What formats can External DVD Drives handle?

Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 10:55 am

All new external DVD drives can write and rewrite data and video to DVD-R/DVD-RW and DVD+R/DVD+RW formats. You can only write to DVD-R and DVD+R discs but these discs offer high compatibility with drives and DVD players. You can write to and erase DVD+RW and DVD-RW about 1,000 times, but they can have compatibility with with older players, drives, and some current DVD recorders. Most new burners today support both +/- formats. Multiformat drives are available that can read, write, and rewrite CDs, and they can also play DVDs. Some drives can record to DVD-RAM discs, but these models are less common since these discs are primarily used for data storage and backup.