DVD Recording Times and Disc Writing Speed – Important Facts
Commercial DVDs and DVD Recorders In DVD recording, a standard, single layer, 4.7 GB disc holds up to 2 hours of video at DVD quality. All commercial movie DVDs hold about 5GB per layer – which each layer holding about 133 min. If you buy a movie DVD that has a 2 hour movie, plus an hour or so of extra features, this means that the disc has more than one layer. Some DVDs are also dual-sided. All currently available DVD players and recorders can play back commercial discs with more than one layer. However, some older players (pre-1999) may not be able to in all cases. Also, there are DVD recorders that can now record on Dual Layered Discs. However, for this article, I will be referring predominantly to single layered discs, since these are most commonly used. DVD Recording Modes – Not Speeds One thing to keep in mind that that DVD recorders do not have recording speeds, like a VCR does.
