There's no entirely correct answer to this question. Depending on what you read and who you talk too, one media is always better than the other. If possible you should check your target DVD player to see what media type it supports and use the appropriate type. Also if your DVD burner only supports burning +R or -R media, this will be a factor as well. At DVD Reflections, we've found that +R media when burned with a booktype of DVD-ROM can be more compatable than -R media. However, if your burner doesn't support the changing of the +R booktype, then -R media is generally more compatable. In either case, players produced before 2002 may have problems playing either media type.
Commercially produced DVD's are actually stamped when created. Burned DVD's are not stamped, instead a laser burns the video/audio information into a layer of ink contained on the DVD. The difference between stamping and burning means that the reflectivity characteristics between the 2 formats are quite different; reflectivity is important because to play a DVD a laser is shined on the surface, the pits or holes stamped or burned change the reflection of the laser light and it's these changes that create the video picture you see and the audio information you hear.
When DVD players were first released, DVD media for burned DVD's wasn't available, so these players were designed specifically for reading commercially produced DVD's. Later when -R media was created, players were released that could read both formats, and again with +R media that has different characteristics than -R. In addtion to the reflectivity issues, some DVD players look at the DVD booktype and will only play DVD's with a booktype that they recognize. The solution? One option is to purchase a newer DVD player, and before purchase, check to make sure that it will play the type of DVD's that you burn.
DVD's have a small section set aside for keeping certain types of information about the DVD, such as the DVD manufacturer and other items. One of the other items is the booktype, which can be used to tell the DVD Player if it's reading a DVD-ROM (a commercially stamped DVD), a -R DVD, +R DVD or some other type of DVD. When the +R format was created, the decision was made to allow the booktype information to be burned by the DVD burner. By default most DVD+R burners will burn a booktype of +R. Some burners allow the booktype to be changed and some software, such as Nero will let you access this feature of the burner. By changing the booktype, you can make a DVD Player think it's playing a DVD-ROM when in fact it's actually playing a +R DVD that you burned.
+R DL refers to +R Double Layer. This media, in conjunction with a burner capable of burning +R DL and appropriate burning software can be used to burn a DVD with up to 8.5GB of information. The major drawback to DL media is its cost. If you are planning to burn DL media for use in your DVD player, be sure to get a DL burner that supports changing the booktype, or by default burns DL media with a booktype of DVD-ROM and burning software that will correctly create what's refered to as the "layer break" (the location in the material where we change from one layer to the next). Ability to change the booktype is very important because +R DL media was assigned a new booktype code which many DVD players on the market don't recognise.
You can, but Video DVD's are typically MPEG-2 video & AC3 (Dolby Stereo) audio, which is a heavily compressed format (see the discussion on DIVX below).
Most, if not all video editing software supports Digital Video encoding. DV has a reasonable trade-off for quality vs. size. You can have approximately 1 hour of video in a 13GB DV AVI file, compared to an uncompressed AVI file which would take up 65GB.
Like MPEG-2, DIVX is a highly compressed storage format and is generally considered a delivery format rather than an editing format. While some video editing programs can read the DIVX format, because it is so highly compressed the computer must work much harder to decode the information, which means slower editing. In addition, since DIVX is compressed timewise as well as spacewise you don't have as much control in editing when compared with DV (which is only compressed in space, not time).
Manufacturers of storage media use base 10 (like most of us) for describing the amount of storage space available. Computer operating systems frequently use base 2 for describing available space. In other words, 1k for most humans is 1,000 but 1k for a computer is 1,024. From the computer perspective, a DVD that claims to hold 4.7GB (base 10) can only hold approximately 4.37GB (base 2).
Digital Video stored in AVI files typically results in very large files - for example, one hour of digital video will consume approximately 13GB of disk space. The FAT32 file system does not allow files larger than 2GB in size, so you would then need multiple files (7 of them in our example) each storing a portion of the 1 hour video. NTFS does not have this size limit and so allows all of the video to be stored in a single file.
Many DVD Authoring programs do have the ability to burn the DVD in addition to authoring the content, however, our experience has been that some authoring programs may have issues working with certain types of DVD burners or certain types of DVD media, and they may not always create the most compatible DVD (the main focus of the program is authoring, not burning). Nero and CopyToDVD are both primarily DVD burning programs (and in the case of Nero, CD burning as well). As such they have much better compatability with the variety of DVD burners and media available. It may not be necessary to invest in either program if your authoring program works correctly with your configuration - we simply suggest them as alternatives in case you encounter difficulty.