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General discussion

Dual Layer DVD Readable Elsewhere?

Oct 4, 2006 9:07AM PDT

I have a new DVD writer that burns dual layer DVDs with the proper disks. Thing is, will any other DVD drive read a dual layer disk burned on this drive, as the ones on my other computers? Or must it only be one of the new dual layer drives?
Thanks, Dan

Discussion is locked

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Today, dvd drives read dual layer just fine.
Oct 4, 2006 10:47AM PDT

Many commercial DVDs are already dual layer. But recordable dual layer while fine on most drives is expected not to work on many DVD players connected to TVs. Widely discussed so I'll skimp on why.

Bob

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Dual Layer DVD Readable Elsewhere?
Oct 5, 2006 3:07AM PDT

Excellent. I'm concerned with backing up primarily. I'm a photograper and generate gigabytes of digital photo files. I have a separate mirror hard drive that I keep up to date, but also like to do periodic incremental updates on disc. The most recent took 12 DVDs, so I thought the dual layer might be a more practical answer, but it wouldn't work if regular DVD drives couldn't read the dual layer discs.

Thanks very much, Dan

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Instead of Dual Layer DVDs, Consider This
Oct 10, 2006 3:58PM PDT

Seems to me that 12 DVDs is less than 60 GB; a lot of DVDs but only equal to a small hard drive. If it was me, I'd get a very small hard drive - a local electronics store recently had the Western Digital 200 GB hard drives on sale for $59. Then I'd spend another $45 for a kit to convert the Hard drive into an external USB drive. For about $100, you'd get MUCH more storage and could have all your files appear in Windows Explorer in a single view (making files easier to see/find). In addition, this would sooner or later be cheaper than buying all those DVDs, which could only be used once. Some of the external hard drive kits even have Fire Wire connections in addition to USB.