George Marsh

DVD Menu Designs and Applications

In this document, I will be discussing and judging the many different types of DVD/CD writing
methods and how media is applied and introduced into these optical devices.

+R

Firstly, the “+R” DVD. This is basically the same as the “DVD – R”
as it can carry about 6.5GB. This does however have a downside,
that is that unlike the DVD – RW” it can be written only once
making it useless for change after the first burn. “DVD – R” discs
are for media such as: Audio, videos or any other non-volatile
data storage. A “DVD + R” format selection was introduced after
its full development by an organisation of corporations, they are
known for their trade mark name, “DVD + RW Alliance.” During
the 2000’s, the “DVD – R” format selection competes with the
formatting selection of “DVD – R” which was developed by the
DVD Forum.

+RW

Now, the “+RW” DVD’s are the versions of these discs

which you can rewrite and hold up to 4.7GB on it. The
“DVD + RW” was created by the “DVD + RW Alliance”, an
industry manufacturing and distributing DVD’s and CD’s.
Another useful thing about the “DVD + RW” disc is that it
holds a method on it called “lossless linking” which makes
it suitable the RAM of a device to be stored on it and
improves the compatibility to external software’s such as
DVD players. A dual layer “DVD + RW” specification was
approved in 2006 around march time holding a capacity of
8.5GB. But, manufacturing these discs supported the “Re-
writable dual layer” method. However, this did not change the price of the disc as the companies
viewed it as a necessary asset on the disc anyway. This basically shows a complete contrast from
“DVD + R” form as you can rewrite a disc however much you need to. These two types of discs have
the same file size, this only carried on though until the “+ R” got developed into “Blu-ray”.

-R

A “- R” DVD is a variation between the two discussed above. It was invented by Phillips and Sony.
CD-R is type of CD where you can only write once but you can read it as many times as you like.
Although the whole disc is now owned by Sony and Phillips, it was developed by “Pioneer.” This
double layer disc is named “DVD – R DL” and was introduced to the public in 2005. The data stored
on the DVD – R cannot be edited or altered once it has been written. The DVD – R was developed in
1997 as a compatible format to all DVD players which is also approved in the eyes of the DVD forum.
On DVD’s like this, the laser hits the disc to imprint the data onto it. This is called optical storage. The
DVD +R is less likely to come up with some sort of problem than the DVD – R. Another example of
why the + R is better than the ADIP system as it uses a better system
to help error management and speed when being written. These two
methods were originally incompatible until DVD players become a
higher technology (known as hybrid) and could play both.
George Marsh

-RW

The DVD – RW optical disc has the equivalent storage space to a DVD – R but can be re-written. The
disc completed the development process in 1999 by the audio company “Pioneer” which has also
been approved in the Forum of DVD’s. The greatest shown advantage of this DVD would be the
ability to be re-written on more than once and as many times as needed. This makes this use of
storage become like a secondary storage device such as: USB or Hard Drive. The CD can be written
on more than 1000 times before it becomes slower. This ability is good for most purposes but due to
its use of being re-written, it is mostly used for non-volatile storage such as backups and raw video
recordings. The second layer of this DVD was approved in late 2001 but was unusable on most
modern devices due to the Blu-ray being bigger than one layer. The company who developed this
(Pioneer) also released a smaller mini “DVD – RW” holding 1.46GB with only an 8cm diameter. This
was more widely used for advertisements and small applications as it isn’t big enough for larger
ones.

Dual Layer

The use of adding another layer onto a DVD/CD means

to increase the storage on it. On the “R+” and “R-“ it
boosts the storage capacity from 4.7GB to 8.5GB. But,
for the RW +/- it boosts the capacity from 2.8 to 4.7.
While this was being developed of adding layers to
DVD’s, the introduction blue-ray sabotaged the whole
operation as the discs would be unviable and deemed
useless for this new technology. The first known
example of a dual layer disc was the “DVD +RL” which
was approved and released by the DVD Forum in 2003.
The way this disc works is, the laser shines through the
first, transparent layer to make the second physical
layer.

Writing Speed

Many new models of optical discs are supported

with writing speeds of up to 52x and much higher.
The rate would be much faster than what it is for a
CD/ROM but the speed is determined by what type
of data is being stored. The Writing speed of a CD
at 1x would be a DVD’s x9 so basically, a DVD writes 9 times faster than the equivalent of a CD. The
speed of writing on Blu-ray disc is even bigger and can hold much more data. With the advancement
of new DVD’s and DVD drives, the writing speed has increased which has motivated companies to go
into further development of the discs and their abilities to be written over.
George Marsh

Audio

Commercial audio sounds media found on DVD’s are coded with “Dolby
Digital and DTS” to make it more compressed. There is also an option
called “5.1” which is surround sound making the user feel more
immersed with the experience and in turn, enjoy the film more. For this
surround sound option, the hardware is also required as without it, the
sound would not be able to surround you. For the surround sound
technology, there must be at least 4 speakers surrounding the main user
area making the sound come from behind, the side, and in front of the
viewer creating a very real experience. DTS works by synchronising the sound of the film to the
planned sound of the speakers and their translation to the user. This uses an LED san reader
technology to read the data time code from the film to match it up with the visuals.

Video

DVD – Video is the type of media format used to hold digital video on DVD’s, as well, it is the mostly
used and most widely distributed type of DVD in the world. The requirements to play a DVD is to
have a MPEG – 2/H.262 decoder allowing the visuals of the movie to be shown. These decoding
systems are in a lot of modern day technology such as: Computers, DVD Players and Video Game
Consoles. The specification for DVD’s were created by the “DVD Forum” and the license for logos
and owned (copyrighted) media has a fee of $5000 which in British currency would be £3705. The
knowledge for the corporation for the specification is not visible everywhere as every different
subscriber must sign a “non-disclosure” agreement
which states that they are not allowed to give out any
information and need to keep valid confidentiality of the
information.

Menu

A DVD menu can have either have a very complex design or a poor one reducing the quality overall.
The menu must have enough pages for the user to explore widely and hold enough information for
them to spend at least 5 minutes reading the information displayed. The menu must have: A splash,
a contents, a sub contents page and an
Information page. The main features
of the menu will be the scene
selection and play button. Animation
can be added to the menu to give it
some flare which could consist of
rollover buttons over the buttons
making it glow when the user hovers
over it or something of that nature.