"professional" dvd authoring format

[popechild]

I would think this would be a pretty basic question, but I've never seen it addressed anywhere before...

There are numerous dvd authoring formats, but none of them are perfectly compatible with all home dvd players. I don't understand why none of the burning formats use whatever standard the "professional, hollywood" dvd creators use. I've never even seen a description of what they use or how it is different.

Obviously, there's a reason but I've never seen it. Everyone talks about how no dvd formats are completely compatible, but that's not accurate - I've never bought a dvd movie from the store that didn't work just fine in my old toshiba player, so why isn't there a way to burn dvds using whatever format they use?

Thanks!

[axis45]

Good question-unfortunately I don't know the answer. :

[Nielchiano]

Ok first of all: I'm not an expert, this is just my logical mind feeded with a lot of DVD information:

I think you're mixing up 2 things: the physical format and the logical format of a DVD.

As far as I know, all the authoring tools (read AUTHORING tools, NOT authoring+burning-tools) produce perfect compatible VOB+IFO+BUP-files. All you have to do to make a perfect DVD is to get yourself to a DVD-plant where they'll be glad to make you, say 5000 copies.

The thing that is right about your question is the physical DVD format. It's like with CD's:
A CD is able to be played in everything. CD-R worked an (almost) everything, but a CD-RW didn't. It only worked (an still does) on a CD-reader with an AGC (auto-gain-control).
The same problem exists with DVD: a DVD (silver-thing, pressed) is fully compatible (duh). The 2 "recordable" standard are compatible with "a lot" or "most" players. (I'm not in that benchmark stuff, but if I remember well, DVD-R is "a lot", DVD+R is "most").

Another problem with burned DVD's is that thay can't (yet) be dual layer (DVD9). Most DVD's are dual layerd, they have 2 DVD-layers one on top of the other. The laser can pick up both, just refocus on the one he wants. However, that type of DVD can not (yet) be burned, so you're limited to single layer DVD's (DVD5) (4.7GB, theoreticaly, 4.3GB practicaly).

Hope this helps,
nielchiano