Podeloy Productions Blog

When burning a DVD of video that you want to play in a regular DVD player, use DVD-R (”dash”) discs! Do not use DVD+R (”plus”) discs! I don’t know enough about the technology to tell you exactly why except to say that I’ve almost always had trouble playing DVD+R’s in regular DVD players and very rarely had the same trouble with DVD-R’s.  Sometimes the DVD+R’s are completely unplayable.  Other times, they just show pixels and play the sound.  Other times they work fine.  Still other times, they work in some DVD players and not others.  To save myself the trouble, I never burn anything (not even data) onto a DVD+R.  I don’t even buy DVD+R’s.  Maybe they are better for some applications than DVD-R’s, but I never found an instance like that in my line of work.

Reader Patty Tanner writes, “My father is getting older and I’d like to record my his oral history.  Is there a cheap digital recording device I can buy that can get the job done? What would you recommend?”

I’d recommend the Merantz PMD620.  It is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, has a built in microphone, and can record wav and mp3 files in several different frequency and bit rate settings.  It also has a mini input so you can plug an external microphone into it. The unit costs about $400 new, but can be rented from Podeloy Productions for only $36.00 a day.