Which should I use to allow the MOST people to watch a DVD recording of my wedding?My DVD burner will burn DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD+R/W.I should point out that the DVDs are for my husband's European relatives (meaning "parents") who couldn't make it to the wedding.
DVD-R is your best bet, especially for people who might have a slightly older player.
- or + R/W is a re-writeable disc. Do not give that to them.
DVD-R is the most universal especially on older players
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Choose DVD-R/W unless you know you will not make any recording errors.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Trust me, they may tell you they want a DVD of your wedding, but after about the first three seconds, it's going off. Save your energy.
DVD-R .... BUT unless they have a universal DVD player that handles both PAL and NTSC it may be difficult for them to play North American format (NTSC) video since Europe is PAL based. The two video systems are incompatible. You may wish to consider having whatever disc you record rerecorded by a commercial copy house that can produce a PAL disk.
Despite the rumors, there is no difference in format compatibility between DVD+R and DVD-R. Both have problems, but unless the DVD players are very old, they should be able to play both formats. I have sent out all of my travel DVDs on DVD+R (about 100 of them) and have not had a single return, and they have gone all over the world. My ancient Magnavox DVD player (one of the earliest models made) will play DVD+R but not DVD-R. Definitely DO NO USE ANY RW (rewriteable) discs; these are much harder to read for any player. Again, it doesn't matter whether it's +RW or -RW, both have problems. Definitely use the best media you can find, and do not use the fastest recording speed (if you can control that). Finally, do not worry about sending your NTSC discs to people in countries that use PAL. For some reason, PALDVD players were designed to read NTSC, but US players cannot read PAL. I have sent NTSC discs to Spain, South Africa, Australia and Thailand without problems.