DVD storage capacity

[Steve Grisetti]

The Wikipedia offers this explanation of DVD storage capacity:

"A DVD+R is an "optical disc with 4.7 GB (4.377 GiB) of storage capacity (more precisely, 2295104 sectors of 2048 bytes each). It has slightly less storage capacity than the DVD-R (4.382 GiB)."

"A gibibyte (a contraction of giga binary byte) is a unit of digital information storage, abbreviated GiB"

What the heck is a GiB and is it relevant to my life?

Does this mean DVDs can't really hold 4.7 gigs of data but, rather, more like 4.3 gig?

Thanks, guys. I figure if anyone in the world would know, my Muvipix friends would know.

[Chuck Engels]

Actually by the time you include the system/disc files you can really only get about 4.25GB of usable space.

To make it easy - it's usually somewhere around 4.3GB using Base2
(1024 * 1024) as noted in the above example. The 4.7GB number is a
Base10 (1000 * 1000) misnomer.

Didn't know that the +R had less space than the -R though

[Steve Grisetti]

Interesting!

Don't know if you caught it but, on the Adobe forum, someone was complaining because Premiere Elements 7, using Fit to Disc, creating a 4.3 gig file that, when he tried to burn, got a "Can't fit on disc" message.

Could that be the cause?

If so, shouldn't Adobe have taken that into consideration?

[Chuck Engels]

There becomes a point were you can't compress the files anymore to make it fit on a single disc.
When burning a DVD you not only have the video but you also have the menu and the files that the DVD player uses (system/disc files).
How are they determining that the whole video would be 4.3GB? Are they burning to a folder and then using Nero or something else to burn to disc?
Curious as to how long the project is to begin with, it is probably a 5 hour project

[Greg mgm]

Speaking of DVD's...

Anyone see the show "How it's Made" about how CD's/ DVD's are made? I found it very interesting.
It starts with a clear plastic disc, then a very thin coating of aluminum is applied, and a clear coat goes over the aluminum.
Then the top is printed....and it's done.

Sorry for the hijack...

Carry on....