ureadit

About a year ago, I found a really good deal on blank DVD disks. I purchased a pack of 50 for about 35 dollars. I then set that pack aside for a while, promising myself that someday I would use them for making some movies.

When that day arrived, I found that my newly loaded Microsoft Vista could not program the disks. Vista could read a DVD disk in the drive, but it just couldn’t write to it. Unwittingly, I bought into the hype that Vista was no good, and that it did not come with enough drivers to support all hardware.

Last weekend, I promised my wife that I would fix this problem for good. She wanted me to make some copies of our wedding DVD. Since we were married in the Netherlands, the DVD conformed to the European video standard known as PAL. North America, on the other hand, uses NTSC. They are very incompatible, but I knew that there must be a way to convert the formats.

Upon embarking on this new mission, I first looked for the latest drivers for the DVD drive, and then I upgraded Vista to the latest Service Pack. After a couple hours, I thought I was in a good position to program some of the stack of DVDs I’d purchased.

No such luck, however. Microsoft apparently hadn’t fixed the problem.

Or so I thought . . .

I investigated online and tripped into a website that gave me an idea. I hadn’t noticed this before, but the stack of blank DVD disks were marked “DVD-R.” I never paid attention to the hyphen in this marking. I just thought it was an incidental “dash” to separate the letters “DVD” from the “R”. That was a mistake, I learned.

I looked closer at the icon for the DVD drive in the “My Computer” window within Vista. I right-clicked on the icon and selected “Properties.” Then I clicked on the “Hardware” tab and noticed that the DVD drive was listed as “DVD+R/W”. Hmmmm … Why would there be a “+” on the drive and a “-“on the disk? And what’s with the “W?” It was time to investigate more.

So I quickly learned that there are two types of DVD formats, and they can be differentiated with “+” and “-“. They are not compatible. Even a blank DVD disk has information on it that will tell the drive whether it’s a “+” or “-“.

I found another good deal at Wal Mart, where I purchased 20 blank DVDs for about $9. These were marked, “DVD+R.” I put one of them into the drive, and voila! Vista was ready to program it.

I then downloaded the Magic DVD Ripper and converted PAL to NTSC. A few minutes later, I handed a newly programmed DVD to my wife. I received a few “hero” points in return.

Bottom Line: I learned two things:

1. There’s a difference between DVD+ and DVD-.

2. And when someone says Vista is no good, challenge him on it. Had my mind not been polluted with the hype that said Vista doesn’t have drivers for all its hardware, I would have solved the DVD problem a year ago, perhaps in enough time to exchange my 50-pack of DVD disks for the correct type.

If anyone can use the DVD-R disks, leave me a comment and let me know. I’ll send them to you if you pay the postage.

Best,

Dan

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