Some questions on DVD backups

[jackwanders]

My DVD collection is up over 300 now, and going through them, I'm noticing that some of the older and more 'used' discs are starting to show their age, specifically when it comes to scratches. I'm not the most anal person in the world when it comes to upkeep and I'll regularly have 5-6 DVDs out at a time.

I've thought of two roads, either those DVD Repair gizmos that spin and buff the disc, or copying the disc to a DVD-R (or +R, haven't read up on the differences yet).

I feel like those gizmos are only prolonging the inevitable, as the disc still has scratches in it. However, I'm not sure how well a DVD backup would work either, hence my questions.

Do regular DVD players read any kind of writable DVD format, or do I need a player that explicitly states that it reads them? I know most CD players will read CD-Rs, but I don't know if that holds for DVDs. Also, what's the efficacy of the available DVD copying programs; rather, what's the hit-or-miss ratio on whether the program will be able to copy the DVD at all? Companies are putting more and more anti-theft junk on their discs, so would this be future-proof? Would I be able to do the same thing to newer DVDs when they start to wear out? And what about DVDs where both sides are readable (widescreen on one side, fullscreen on the other, for instance)? Would that require 2 DVDs, or are there writable DVDs that will handle that?

Thanks. And if this is in the wrong area, feel free to move it.

[Glorious]

I won't discuss the specifics of DVD backup with you, since that's against the rules I would think.

However, if you were to burn a video to a DVD in DVD format onto a +r or -r then most players these days should play it. A quick note is that with +r media you can change the 'booktype' from +r to DVD-ROM which furthers compatability.