How Do I Burn a DVD?

You bought that cool new DVD burner (or it came with your new machine), and you're just raring to use it. But, um, exactly how do you burn a DVD? This is the right page for quick answers.

What's the Problem?

OK, the hassle that people often forget to tell you is that Windows (all the versions up to and including XP) simply doesn't know anything about how to burn a DVD (the next version, code-named "Longhorn", is supposed to be able to burn DVDs). So, the first problem is that you have to learn how to use some third-party application to burn your DVD, probably one that came bundled with your computer or with your DVD burner (if you just added a burner to your computer).

The other problem is the confusing array of options that this third-party application will offer you. There are two basic choices here, and they will be familiar to you if you are used to burning recordable CDs. The first option is to copy all the data to the DVD in one big burn. This produces a DVD likely to be readable by most DVD drives, but you cannot add any more data to the DVD (unless you erase it, if it's a rewritable DVD). The second option lets you burn a little bit at a time, so you can add some more files later if you want. This produces a DVD that should be readable by someone using the same DVD software and hardware as you, but might very well might not be readable by any particular computer with a DVD drive.

Get Some Media (Discs)

You've got your DVD burner, and hopefully located the third-party application you'll be using to burn the DVD. Make sure you've purchased some DVD discs that are compatible with the burner. There are two basic decisions here: whether to use a "dash" or "plus" disc, and whether to use a recordable or rewritable disc.

In the early days of recordable DVD, burners generally either supported DVD-R (record once) and DVD-RW (rewritable many times) discs, or else they supported a similar but opposing standard: DVD+R and DVD+RW.

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