The purpose of this article is to provide a quick introduction to the most common DVD types. Notice that it's essential to understand these formats before starting to burn DVD discs.

DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disc (or Digital Video Disc as well) and it was designed for digital media storage, more specifically for replacing the previous VHS and SVHS technology.

A DVD is basically a CD with larger capacity; but the DVD has two major attributes that makes it different from the CD: The ability to store data on both sides of the disc, and with dual data layers on each side as well. The total DVD capacity ranges from 4.7 to 17.1 GB.

For detailed DVD-Video format specifications, please review the MPEG Formats article.

  DVD Applications

The DVD disc is a highly versatile discs, due to its different applications. Below is a brief description of the most common applications for DVD:

• DVD-Video, introduced in 1997, it has become the most successful format due to the ability of storing high quality movies with surround sound and several languages.

• DVD-ROM is the most immediate replacement for the CD-ROM format since it provides a much higher capacity for games and media. This format has been adopted by gaming consoles such as Microsoft's X-Box and Sony's PS2 already.

• DVD-Audio, introduced in 2000, is slowly expanding into the music industry by offering a  very high quality music with special features such as surround sound.

• Recordable Formats such as DVD-RAM and DVD-R are being rapidly extended to the computer area because of its high capacity which can be used for backup and games.

  DVD Physical Structure

A DVD disc has the same physical dimensions than those from the CD, but it's composed by two substrates attached by a bonding layer in the middle, with a structure similar to a sandwich.

Each substrate is 0.6 mm thick. The above view corresponds to a double sided DVD, which stores information on both disc sides.

  DVD-5

The DVD-5 is the simplest type of disc, because it features and unique data layer on one of its sides. Its effective capacity is 4.38 GB, and its structure is very similar to the used in the CD.

These discs can have a printed label on the unused side.

  DVD-9

The single sided, dual layer DVD-9 features two reflective surfaces on the same side of the disc, and this provides almost twice the capacity of the single layered DVD-5. The reading laser can read each layer independently. This provides 7.92 GB for data storage.

Its capacity is slightly smaller than twice the single layer version because its pits are 10% longer to make the second layer easier to read. This disc can be have a label on the unused side.

  DVD-10

The DVD-10 disc uses both sides to store data, each of them with a single reflective layer. Its capacity doubles the one from the DVD-5. To playback the other side of the disc, the disc must be extracted and turned over in most drives.

Since both sides of the disc contain data, the label printing can only be done on a thin ring in the center of the disc.

  DVD-18

DVD-18 provides the highest capacity of the DVD family, because it stores data on both sides using a dual layer structure on each of them. This provides almost 16 GB for effective storage.

This type of DVD is the most complex to manufacture, because the four data layers must be stamped on the same substrate. In the DVD-Video family, these discs usually contain a movie in Widescreen on one of its sides and the Fullscreen version on the other side.

  Questions? Comments?

If you have any questions or need support regarding this guide or article, don't hesitate to ask at the DivXLand.org forum personally.

  Related Topics

 description