Helo guys ,
At my company I was assigned to select what standard we will use for DVD data writing the DVD PLUS or MINUS .
So I did a lot of tests with 2 different writers : HP DVD 200i (DVD+R/RW) and Pioneer A03 (DVD-R/RW) and here is my throughts :
- Speed .
No comments here the HP is defenatly the winner it’s x2.4 is much faster then x2 Pioneer offers (and to reach this x2 I had to hunt down “special” disks , with most of the media it writes only x1) .
- DVD-ROM / players compatibility .
Here there was a lot of confusion on the net about this topic but according to results I saw (7 different DVD-ROMs , 5 different DVD players + Playstastion 2) the is NO DIFFERENCE in compatibility between 2 standards , some old players did not “liked” both DVD+RW and DVD-RW (I saw only one case when player was able to read DVD-RW and culdn’t DVD+RW but using HP’s utility fixed this) . Both DVD-R and DVD+R read PERFECTLY on any player/DVD-ROM .
My theory that because the PLUS standard come out first with DVD+RW only (without DVD+R) this gave birth to the “less compatible” hypo , of cause DVD+RW less compatible then DVD-R but DVD+R fixes this problem .
Crossplatform:
Installing lattest firmware update on HP made it read DVD- disks without any problems , while Pioneer had a lot of problems reading DVD+ disks .
- CDROM / CDROM Writers issues .
Here again HP drive is absolute winner the CDROM writing /readin/rewriting speeds is much faster then Pioneer’s .
Another issuer is a software compatibility , the HP drive can be used with most of even old CD writing programs to write CD , the JustLink buffer underrun protection get recogonized by any software that can use it and such , while in Pioneer case you had to have a “support” for this drive by the program to make it work .
Even the Symantecs old Ghost worked on HP without any problems to create CDs while none of such programs worked on Pioneer .
- Copieability .
I don’t know who can be interested but you can’t make perfect 1:1 copy of a DVD using DVD- standard , the area of the disk where encription should be stored is not writable on DVD- media .
On the other hand it can be done without a problems on DVD+ media .
- Technology .
The DVD+ standard has some other technical adventages over DVD- :
-
Media managment (ability to mark some sectors as bad and remap them) - this cool feature almost usless in DVD+R but in DVD+RW it saves the day , if you use your DVD+RW disk as a floppy , you don’t need to throw away you disk if you screatched it .
-
Mount Rainer support - this one has to be seen yet but obiouse and immidiate advantage of it’s support is ability to format DVD+RW disk in few seconds instead of 1/2h on DVD-RW .
-
The DVD+ standard has 2K block size while DVD- has 32K block size , it’s not that important untill you recall that Windows’ cache block size is 2K
And indeed Microsoft selected the DVD+ (PLUS) standard to be supported in next version of Windows (look about this here .
You probably already guessed whitch standard I selected for my company 
, I am not promoting the DVD+ standard but the usability and feel of the PLUS standard was such better that I had to tell you about .
Of cause many people whould probably disagree (specially the people who already bought DVD- drive 
) but this is the my opinion and my choise .
Of cause new Sony drive will solve out this problem 
It has been the same with cd-r!