DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions.
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DVD– DVD once stood for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc, but now it just stands for DVD — the next generation of optical disc storage technology. DVD is essentially a bigger, faster CD that can hold cinema-like video, better-than-CD audio, and computer data.
DVD-Audio (DVD-A) – The audio-only format of DVD. Primarily uses PCM audio with MLP encoding, along with an optional subset of DVD-Video features.
DVD-R (DVD Recordable) – The authoring use drive (635nm laser) was introduced in 1998 by Pioneer, and the general use format (650nm laser) was authorized by DVD Forum in 2000. DVD-R offers a write-once, read-many storage format akin to CD-R and is used to master DVD-Video and DVD-ROM discs, as well as for data archival and storage applications.
DVD-RW (DVD ReWritable) – A rewritable DVD format, introduced by Pioneer, that is similar to DVD+RW. It has a read-write capacity of 4.38 GB.
DVD-RAM (DVD Random Access Memory) – A rewritable DVD disc endorsed by Panasonic, Hitachi and Toshiba. It is a cartridge-based, and more recently, bare disc technology for data recording and playback. The first DVD-RAM drives were introduced in Spring 1998 and had a capacity of 2.6GB (single sided) or 5.2GB (double sided). DVD-RAM Version 2 discs with 4.38GB arrived in late 1999, and double-sided 9.4GB discs in 2000. DVD-RAM drives typically read DVD-Video, DVD-ROM and CD media. The current installed base of DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players cannot read DVD-RAM media.
DVD-ROM – The base format of DVD. ROM stands for read-only memory, referring to the fact that standard DVD-ROM and DVD-Video discs can’t be recorded on. A DVD-ROM can store essentially any form of digital data.
DVD+RW (DVD ReWritable) – Developed in cooperation by Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Chemical, Philips, Ricoh, Sony and Yamaha, it is a rewritable format that provides full, non-cartridge, compatibility with existing DVD-Video players and DVD-ROM drives for both real-time video recording and random data recording across PC and entertainment applications.
DVD-Video (DVD-V) – A standard for storing and reproducing audio and video on DVD-ROM discs, based on MPEG video, Dolby Digital and MPEG audio, and other proprietary data formats.
HD-DVD – HD DVD (High Density DVD or High Definition DVD) is a next-generation optical disc format designed for high-density storage of high-definition video and data.
VOB – All DVD movies are stored in on a DVD video disc in so-called VOB files. VOB files usually contain multiplexed Dolby Digital audio and MPEG-2 video. VOB files on a DVD are numbered as follows: vts_XX_y.vob where XX represents the title and Y the part of the title. There can be 99 titles and 10 parts, although vts_XX_0.vob does not contain any video, usually just menu or navigational information. You can find them on a DVD video disc in a subdirectory labelled VIDEO_TS (all upper case).