R or +RW. The usual sort of streaming data is typically far less sensitive to the odd lost or damaged bit here or there, since we will see it only as a momentaty glitch in the image or a brief 'tick' in the audio (at most).
These arrangements are sufficiently different between -R and +R that some drives (and drive software) were unable to read both. This has largely disappeared as a problem (especially for drives intended for computers) since more recent drives (the last few years, anyway) will read all (or most) formats. There are still some DVD players (ie, for movies) which can't read +R however, even if there's a movie recorded on it.
So my advice is to use only +R (or +RW) unless you know for sure that the only data you'll be writing to the DVD is of the streaming sort (ie, video or audio). Since this is hard to manage (some video/audio recording software might park some computer data on the DVD while doing the streaming stuff; easy to provide more 'features' that way), you'll often be somewhat out of touch with what is really going on. Or, perhaps, the DVD drive you have will only read -R, in which case that's all you can use. If so, it will probably be somewhat elderly by now, however, and with drive prices well below US$50-60 (if you buy right), there's little reason to stick with so elderly a disk drive.
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Use as computer backup
One of the major uses for large capacity DVDs is backing up computer data. Of course, some of us blithely hope we'll never need a backup... This is simply foolish and feckless and silly. Ostriches are just as silly when they (legendarily) stick their heads in the sand. Those of us with a little more good sense hope that we'll never need them, but hard drives do fail, and computers do get damaged by a lightning strike or floods or kids or pets or ... If you need a backup, it had best be the highest quality copy you can manage, and in DVDs that implies +R (or +RW) rather than -R (or -RW) since there is better error correction in those disks.
But, while on the subject of CD and DVD backups, there is something to note that seems not very widely known. CD and DVD data is stored in the differences between very very tiny 'pits' and the adjacent 'lands'. A dust particle (almost no matter how small) is more than enough to interfere with many of these. As is corrosion or tarnish or indeed anything which changes the reflective properties of the surface in which the pits and lands are (for a factory pressed CD or DVD) or in the material which is changed by the writing laser to make the 'pits' (in the Write Once, Read Many times or the Rewriteable types). The surfaces are protected on one side (the side that faces the read or write laser) by a thickness of laser transparent plastic. On the other side of the recording surface, it's protected by a layer of paint -- well, lacquer really -- which is only a few thousandths of an inch thick. It's that side the label is printed on. And, for two layer disks, the printed label will be confined to a donut around the center hole since the printing will interfere with the laser if it's on either disk surface. In the case of dual layer disks, there are two readable surface layers accessible from one side. The lower layer is just read through the higher layer by changing the focus ofhte read laser beam. Sneaky, but it works...
Anyway, the way that CDs and DVDs are built has implications for their use as backup media. If only a thin layer of lacquer protects the reading/writing surface, your data depends on that layer staying intact. No scratches, no 'vacations' in the application of the lacquer in the factory, no especially vulnerable thin layers, ... When outside air, moisture, pollutants, ... come in contact with the recording surface (usually backed by a very thin layer of a reflective metal -- gold, aluminum, ...) for any reason, the damage to that surface may (and usually does) make the data there unreadable, regardless of any sort of error correction. That's why you're not supposed to use a ball point pen to write on the disk label, nor to use some kinds of markers since their ink might damage (soften or dissolve) the lacquer surface. If some of your valuable backup data was there, it's gone now. And this corrosion problem is true even for the disk edge since air, moisture, ... can enter there too. Don't let the edges of your CDs and DVDs get scuffed or nicked or ...
CDs and DVDs are attractive as backup media (small, lightweight, cheap, ...), but they're much more fragile than is usually ever appreciated. If you use them, protect them very very well. They are not at all sturdy or tough, really.
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Dual something
The dual sided DVDs and the dual layer DVDs and the dual-both DVDs aren't much of an issue here. The differences between -R and +R are in how sectors are managed, not in bulk issues like how a DVD disk is put together and how many layers or sides are included.
Why does my elderly mom hate throwing things away?
Jessica Ag
sometimes she will take things out of the trash and clean them to keep them. Its best not to ask her if she wants something when you are throwing it out because she will keep it. She has two DVD players in her room that no one uses including her.
Today she kept my cats mat that i would put in front of her litter box to catch her litter. so she could put it in front of the dish washer. it really grossed me out and annoyed me that she dug it out of the trash like that.
I feel bad thinking bad things. but to me its just so disgusting. i was thinking perhaps its because she was born in cuba and would constantly have police coming in and taking her things. We are doing okay financially, but perhaps she still feels that fear that someone will take away her belongings.
killer polo: have some respect, she is my mother. I know there is a reason for the things she does. I want to help her not hurt her.
wow, such great answers! I feel awful now for the bad thoughts that i had. I will try to be more understanding and respectful. but at the same time, i'll try to throw out whats really not necessary in a way that she wont find out.
Answer
A really good clue is that she came from Cuba. You didn't say how long ago she left Cuba but there has been an embargo against Cuba and it's hard to bring anything into the country so people are and were very frugal and creative in keeping old things and finding a way to repair them. If she has two working DVD players they are still good to use for something and may come in handy some day. Yes, the litter box mat would be gross and unsanitary to use in the kitchen but she is probably still in the mindset of not throwing something away if it can be used for anything, including a repair of something else. Best not to argue with her, just get her another mat and be discreet in tossing stuff out like that so that she doesn't retrieve them. Elderly people who went through the Great Depression in the U.S. were also great savers of anything that might remotely be used for anything...my uncle would pick up things he found during his work day on the farm and stuff them in his overalls pockets, it was always interesting to see what he would pull out of his pockets at the end of the day....pieces of baling wire, string, old nails & screw, washers, etc. He had shelves in his old smoke house full of old jars filled with such items and most never got used before we left the farm.
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