Hollywood DVD's - Compatible in ANY player (1 Viewer)

[MarkHastings]

I'm looking to find out exactly why Hollywood discs will play in any player, but the ones we burn on our computers (i.e. DVD-R for example) need to play on decks that are capable of -R compatibility....

Can anyone explain an "Authoring" disc? I always thought that "Authoring" discs were what Hollywood used to make their DVD's so that they play in any DVD player (i.e. no -R or +R worries).

But I'm seeing DVD-R "Authoring" discs online. What's the deal? If I'm incorrect here, what does Hollywood do to their DVD's to make them playable in any possible DVD player? What makes a DVD-R only compatible on a player with DVD-R support?

I assumed it had to do with some kind of computer code written onto the disc that makes it different than a "Hollywood" disc. Is that correct? What's the deal?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Perhaps it's time for start using DVD+R's and having the bookmark capability to bitset the booktype setting to "DVD-ROM" for DVD+Rs for maximum compatibility amongst DVD players.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/150

 

[Thomas Newton]

"Authoring" discs are dye-based discs, just like DVD-Rs and DVD+Rs. The "authoring" distinction relates to CSS. DVDs have a special key storage area for encryption keys needed to descramble CSS-encoded content. Standalone DVD players look for keys there -- and only there.

Consumer ("General") drives and blanks are crippled to make it impossible to write keys to this area. "Authoring" drives and blanks are not so crippled, but they're priced sky-high.

Note that in the days before dual-layer burners, even the "Authoring" drive users had to send their work out to commercial DVD pressing plants if they wanted to run off test copies of things too big to fit on a DVD-5.

 

[MarkHastings]

Cool, thanks! Makes sense.