SuperDrive: About rewriteable DVD discs

There are three formats for rewritable DVD discs: DVD-R/DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM.

DVD-R and DVD-RW

DVD-R is a single-writeable format (similar in nature to CD-R). DVD-RW is a rewriteable format (similar in nature to CD-RW). DVD-RW has a read-write capacity of 4.7 gigabytes per side. It can be rewritten up to about 1000 times. Both DVD-R and DVD-RW were developed and approved by the DVD Forum (http://www.dvdforum.org), of which Apple is a member.

The SuperDrive can use both DVD-R and DVD-RW discs. Mac OS X can write to DVD-R General Media discs, which are not rewriteable. Roxio's Toast 5 Titanium and Charismac's Discribe 5 can write to DVD-RW discs. Contact Roxio and Charismac for additional information.

Once written, DVD-R and DVD-RW discs can be used in many different drives and players. DVD-R media burned with Apple SuperDrives are compatible with a wide variety of DVD players. Check with the manufacturer of, or consult the documentation which came with, your player to find out if it is compatible with DVD-R media.

DVD+RW

DVD+RW is a rewriteable format of similar capacity to DVD-RW, but was developed separately by the DVD+RW Alliance (http://www.dvdrw.com/).

Note: Some earlier Apple SuperDrives cannot write to DVD+RW discs. To find out what kinds of discs your drive can burn to, use System Profiler--for Mac OS X 10.3.x steps click here, for Mac OS X 10.4.x steps, click here.

DVD-RAM

DVD-RAM can be thought of as a large capacity floppy or Zip disk as it is has random read-write access. The disc is part of a cartridge and is available in 2.6 GB and 4.7 GB single-sided and 5.2 GB and 9.4 GB double-sided capacities. It can be rewritten more than one hundred thousand times. DVD-RAM was developed by the DVD Forum separately from the release of DVD-R and DVD-RW. Prior to the release of the SuperDrive, some Power Mac G4 computers shipped with a DVD-RAM drive.

While some DVD-RAM discs can be removed from the cartridge, those discs cannot be read by or written to using the SuperDrive.

Related documents

58770 "CD-RW and SuperDrive: Specifications and Usage Information"
24451 "DVD Technology: Overview"
60796 "Power Mac G4: SuperDrive Ejects DVD-RAM Discs"
60793 "DVD-R for Authoring Versus DVD-R for General Media"

Important: Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only, and does not constitute Apple's recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information.