[willed]

I'm just putting a couple of movies that me and my friends made onto DVD, but don't know what sort to buy - for simple iMovie recording, does it make any difference these days whether it's DVD+R or -R? I don't think I'll need RW as they're just to send copies of the movies to my friends.

[almaink]

I think -R is most compatable but the key is finding a brand that works in your burner.

[OreoCookie]

This is not an OS X question, moving …

[Goldfinger]

Verbatim DVD-R. Cheap and very good. The 1 or 2 euro difference with a no name brand isn't worth it. Verbatim CD-Rs are even Tayo Yuden discs. Not sure about the DVD-Rs...

[pcguy1]

What brand and type of cdr was a huge issue back in early 2000's, but imo it is hardly a issue if you have a recent computer/burner.

any disc and cdr type that is "ON SALE" will work just fine.

[ghporter]

Burning DVDs is not as straightforward as burning CDs. There are TWO, incompatible types of recordables ("-R" and "+R") and two incompatible types of rewritables ("-RW" and "+RW"). Not all burners support both, which means that some support ONLY one type and others support only the other type.

So there IS a difference if your drive doesn't support both types. Otherwise, use what you find to be better supported in your DVD player. Lately, all the new ones seem to be compatible with both types of recordables and most are compatible with both types of rewritables.

[OreoCookie]

I still find that DVD burning is still a non-trivial subject, unlike CD-Rs, you cannot grab the first brand you find, but you can see differences in quality, that's for sure and confirmed by tests I've read. I agree with Goldfinger that Verbatim DVDs are of good quality and work well even if the DVDs were stored for a while. Bad (= usually cheap) DVD-Rs will read much much slower (much more jitter), especially if they are aged -- often even slower than it took to burn them.

[willed]

Cheers guys. Really shouldn't be this complicated eh?! I've got an iMac G5, so I guess the burner should handle both types.

[ghporter]

You don't specify whether you have an "Ambient Light Sensor" iMac G5 or an "iSight" iMac, but they both have DVD +/-R, +/-RW, -R Dual Layer drives so what it comes down to is if you have problems with a particular brand you keep track of that brand. Trial and error, and all that...

Good luck.

[mduell]

"Out of the box", the compatibility for minus R and plus R is about the same; they both work with ~90% of set top players. You can see which players work with what standard at videohelp.com/dvdplayers.
If you have the right software, you can set the booktype on DVD+R disks to read DVD-ROM, which improves compatibility to ~99%. I know of a few apps for Windows that can do this, but I doubt the iApps will.